Anthology of Massachusetts Poets
by
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
Contents
HOME BOUND—JOSEPH AUSLANDER
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL—KATHERINE LEE BATES
YELLOW CLOVER—KATHERINE LEE BATES
THE RETURNING—SYLVESTER BAXTER
TWO MOODS FROM THE HILL—ERNEST BENSHIMOL
A BANQUET—ERNEST BENSHIMOL
SONG—GEORGE CABOT LODGE
THE WORLDS—MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI
THE RIOT—GAMALIEL BRADFORD
HUNGER—GAMALIEL BRADFORD
EXIT GOD—GAMALIEL BRADFORD
ROUSSEAU—GAMALIEL BRADFORD
JOHN MASEFIELD—AMY BRIDGMAN
1620-1920—LE BARON RUSSEL BRIGGS
THE CROSS-CURRENT—ABBIE FARWELL BROWN
CANDLEMAS—ALICE BROWN
SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN—ALICE BROWN
BURNT ARE THE PETALS OF LIFE—ELSIE PUMPELLY CABOT
FOUR FOUNTAINS. AFTER RESPIGHI—JESSICA CARR
IN THE TROLLEY CAR—RUTH BALDWIN CHENERY
IN IRISH RAIN—MARTHA HASKELL CLARK
CRETONNE TROPICS—GRACE HAZARD CONKLING
TO HILDA OF HER ROSES—GRACE HAZARD CONKLING
DANDELION—HILDA CONKLING
RED ROOSTER—HILDA CONKLING
VELVETS—HILDA CONKLING
THE MOODS—FANNY STEARNS DAVIS
HILL-FANTASY—FANNY STEARNS DAVIS
THE MIRAGE—NATHAN HASKELL DOLE
THE ROAD BEYOND THE TOWN—MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.
THE LILAC—WALTER PRICHARD EATON
GOD, THROUGH HIS OFFSPRING NATURE, GAVE ME LOVE—CHARLES GIBSON
TO MUSIC—MAUDE GORDON-ROBY
THE VOICE IN THE SONG—MARY GERTRUDE HAMILTON
HYMNS AND ANTHEMS SUNG AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE—CAROLINE HAZARD
REUBEN ROY—HAROLD CRAWFORD STEARNS
COUNTRY ROAD—MARIE LOUISE HERSEY
WREATHS—CAROLYN HILLMAN
MEMPHIS—GORDON MALHERBE HILLMAN
SAINT COLUMBKILLE—E.J.V. HUIGINN
MISS DOANE—WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON
FALLEN FENCES—WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON
CROSS-CURRENTS—WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON
THE FAREWELL—WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON
SONG—OLIVER JENKINS
LOVE AUTUMNAL—OLIVER JENKINS
ECHOES—RUTH LAMBERT JONES
WAR PICTURES—RUTH LAMBERT JONES
AN OLD SONG—ARTHUR KETCHUM
ROADSIDE REST—ARTHUR KETCHUM
OLD LIZETTE ON SLEEP—AGNES LEE
MOTHERHOOD—AGNES LEE
ESSEX—GEORGE CABOT LODGE
THE SONG OF THE WAVE—GEORGE CABOT LODGE
FRIMAIRE—AMY LOWELL
PATTERNS—AMY LOWELL
A BATHER—AMY LOWELL
LEPRECHAUNS AND CLURICAUNS—DENNIS A. MCCARTHY
L’ENVOI—DOROTHEA LAWRENCE MANN
TO IMAGINATION—DOROTHEA LAWRENCE MANN
DRAGON—JEANETTE MARKS
GREEN GOLDEN DOOR—JEANETTE MARKS
SLEEPY HOLLOW, CONCORD—JOHN CLAIR MINOT
THE SWORD OF ARTHUR—JOHN CLAIR MINOT
THE DIVINE FOREST—CHARLES R. MURPHY
MAGIC—EDWARD J. O’BRIEN
MICHAEL PAT—EDWARD J. O’BRIAN
SONG—EDWARD J. O’BRIAN
IN MEMORIAM: FRANCIS LEDWIDGE—NORREYS JEPHSON O’CONNOR
EVENSONG—NORREYS JEPHSON O’CONNOR
THE PROPHET—JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
HARVEST-MOON: 1914—JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
HORSEMAN SPRINGING FROM THE DARK: A DREAM—LILLA CABOT PERRY
THREE QUATRAINS—LILLA CABOT PERRY
A VALENTINE UNSENT—MARGARET PERRY
SHIPBUILDERS—ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER
UNFADING PICTURES—LOUELLA C. POOLE
WITH WAVES AND WINGS—CHARLOTTE PORTER
BLUEBERRIES—FRANK PRENTICE RAND
NOCTURNE—WILLIAM ROSCOIE THAYER
ENVOI—WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER
THERE WHERE THE SEA—MARIE TUDOR
MARRIAGE—MARIE TUDOR
PITY—HAROLD VINAL
A ROSE TO THE LIVING—NIXON WATERMAN
THE STORM—G.O. WARREN
WHERE THEY SLEEP—G.O. WARREN
BEAUTY—G.O. WARREN
COMRADES—GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
THE FLIGHT—GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY
HOME-BOUND
The moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips,
The water makes a quietness of sound;
Night is an anchoring of many ships
Home-bound.
