



Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
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  POEMS

  JOHN W. DRAPER


  THE POET LORE COMPANY
  BOSTON


  Copyright, 1913, by John W. Draper

  All Rights Reserved

  THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.




PREFACE


Most of the poems collected in this volume have already seen the light
of print in the _Colonnade_, the monthly publication of the Andiron Club
of New York University. The effort of the author has not been to write
verses especially adapted to the taste of the modern public, but rather
to create "a thing of beauty" from the theme that filled his mind at the
time. Often he has been led into somewhat bold innovations such as the
invention of the miniature ode, and the associating of an idea with a
rime-_motiv_ in the metrical short-stories. While he hopes that the new
forms will justify themselves, he realizes that after all, the poems
must stand or fall in proportion to the amount of pure artistic beauty
contained within them.




CONTENTS


                                                PAGE

  FROM A GRECIAN MYTH                              9

  "CARPE DIEM"                                    10

  THE SONG OF LORENZO                             12

  THE SONG OF WO HOU                              14

  THE AURORA                                      15

  THE WILL O' THE WISP                            16

  WHEN ON THE SHORE GRATES MY BARGE'S KEEL        18

  TO SHELLEY                                      20

  THOMAS DE QUINCEY                               21

  THE VISION OF DANTE                             22

  THE SPIRIT OF SCHOPENHAUER                      24

  ARTHUR TO GUENEVER                              26

  THE DEATH OF THOMAS CHATTERTON                  27

  A SPRING SONG                                   28

  AFTER THE NEO-PLATONISTS                        29

  WHAT WOULDST THOU BE?                           30

  THE PROPHECY OF DAVID                           31

  THE PROPHECY OF SAINT MARK                      39

  THE AEOLIAN HARP                                 47

  THE MAID THAT I WOOED                           48

  IN A MINOR CHORD                                49

  A GLASS OF ABSINTHE                             51

  THE PALACE OF PAIN                              53




POEMS




FROM A GRECIAN MYTH


  A palace he built him in the west,
  A palace of vermeil fringed with gold;
  And fain would he lie him down to rest
  In the palace he built him in the west
  Which every heavenly hue had dressed
  With halcyon harmonies untold:
  That palace, the sun built in the west,
  A palace of vermeil fringed with gold.

_January 3, 1911._




"CARPE DIEM"


  Wake, love; Aurora's breath has tinged the sky,
  Mounting in faintly flushing shafts on high
  To tell the world that Phoebus is at hand;
  And all the hours in a glittering band
  Cluster around in sweeping, circling flight
  Like angels bathing in celestial light.
  See, now with one great shaft of molten gold,
  No longer vaporous haze around him rolled,
  The King of Day mounts the ethereal height,
  Scattering the last dim streamers of the night.
  Bow down, ye Persians, on your altared hills;
  Worship the Sun-god who gives life, and fills
  Your horn with plenteous blessings from on high.
  Wake! Wake! before the dawning sunbeams die!
  Fling incense on your temple's dying flame;
  Sing chants and chorals in his mighty name,
  For as a weary traveler from afar,
  Or as a sailor on the harbor bar
  After long absence spies his native town,
  So, with benignant brilliance smiles he down;
  Or, like a good king ruling o'er his land,
  He sprinkles blessings with a bounteous hand.
  And thou, O my beloved, wake! arise!
  Has not the sun illumined night's dull skies?
  Come, Phoebus' breath has tinged the summer morn.
  Come, see the light shafts waver '<DW41> the corn.
  Come, see the early lily's opening bloom.
  Come, see the wavering light expel the gloom
  From yon dark vale still sunk in misty night.
  Oh, watch the circling skylark's heavenward flight,
  As, wrapped in hazy waves of shimmering light,
  In one grand Jubilate to the sun,
  He floods the sky with song of day begun.
  But golden morn is never truly fair
  Unless with day, thou com'st to weave my hair
  With perfumed flowers gathered in the dell
  Where sylphs sing sweetly 'bout the bubbling well.
  Oh, fill my cup of pleasure with new wine
  Which sparkles only where thy soft eyes shine!
  O my beloved, haste thee to arise
  Before