And clouds and mist have fled from heaven,
The waking birds take eager flight
Up through the golden rain of light,
With happy song.
Into my life, that knew no day,
A maiden winged a kindly ray,
And, flying wearily and slow,
Far fled the sombre bird of woe
I harbored long.
My heart no longer pined in night,
The mists that hid hope’s stream took flight,
Life’s hills a sunnier aspect took,
And I found many a pleasant nook
Within life’s grove.
And now my thoughts, like birds, arise,
Singing, towards the golden skies,
Afar from earthly doubt and strife,
Through the pure radiance of her life,
On wings of love.
MY STAR.
There is a star in the pure ether high,
My other home it is,
Whereto, when sorrow threatens me, I fly,
And in my flight towards the vaulted sky
The hated sorrows roll
Down from my fleet-winged soul,
As from the sea gull’s circling form the spray
Drops to the storm-vext bay
Its pinions erst did kiss.
Well said the Seer, that overstudy brought
A weariness of the flesh;
And oft my brain, worn with its overthought,
Watches the night steal past, while sleep comes not.
Then doth my star arise
Slowly before my eyes,
Steady, serene and cold, yet heavenly bright,
And, while my grief takes flight,
Binds all my thoughts in leash.
No longer fear and discontent combine
To make my future drear,
For I arise and from that star of mine
Look down and see our small earth dimly shine;
And all life’s joy and pain
Their proper worth obtain,
And I to smile at all past fears begin,
For earth’s discordant din
Is stilled, and God I hear.
TO A PICTURE.
O stately head, O rippling grace
Of tresses flowing free,
O dark-eyed, queenly, thoughtful face,
Awake and comfort me.
Since love can thrill with noble zeal
The meanest of us all,
It may thy glorious form reveal,
Thy tender soul recall.
Then come thou from thy gilded cage
And nestle by my side,
And I will be thy faithful page,
If thou wilt be my bride.
Come, trustful eyes, and trust in me,
O sweet one, heed my cry;
Speak sad, sweet mouth, I wait for thee
To bid me live or die.
Tell me no artist’s god-like mind
To thy fair face gave birth,
But that his vision I may find
Alive upon this earth.
And I will seek her far and wide,
In palace and in cot,
And love shall once more conquer pride,
And she shall share my lot.
THE POET AND HIS RHYMES.
Whoever reads a poet’s rhyme
To find the poet there,
Might equally essay to climb
To castles in the air.
He lives not in reality,
Or rather, lives too much.
He makes a forest of a tree,
A palace of a hutch.
To-day a transient pang appears
His life’s eternal sorrow,
But he is laughing through his tears
And full of joy to-morrow.
For if there’s oft a germ of truth,
The flower is fancy’s own.
’Tis the world’s heart he shows, in sooth,
And his is still unknown.
And sometimes in his happiest days,
Without excuse or cause,
He pens the mournfullest of lays,
To win the world’s applause.
And from the saddest heart, at times,
The merriest stanzas flow.
Friend, think not by the poet’s rhymes
The poet’s heart to know.
TO AN INFANT.
O little one, new born,
I would I were like thee;
Then were this whole world’s scorn
And praise alike to me.
Then would I look on life
As do thine azure eyes,
And know how vain its strife,
How paltry what we prize.
Tradition cannot claim
Dominion over thee,
Nor fear the pinions maim
Of thy young soul and free.
All things to thee are new.
Thy mind runs in no groove.
Thou dost both false and true
Question alike, and prove.
Thou art no shadowy soul,
But the incarnate “I”,
And thou wilt reach thy goal,
Or failing, thou wouldst die.
Indomitable will
That makes us all obey,--
If I were childlike still,
I were more man to-day.
TO SCOTLAND.
Miles upon miles of ocean
’Twixt Scotland roll and me.
Its hills and dales I have not seen,
And scarce expect to see.
The homestead of my fathers
The keen ploughshare has torn,
And where the hearth once welcomed all
Waves now the golden corn.