There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs
Of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin
The silence into nets, and tenanters
Move softly in.
I step on shadows riding through the grass,
And feel the night lean cool against my face;
And challenged by the sentinel of space,
I pass.
JOSEPH AUSLANDER
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Those stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
KATHERINE LEE BATES
YELLOW CLOVER
Must I, who walk alone,
come on it still,
This Puck of plants
The wise would do away with,
The sunshine slants
To play with,
Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,
Which once in Parting for a time
That then seemed long,
Ere time for you was over,
We sealed our own?
Do you remember yet,
O Soul beyond the stars,
Beyond the uttermost dim bars
Of space,
Dear Soul, who found earth sweet,
Remember by love’s grace,
In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song,
How suddenly we halted in our climb,
Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,
Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,
And gave them as a token
Each to Each,
In lieu of speech,
In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,
Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet
With a strange dew of tears?
So it began,
This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover,
To be our tenderest language. All the years
It lent a new zest to the summer hours,
As each of us went scheming to surprise
The other with our homely, laureate flowers.
Sonnets and odes
Fringing our daily roads.
Can amaranth and asphodel
Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?
Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes,
Keep any wistful consciousness of earth,
Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love,
Simplicities of mirth,
Must follow them above
With touches of vague homesickness that pass
Like shadows of swift birds across the grass.
Beneath some foreign arch of sky,
How many a time the rover
You or I,
For life oft sundered look from look,
And voice from voice, the transient dearth
Schooling my soul to brook
This distance that no messages may span,
Would chance
Upon our wilding by a lonely well,
Or drowsy watermill,
Or swaying to the chime of convent bell,
Or where the nightingales of old romance
With tragical contraltos fill
Dim solitudes of infinite desire;
And once I joyed to meet
Our peasant gadabout
A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat,
Twinkling a saucy eye
As potentates paced by.
Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame
From friendship’s altar fire!
How proudly we would pluck and tame
The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay!
How swiftly they were sent
Far, far away
On journeys wide,
By sea and continent,
Green miles and blue leagues over,
From each of us to each,
That so our hearts might reach,
And touch within the yellow clover,
Love’s letter to be glad about
Like sunshine when it came!
My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;
Let love then make me brave
To bear the keen hurts of
This careless summertide,
Ay, of our own poor flower,
Changed with our fatal hour,
For all its sunshine vanished when you died;
Only white clover blossoms on your grave.
KATHERINE LEE BATES
THE RETURNING
We long for her, we yearn for her—
Yes, ardently we yearn
For her return.
Recalling those beloved days
(Days intimate with ways
Of friends so near to us
And life so dear to us),
We yearn unspeakably for her return.
And come she must… Yet while we trust
We soon may see the passing of this agony
Which makes intrusive years still seem
A fearsome dream,
We know that when she comes
She really comes not back again.
She’ll come in other guise
And under fairer skies—
And yet to bitter pain!
That day she went away
Our homes with laughing youth were filled.
Where then was happiness
Is now distress,
The laughter stilled;
For when she left
Youth followed her—
We stay bereft.
