Now stand the homes of countless souls;
That where once mountains rose in pride,
Billow on foaming billow rolls.
The geni stems the flood of time,
And bears me almost to its source;
Then as we float, bids scenes sublime
And sad and happy shore our course.
I see the tower of Babel rise,
With busy builders everywhere,
Up, ever up, towards the skies,
Spearing the azure depths of air.
I hear a voice from out a cloud,
And see the workmen making signs,--
How humble God can make the proud!
How easily mar man’s best designs!
I see the wild Light Tresses fall
In cruel waves on fated Rome,
And in an emperor’s audience hall
I see the jackals make their home.
Sleek monks I see within their cells,
And knights in burnished armor housed.
I hear the chime of marriage bells
For maids whom death hath long espoused.
I hear the poet’s stirring strain,
That wins him immortality,
And weep with such as found with pain
Their idol but ignoble clay.
Writ by the fearless Luther pen,
The words that stirred the world I see;
I hear the tramp of arméd men,
And know that thought, at last, is free.
The joys and hopes, the griefs and fears,
Defeats and conquests of the race,
Through all the swift, eventful years,
The geni at my wish will trace.
And though he builds no palace vast
For me, nor gives me queen for bride,
While I am free to all the past,
I ask from him no boon beside.
SONG.
When a maiden’s heart is tender,
And her soul as pure as snow;
When her eyes, with sunny splendor,
Set her countenance aglow;
When her every move discovers
Newer graces without end,
She can win a hundred lovers,--
Yet may hunger for a friend.
Pearly teeth and curly tresses,
Ruby lips, in smiles that part,
These will lure a man’s caresses,
Easily enslave his heart;
Yet, when all is said and over,
Even though souls in passion blend,
She has only one more lover,
And may hunger for a friend.
Blind I am not, no, nor callous;
Beauty hath its charm for me.
Yet would I, beyond life’s shallows,
Push towards the depthless sea.
Friendship’s true, and Love’s a rover,
Love is selfish in the end.
Choose thee, Sweet, whatever lover,
Let me still remain thy friend.
QUATRAINS.
I.
The oyster turns into a gem
The sand that chafes it long;
My woes, can I not banish them,
I round into a song.
II.
Fear less the villain than the fool.
The villain may be read,
But heaven itself can set no rule
To judge an addled head.
III.
Nurse thou no sorrow, only learn
All that it has to teach,
And lo, a glorious gem shall burn
Upon the brow of each.
IV.
The bard alone immortal is;
In death he liveth still,
And, godlike, with a word of his
Makes deathless whom he will.
V.
Would they but speak who proved but weak
To those who think self strong,
How they would cry, continually,
“Beware the first small wrong!”
VI.
_To Felix Morris._
Twin arts are ours, to act and write,
And yours, perhaps, the greater is;
You bring the world before men’s sight,
I can but proffer fantasies.
VII.
Flowers are earth’s resurrection, yet the rocks,
Ere raised in blossoms, first shall fall to dust.
Take comfort, then, O brother, when life mocks
Thine aspirations, as perforce life must.
VIII.
Man loves the ideal and not the maid;
Her he but garlands with hopes and dreams,
And worships, not her in those wreaths arrayed,
But the vision of fancy that then she seems.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Pronounced Mohavy.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Snowflake and Other Poems, by Arthur Weir