Oh, Canada, my country,
My love for thee is deep,
Yet I fain would see the old church-yard
Where my forefathers sleep.
And fondly, ever fondly,
My heart in secret yearns,
That its songs may find a welcome
In the bonnie land of Burns.
Upon the Scottish heather
I opened not my eyes,
I cannot speak the sweet Scotch tongue,
Remote my pathway lies;
Yet Scotland, mother Scotland,
Though fate us twain may part,
I claim my heritage of thee,
For I have the Scottish heart.
ROSINA VOKES.
The years may come, the years may go,
And many a song be sung
Across the footlight’s golden glow
By many a silvery tongue,
But though new divas charm the ear,
Still memory shall recall
One song we nevermore shall hear:
“His ’art was true to Poll.”
For who that hath the singer’s heart
Will care to sing that song
To those whom She, with witching art,
Had held in thrall so long?
Let other songs our pulses stir,
Delight us with them all,
But leave unsung for sake of her
“His ’art was true to Poll.”
Time was when every heart beat high,
Each lip was wreathed in smiles
To hear her sing that melody
With all her witching wiles;
But now, ’twould be no song of mirth,
’Twould bid the sad tears fall,
For though She dwells no more on earth,
Our ’arts are true to Poll.
A LITTLE MAID.
I know a maid beyond compare
For virtue sweet and beauty rare.
Her eyes are turquoise and her hair
Is sunlight netted.
She has her lovers, great and small,
The quiet student, wise and tall,
The child that hugs its battered doll,--
By them she’s petted.
Her heart seems ever warm and gay,
In smiles and kindly words, each day,
She scatters round her on life’s way
Love beyond measure.
The wild flowers, as she passes by,
Bloom sweeter for her being nigh;
The bird that mounts into the sky
Sings for her pleasure.
Her sorrows she is wont to hide,
Her joys she shares on every side;
She is her doting mother’s pride,
Her father’s jewel.
If we, who style this world so bad,
But strove, like her, to make it glad,
Life then would seem by far less sad,
Nor half so cruel.
SAMSON AND DELILAH.
Thou art o’erbold, Delilah, thus to try
Thy traitorous arts upon a soul like mine,
And lure me to eternal slavery
With glances warm like wine.
One clasp of my strong hands at will could break
Thy tender body, like a fragile flower.
How darest thou prey of my heart to make,
And plot against my power?
Hast thou no fear the brute in me will rise,
Wrathful, and tear thy shapely limbs apart,
And dull the jewelled lustre of thine eyes,
And still thy faithless heart?
Why dost thou let me look upon thy face,
And see myself embowered in thine eyes,
And every curve of thy lithe figure trace
Beneath thy robe’s disguise.
What harm have I wrought thee that thou shouldst stand
And menace all my life with one great woe?
Thou hast me in the hollow of thy hand--
Take me or let me go!
MY LADY’S BONNET.
My lady has a stylish bonnet,
Bedecked with ribands, gay and bright,
And with a song bird perched upon it,
With tiny wings outspread for flight.
Its little beak is opened wide,
As though in its most joyous trill
The harmless thing had suddenly died.
One waits to hear it carol still.
My lady has a tender heart,
She feeds the poor, instructs the young,
At tale of woe her tears will start,
And words of kindness throng her tongue.
My lady’s eyes are full of glee,
But cloud and with just anger flash
If in her walk she chance to see
Some poor beast cringe beneath the lash.
My lady has a stylish bonnet,
Bedecked with ribands gay and bright,
But with a slaughtered bird upon it.--
My gentle lady, is this right?
FLOWERS AND FEARS.
She had been in the fields at play
Through golden summer hours,
And brought with her, at close of day,
A cluster of wild flowers.
And when she slept, we went to see
The little one at rest,
Our own sweet flower, and there, ah, me!
The flowers lay on her breast.
Her little brow was smooth and white,
Her merry eyes were closed,
She smiled, as though some heavenly sprite
Whispered as she reposed.
She looked so pure, so white, so fair
Below the ominous flowers,
She seemed a blossom plucked from care
To bloom in heavenly bowers.
