



Produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version
by Al Haines.











  ALONG THE SHORE

  BY ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP




  To
  G. P. L.


  We see the sky,--we love it day by day;
    We feel the wind of Spring, from blossoms winging;
  We meet with souls tender as tints in May:
    For these large ecstasies what are we bringing?

  There is no price, best friend, for greatest meed.
     Laid on the altar of our true affection,
  Wild flowers of love for me must intercede:
     And lo! I win your unexcelled protection.




  CONTENTS


  Inlet And Shore
  Impersonality
  A Protean Glimpse
  Power Against Power
  Life's Priestess
  Love Now
  One And One
  The Violin
  Gertrude
  Unity In Space
  The Shell And The Word
  The Clock-Tower Bell
  Ours To Endure
  Broken Waves
  Why Sad To-Day?
  The Ghosts Of Revellers
  Life's Burying-Ground
  Beyond Utterance
  The Suicide
  For Others
  Zest
  The Unperfected
  God-Made
  A Song Before Grief
  Pride: Fate
  Francie
  Lost Reality
  Closing Chords
  Grace
  Endless Resource
  The Baby
  A Waltz
  First Bloom Of Love
  A Wooing Song
  Dorothy
  Morning Song
  Looking Backward
  Unloved
  The Clock's Song
  Broken-Hearted
  The Cynic's Fealty
  The Girls We Might Have Wed
  "Neither!"
  Used Up
  A Youth's Suicide
  Twenty Bold Mariners
  In The Artillery
  The Lost Battle
  The Outgoing Race
  Hidden History
  A Ballad Of The Mist
  The Dreaming Wheel
  The Roads That Meet
  A PASSING VOICE




  ALONG THE SHORE.



         *       *       *       *       *

  INLET AND SHORE.


  Here is a world of changing glow,
    Where moods roll swiftly far and wide;
    Waves sadder than a funeral's pride,
  Or bluer than the harebell's blow!

  The sunlight makes the black hulls cast
    A firefly radiance down the deep;
    The inlet gleams, the long clouds sweep,
  The sails flit up, the sails drop past.

  The far sea-line is hushed and still;
    The nearer sea has life and voice;
    Each soul may take his fondest choice,--
  The silence, or the restless thrill.

  O little children of the deep,--
    The single sails, the bright, full sails,
    Gold in the sun, dark when it fails,
  Now you are smiling, then you weep!

  O blue of heaven, and bluer sea,
    And green of wave, and gold of sky,
    And white of sand that stretches by,
  Toward east and west, away from me!

  O shell-strewn shore, that silent hears
    The legend of the mighty main,
    And tells to none the lore again,--
  We catch one utterance only: "Years!"




  IMPERSONALITY


  I dreamed within a dream the sun was gold;
    And as I walked beneath this golden sun,
  The world was like a mighty play-room old,
    Made for our pleasure since it was begun.

  But when I waked I found the sun was air,
    The world was air, and all things only seemed,
  Except the thoughts we grow by; for in prayer
    We change to spirits such as God has dreamed.




  A PROTEAN GLIMPSE.


  Time and I pass to and fro,
  Hardly greeting as we go,--
  Go askant, like crossing wings
  Of sea-gulls where the brave sea sings.

  Time, the messenger of Fate!
  Cunning master of debate,
  Cunning soother of all sorrow,
  Ruthless robber of to-morrow;
  Tyrant to our dallying feet,
  Though patron of a life complete;
  Like Puck upon a rosy cloud,
  He rides to distance while we woo him,--
  Like pale Remorse wrapped in a shroud,
  He brings the world in sackcloth to him!
  O dimly seen, and often met
  As shadowings of a wild regret!
  O king of us, yet feebly served;
  Dispenser of the dooms reserved;
  So silent at the folly done,
  So deadly when our respite's gone!--
  As sea-gulls, slanting, cross at sea,
  So cross our rapid flights with thee.




  POWER AGAINST POWER.
  [Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1864.]


  Where spells were wrought he sat alone,
  The wizard touching minds of men
  Through far-swung avenues of power,
  And proudly held the magic pen.

  By the dark wall a white Shape gleams,
  By morning's light a Shadow falls!
  Is it a servant of his brain,
  Or Power that to his power calls?

  By morning's light the Shadow looms,
  And watches with relentless eyes;
  In night-gloom holds the glimmering lamp,
  While the pen ever slower flies.

  By the dark wall it beckons still,
  By evening light it darkly stays;
  The wizard looks, and his great life
  Thrills with the sense of finished days.

  A Shape so ghost-like by the sun,
  With smiles that chill as dusks descend!
  The glancing wizard, stern and pale,
  Admits the presence of the End.

  Health has forsaken, death is near,
  The hand moves slower, eyes grow dim;
  The End approaches, and the man
  Dreams of no spell for quelling Him.




  LIFE'S PRIESTESS.


  All to herself a woman never sings
  A happy song. Oh no! but it is so
  As when the thrush has closed down his wings
  Within the wood, and hears his hidden woe
  From his own bill fill aisles of leaves, and go
  About the wood and come to him again.




  LOVE NOW.


  The sanctity that is about the dead
    To make us love them more than late, when here,
    Is not it well to find the living dear
  With sanctity like this, ere they have fled?

  The tender thoughts we nurture for a loss
    Of mother, friend, or child, oh! it were wise
    To spend this glory on the earnest eyes,
  The longing heart, that feel life's present cross.

  Give also mercy to the living here
    Whose keen-strung souls will quiver at your touch;
    The utmost reverence is not too much
  For eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer.




  ONE AND ONE.


  The thanking heart can only silence keep;
    The breaking heart can only die alone:
  Our happy love above abysses deep
    Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!

  Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!
    You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;
  Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:
    The longed-for words, which of us ever says?




  THE VIOLIN.


  Touch gently, friend, and slow, the violin, So sweet and low,
  That my dreaming senses may be beckoned so
  Into a rest as deep as the long past "years ago!"
  So softly, then, begin;

  And ever gently touch the violin,
  Until an impulse grows of a sudden, like wind
  On the brow of the earth,
  And the voice of your violin shows its wide-swung girth
  With a crash of the strings and a medley of rage and mirth;
  And my rested senses spring
  Like juice from a broken rind,
  And the joys that your melodies bring
  I know worth a life-time to win,
  As you waken to love and this hour your violin!




  GERTRUDE.
  [In Memory: 1877.]


  What shall I say, my friend, my own heart healing,
  When for my love you cannot answer me?
  This earth would quake, alas! might I but see
  You smile, death's rigorous law repealing!
  Pale lips, your mystery so well concealing,
  May not the eloquent, varied minstrelsy
  Of my inspired ardor potent be
  To touch your chords to music's uttered feeling?
  Friend, here you cherished