So all our golden joy
For what she brings
Must carry gray alloy:
The sorrow that she can not lay,
The mysery that she can not stay—
While all the gladsome songs she sings
Must bear for undertones
Old sighs and echoed moans.
As they who go away
In flush of youth
May come quite worn and gray
And bringing naught but ruth—
So, when the strife shall cease,
And when she comes at last,
When all the armies vast
Shall at her feet
Kneel down to greet
Thrice welcome Peace,
This world will be so changed
(So many dear ones dead,
So many friends estranged,
So many blessings fled,
So many wonted ways forever barred,
So many coming days forever marred)
That then
She truly comes not back again—
She, the Peace we knew.
Yet how we long for her!
How ardently we yearn
For her return!
SYLVESTER BAXTER
TWO MOODS FROM THE HILL
I.
YOUTH
I love to watch the world from here, for all
The numberless living portraits that are drawn
Upon the mind. Far over is the sea,
Fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes,
A salt marsh stumbling after, rank and green,
With brackish gullies wandering in between,
All this from the hill.
And more: a clump of dwarfed and twisted cedars,
Sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sun
A field of daises wandering in the wind
As though a hidden serpent glided through,
A broken wall, a new-plowed field, and then
The dusty road and the abodes of men
Surrounding the hill.
How small the enclosure is wherein there lives
Each phase and passion of life, the distant sail
Dips in the limpid bosom of the sea,
From that far place to where in state the turf
Raises a throne for me upon the hill,
Each little love and lust of a living thing
Can thus be compassed in a rainbow ring
And seen from the hill.
II.
AGE
Why did I build my cottage on a hill
Facing the sea?
Why did I plan each terraced lawn to slope
Down to the deep blue billowy breast of hope,
Surging and sweeping,
laughing and leaping,
Tumbling its garments of foam upon the shore,
Rustling the sands that know my step no more,
I should have found a valley, deep and still,
To shelter me.
There flows the river, and it seems asleep
So far away,
Yet I remember whip of wave and roar
Of wind that rose and smote against the oar,
Smote and retreated,
Proud but defeated,
While I rejoiced and rowed into the brine,
Drawing on wet and heavy-straining line
The great cod quivering from the deep
As counterplay.
What is the solace of these hills and vales
That rise and fall?
What is there glorious in the greenwood glen,
Or twittering thrush or wing of darting wren?
Give me the gusty,
Raucous and rusty
Call of the sea gull in the echoing sky,
The wild shriek of the winds that cannot die,
Give me the life that follows the bending sails,
Or none at all!
ERNEST BENSHIMOL
A BANQUET
ONE MEMORY FROM SOCRATES
After the song the love, and after the love the play,
Flute girl and pretty boy blowing
Bubbles of sparkling
Wine into darkling
Beards of a former austerity, stern even now, but fast growing
Foolish, with less of a stately
Reserve that held them sedately.
Oh Zeus, what a sight! With the wine dripping off it,
The grin of an ass on a bald-pated prophet.
After the feast the night, and after the night the day,
Fool and philosopher stirring
With the day dawning,
Stretching and yawning,
While in each wine-throbbing, desolate brain is the wheeling and whirring
Of thousands of bats, that the slaking
Of throats will not hinder from aching,
No wine for the brow that is beating to bursting,
But water at morning is quench for the thirsting!
ERNEST BENSHIMOL
SONG
Out of one heart the birds and I together,
Earth hushed in twilight,
Low through the live-oaks hung heavy with silver,
Gemmed with the sky-light,
Under the great wet star
Shaking with light, we jar
Lute-voiced the silence with intervaled music.
While under the margined world the slow sun lingers,
Flaming earth’s portal,
Over the lilac dusk spreads his great fingers—
Earth is immortal!
While the frail beauty dies.
Dream in the dreamer’s eyes,
All the good gladness turns praise for the singers.
Hark, ’tis the breath of life! Hush! and I need it;
Northern, gigantic,—
Questing the silences, herding the sudden foam
Down the Atlantic;
Leaves from the autumn’s store
Shrill at my desert door,
They and I out of one heart that is grieving.