And oh, the whelming flood of pain,
The sudden sense of dearth!
We kissed her o’er and o’er again,
And brought her back to earth.
THE ROSEBUD.
In my garden a rosebud is growing, is growing,
So fast, ’twill be blossoming soon.
Around it the zephyrs are balmily blowing,
The sweet scented zephyrs of June,
Of June,
The odorous zephyrs of June.
My love shall watch o’er, and protect, and protect it,
While shyly its petals unfold.
The bees shall not rob nor the canker affect it,
Nor night make it tremble with cold,
With cold,
Nor night make it shudder with cold.
And when it is blown, I’ll bear it, I’ll bear it
To her whom I worship alone.
On her beauteous bosom she’ll lay it and wear it
And rival its charms by her own,
Her own,
And shame all its grace by her own.
NIL DESPERANDUM.
Life with life is woven in.
Neither sorrow nor delight,
Neither nobleness nor sin,
Known to one
But falls upon
All men with its grace or blight.
He who sinks into despair,
He who from his task recoils,
Makes his fellow-laborers bear
On life’s road
A heavier load.
Some one for each sluggard toils.
What though failure crown our task!
’Tis the portal to success.
Often Fortune wears a mask.
Face the strife
And live your life;
Be no coward in distress!
FLESH AND SPIRIT.
Say what you will,
If love would have its fill,
Though it may feed long on the one dear face,
It never is content, save in embrace.
Say what you will,
Though passion have its fill,
It never is content, nor has delight,
If love come not to sanctify the rite.
Harmonious flesh and spirit,
These only shall inherit
The joys of earth, and in the dread To Be
Not death itself shall break that unity.
Woe to the narrow heart
Would strive these twain to part;
Look down the ages, through the world’s mad din,
This is the one unpardonable sin.
IN CHURCH.
I never feel so near to God and heaven
As when I kneel in worship at thy side,
And hear thy humble prayer to be forgiven
For sake of Him who for our saving died.
And though I do not mingle with thy prayer
Plea of my own, but, silent, bow my head,
So close our souls are knit, I seem to share
The bounteous blessings God on thee doth shed.
I hear the choir their joyous praises singing,
But not their voices soften my flint heart;
Thine only in my inmost soul is ringing,
Bidding peace enter, grief and sin depart.
And as the music through my pulse is stealing,
The rampart of my pride a ruin falls,
Even as of old the Jewish trumpets’ pealing
Shook down of haughty Jericho the walls.
SUCCOR THE CHILDREN.
Wan hands that never grasped a flower,
Ears stranger to the wild bird’s song,
To rule, where shall they find the power?
How wage life’s battle, right the wrong?
When the great hour of duty comes,
How shall they meet the mighty toil,
Whose blood is tainted by the slums,
Whose ears know but the street’s turmoil?
Succor the children of the street,
And teach them in the fields to play,
Nor let them in the stifling heat
Of crowded cities fade away;
That, when we drop the thread of life
And, dreamless, sleep beneath the sod,
They may be ready for the strife
That brings this planet nearer God.
THE SUNSET LESSON.
I watched the sun one summer eve
Sink slowly in the west,
And the quiet sea and fleecy clouds
In rosy robes were dressed.
I saw the evening glide away,
Yet still the sea and sky,
As faint the star-zoned twilight grew,
Were full of majesty.
And as, upon the breezy hill,
I turned to sky and sea,
Methought that nature spake and bade
My spirit guileless be,
That, as the deepening shades of age
Close round me, like the night,
The memory of my past might still
Life’s evening gild with light.
AS FROM THE NECTAR-LADEN LILY.
As from the nectar-laden
Lily the wild bee sips,
A British queen, sweet maiden,
Drained with her loving lips
The poison that was filling
Her husband’s veins with death,
Her love with new life thrilling
His heart with each drawn breath.
Not less thy love, sweet maiden,
Nor less thy bravery,
For when I came, o’erladen
With poisoned hopes, to thee,
With smiles and shy caresses
The venom thou didst drain,
And, healing my distresses,
Didst give new life again.
MUMMY THOUGHTS.
Once those who sought for relics of the past
Stumbled by chance on an Etrurian tomb,
And saw a monarch sitting in the gloom,
Sceptred and crowned. Their eager hearts beat fast,
And on the masonry themselves they cast,
To seize the wonder. As, throughout the room,
The axe stroke rang, it knelled the monarch’s doom.
He fell to dust, and left them all aghast.
So, oft while searching through the realms of mind,
I have discovered many a kingly thought,
In solitary grandeur throned and crowned,
And striven to bear it forth, only to find
That, when the first stroke of my pen did sound,
It fell to dust, and lo! I had it not.
TO CERTAIN NATURE POETS.
Friends,--such I call ye, for it is not meet
To hail ye brethren in the tuneful art,
Since I but falter, though of earnest heart,--
Friends, I have thought, reading your measures sweet,
Your verses, though with many a charm replete,
Were bettered did they some high thought impart,
Or in man’s conscience plant a sudden dart.
Why proffer roses when the world craves wheat?
Who paints a picture hath ill done his task,
If he show not the soul in that he paints.
Why give to mere description all your lays
While what the eye beholds is but a mask
To some grand truth the poet’s hand should raise,
Revealing that for which man’s spirit faints.
THE PATRIARCH’S DEATH.
The birds that twitter in the budding trees
And build their nests in some umbrageous grove,
Through early summer guard the young they love,
And fill the air with tuneful melodies.
Then, as the fledgelings wake from dreamful ease,
Eager throughout the unknown world to rove,
The parents teach them their new strength to prove,
And beat with fearless wings the summer breeze.
And then the nest sways empty on the bough.
The parents, weary, although sweet the task,
Take flight to other haunts, to rest from care.
The fledgelings in the glowing sunbeams bask,
Living their life. So is it everywhere,--
The patriarch dies; he is but resting now.
OH, WERE IT NOT.
Oh, were it not for one fair face,
One angel voice, one loving smile,
The world would be a dreary place,
And life to me not worth the while.
Methinks the sun shines but to show
How wondrous fair the maiden is;
Methinks the warm winds only blow
That they may kiss her draperies.
I know the roses bloom that they
May live an hour upon her breast;
I know that I would willingly
Share their brief life to share their nest.
FAREWELL.
When the heart speaks, the lips are still,
And if I cannot say farewell,
’Tis that a thousand yearnings thrill
My heart, and hold my lips in spell.
Let thine own heart the thoughts express
My lips would speak. Yet why repine?
I knew thee, and, at least, can bless
Thy life, though sundered far from mine.
THE TIDE.
Twice in the day a mighty tide there rolls
Throughout our city streets,
A limitless, deep sea of human souls,
Each wave, a heart that beats.
Ah, me! what various ships are drifting there,
Upon that living sea;
What guile and innocence, what joy, what care,
What utter misery!
At morn it ebbs far from home’s golden shore
Into the sea of life,
Where its dark billows meet and foam and roar
In never-ending strife.
At night it flows, far from the mart’s turmoil,
Backward upon its way,
Where wives and children bring sweet rest from toil,
Till dawns another day.
From year to year ’tis thus these waters move,
Life’s duties to fulfill;
Obedient to the silvery moon of love,
That rules them at its will.
MY COMRADE.
Could I have had you made a boy,
And both be young through life,
Methinks I might forgo the joy
Of calling you my wife.
For sweet as is the kiss of love
And all our converse staid,
Still dearer to our hearts doth prove
Some wayward escapade.
When from behind your glistening foil
You dare me to the fray,
From sober spousehood I recoil;
It is “en garde” straightway.
And when we urge our light canoe
Upon some sparkling tide,
More prone am I to think of you
As comrade than as bride.
Ah, were you but a youth, like me,
Who could, unawed, recline
By huge camp fire, beneath some tree,
Upon a couch of pine;
And could you press through marsh and brake
And thrive on hunter’s food,
What sweet excursions we might make
To nature’s solitude!
Yet if you were a youth, some maid
Might lure you from my side,
So I shall wish you still, comrade,
My dainty, fair-haired bride.
MY GIFT.
I bring a gift that all may bring,
So common ’tis to human kind;
And yet it is so rare, a king
His crown for it had well resigned.
It is a gift gold cannot buy,
And one which never can be sold;
A gift no mortal can deny,
And one that fades not, nor grows old.
And while I would not have it spurned,
Such is my heart’s perversity,
Unless I know my gift returned,
Life hath no joy in store for me.
HAMLIN’S MILL.
Brightly the sun that summer day
Upon the charming scene was shining,
And warm the thrifty village lay,
Amid its silent fields reclining.
The river, like a silver thread,
Wound round the hazy, shimmering hill,
Till, plunging o’er the dam, it fled
In eddies down to Hamlin’s Mill.
Along the pathway, through the grove,
Beneath the shady trees, we hurried.
The birds were twittering above,
While in and out the squirrels scurried.
We took the narrow road which wound
Through clearings that were smoking still;
And soon our merry chat was drowned
Amidst the noise at Hamlin’s Mill.
We stood within the sunlit room
And watched the busy bobbins turning;
Then gathered round a jangling loom,
The flying shuttle’s secret learning.
Across the mossy flume we crept,
Whose leaky sides their burden spill,
And stood beside the pond, where slept
The giant power of Hamlin’s Mill.
Beside the ceaseless loom of fate
We stand and watch what it is weaving.
The warp is spun of love and hate,
The woof of merriment and grieving.
But far beyond earth’s noise and dust,
There rules the one stupendous Will,
The power in which His creatures trust,
As in the mill-pond Hamlin’s Mill.
A BALLADE OF JOY.
Dear one, who wast chosen, ere time was made,
The heart of my heart and my wife to be;
Who cam’st, with the gifts of the gods arrayed,
To lighten the labors of life for me;
Ere yet I had looked on the face of thee,
My soul dreamed dreams and awoke and said:
“None other is worthier love than she,
And earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”
But woe as a burden on man is laid,
And the soul finds its vision not readily.
Between us came many a mocking shade,
That smiled with the smile of my fantasy,
And I thought, can it be I have met with thee?
Then the arrows of truth through the false were sped,
And I heard thy soul murmuring cheeringly,
“The earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”
Like streams in the hollows of hills that played,
Though sundered by league upon league they be,
That, slipping through tangles of sun and shade,
Meet, mingle and flow to the shoreless sea,
At last my soul met with the soul of thee,
And woes fell from me as leaves fall dead
When winds have wakened the sleeping tree,
And earth became heaven when we were wed.
ENVOI.
And now, though years like the birds may flee,
And death draw nigh us with noiseless tread,
I reek not how soon may the summons be,
For earth became heaven when we were wed.
REMEMBRANCE.
(_From the German of Fredrich Matthison._)
I think of thee
When through the brake
The nightingales sweet music make.
When dost thou think of me?
I think of thee
By the shady well,
Under the twilight’s glimmering spell.
Where dost thou think of me?
I think of thee
With pleasant pain,
With yearning, while the hot tears rain.
How dost thou think of me?
Oh, think of me
Till in some star
We meet again. However far,
I think of none but thee.
THE GLOVE.
A narrow glen with winding sides,
Bestrewn with rocks and gloomed with trees,
Grey, rolling clouds, chased by the breeze,
A stream, which through the valley glides.
Among the trees that climb the hill
The eager squirrels scold the crows,
And sharply sound the sudden blows
Of some woodpecker’s greedy bill.
The blood root, crouching in the grass,
From its protecting broad leaf peers;
The horse tails shake aloft their spears,
Like foemen, at us as we pass.
Here wandering with a friend I love,
Our speech with sparrow-chatter drowned,
He in the little valley found
An early violet, I a glove.
The flower grew beside a stone,
And shyly peered above the sod,
While, distant from it not a rod,
The dainty glove lay all alone.
Some child had drawn it from her hand
To dabble in the sunny spring,
And then, the thoughtless little thing,
Had left it lying on the rand.
And as I saw the symbols there
Of budding life and blossoming spring,
Arose and from my heart took wing
To heaven a brief and heartfelt prayer:
O little child, whoe’er thou art,
And in whatever station set,
Be modest, like the violet,
And act in life an earnest part,
That, as the streamlet by the sun
Is gently lifted to the skies,
Thy soul may unto heaven arise
Whene’er its earthly course is run.
THE MAGIC BOW.
(_From the French of Charles Cros._)
Rippling low to her dainty feet,
Tress with tress did mingle and meet,
Yellow as ripening August wheat.
Her voice had an eerie melody,
Like that of an angel or a fay.
Beneath dusk lashes her eyes shone gray.
He by no rival swain set store,
As valleys through, or mountains o’er,
The maid upon his steed he bore.
For all the land had held not one
That she in her pride would look upon
To the day she met him, and was undone.
Love did her fond heart so enchain
That when her lover smiled disdain,
She to sicken and die was fain.
As she lay dying on his arm,
She said, “Bind thy bow with my locks, to charm
The maid to whom thy heart grows warm.”
One long, wild kiss, and the maid was dead.
The shimmering aureole round her head
He bound to his bow, as she had said.
Then as a blind man mournfully
Sweeps his Cremona, so did he,
And went forth, seeking charity.
And all were thrilled with ecstasy,
For the dead lived within the lay,
And with her songs all hearts did sway.
The king showered honors on his head;
The dark-eyed queen, to honor dead,
With him by moonlight swiftly fled.
But when, to please her, he essayed
To play, no more the bow obeyed,
But mournfully did him upbraid.
And at its plaint the sinful twain
In mid-flight by remorse were slain,
And the dead had her pledge again.
Her locks that to her dainty feet
Rippling low, did mingle and meet,
Yellow as ripening August wheat.
AT THE SEASIDE.
O sun, with thy ardent glance,
Thou hast made my darling flush!
But the swarthier tints enhance
The charms of her modest blush.
Thou hast lent thy warmth and light
To the gleam of her melting eyes,
Till a glance in their depths so bright
Seems a peep into Paradise.
O sea, with thy great white arms,
Thou hast stolen my love from me!
Thou hast clasped to thy breast her charms;
She has rested her head on thee.
Thou hast tangled her silken hair,
And kissed her face and her lips--
Ah! Love, he is false! Beware
Of that spoiler of men and ships!
THE ORPHANS.
Shall walls have pity and man’s heart have none?
Shall walls protect and man refuse to aid?
At Christmas, when our children are arrayed
In furs, shall orphans crouch behind a stone
To hide them from the storm? Is there not one
Will see the outstretched hand of that frail maid,
To whom the baby brother clings, afraid?
Will no ear heed when hunger makes its moan?
No father’s arm about their forms is thrown
To shield them from distress, no mother’s love
Draws them within the shelter of her breast.
Those tender souls must front the world alone;
But, if Christ came not vainly from above,
Some noble heart will aid them, thus distressed.
ALADDIN’S LAMP.
Aladdin’s lamp of Eastern tale,
Which claimed my simple faith in youth,
Its loss no longer I bewail,
But hold it mine in very truth.
The geni waits but my command
To raise me, and, as swift as thought,
Bear me abroad, from land to land,
Wherever I would fain be brought.
Amid the silent northern snows,
Or where Egyptian deserts burn,
Wherever man has been, he goes,
And tells me all I wish to learn.
He tells me how the stars had birth,
And how their wondrous cycles run,
Or places me beyond the earth,
Unharmed, upon the giant sun.
Through him I learn what Science knows,
How this vast universe began;
How life, from mean beginnings, rose
High as God’s noblest creature, man.
On me dawns many a truth profound
About the swinging earth I tread,
That it is one vast burying ground,
The living living through the dead,