GEORGE CABOT LODGE
THE WORLDS
I saw an idler on a summer day
Piping with Iris by a dancing brook;
And all his world was rife with Pleasures gay,
And languid Follies smiled from every nook.
I saw an artist in a world of dreams,
His rainbow rising from his radiant task,
To throw its magic prism beams
O’er Fancy’s changeful masque and counter-masque.
I saw Toil—stooping underneath a world
Whereon his foster-brothers lighter tread,
His skyward pinions ever closer furled
Before the grim necessity of bread!
I saw a sinner working hard to be
Worthy his death-wage from the mint of time;
I saw a sailor, unto whom the sea
Was hearth and hope and love and wedding-chime.
I saw a mother living in her child—
I saw a saint among his fellow men—
Brave soldiery before my eyes defiled
And solemn-hearted scholars—Sudden then
I cried: “The stars are no less neighborly
In their ethereal remoteness swung,
Than these near human orbits wherein we
Live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue!
“Love seek through all—less there be one
Least soul unlit within the night—
And over all, the selfsame sun
Give each creation light!”
MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI
THE RIOT
You may think my life is quiet.
I find it full of change,
An ever-varied diet,
As piquant as ’tis strange.
Wild thoughts are always flying,
Like sparks across my brain,
Now flashing out, now dying,
To kindle soon again.
Fine fancies set me thrilling,
And subtle monsters creep
Before my sight unwilling:
They even haunt my sleep.
One broad, perpetual riot
Enfolds me night and day.
You think my life is quiet?
You don’t know what you say.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
HUNGER
I’ve been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a saint,
Their bend of weary knees and their contortions long and faint,
And the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred thousand pins,
A real perpetual penance for imaginary sins.
I love to wander widely, but I understand a cell,
Where you tell and tell your beads because you’ve nothing else to tell,
Where the crimson joy of flesh, with all its wild fantastic tricks,
Is forgotten in the blinding glory of the crucifix.
I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is torn
With a battle of desires making all my life forlorn.
There are moments when I would untread the paths that I have trod.
I’m a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
EXIT GOD
Of old our father’s God was real,
Something they almost saw,
Which kept them to a stern ideal
And scourged them into awe.
They walked the narrow path of right
Most vigilantly well,
Because they feared eternal night
And boiling depths of Hell.
Now Hell has wholly boiled away
And God become a shade.
There is no place for him to stay
In all the world He made.
The followers of William James
Still let the Lord exist,
And call Him by imposing names,
A venerable list.
But nerve and muscle only count,
Gray matter of the brain,
And an astonishing amount
Of inconvenient pain.
I sometimes wish that God were back
In this dark world and wide;
For though some virtues He might lack,
He had his pleasant side.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
ROUSSEAU
That odd, fantastic ass, Rousseau,
Declared himself unique.
How men persist in doing so,
Puzzles me more than Greek.
The sins that tarnish whore and thief
Beset me every day.
My most ethereal belief
Inhabits common clay.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
JOHN MASEFIELD
I
MASEFIELD (HIMSELF)
God said, and frowned, as He looked on Shropshire clay:
“Alone, ’twont do; composite, would I make
This man-child rare; ’twere well, methinks, to take
A handful from the Stratford tomb, and weigh
A few of Shelley’s ashes; Bunyan may
Contribute, too, and, for my sweet Son’s sake,
I’ll visit Avalon; then, let me slake
The whole with Wyclif-water from the Bay.
A sailor, he! Too godly, though, I fear;
Offset it with tobacco! Next, I’ll find
Hedge-roses, star-dust, and a vagrant’s mind;
His mother’s heart now let me breathe upon;
When west winds blow, I’ll whisper in her ear:
“Apocalypse awaits him; call him John!”
II
HIS PORTRAIT
A Man of Sorrows! with such haunted eyes,
I trow, the Master looked across the lake,—
Looked from the Judas-heart, so soon to make
Of Him the world’s historic sacrifice;
Moreover, as I gaze, do more arise;
Great souls, great pallid ghosts of pain, who wake
And wander yet; all, weary men who brake
Their hearts; all hemlock-drunk, with growing wise:
Hudson adrift; Defoe; the Wandering Jew;
Tannhauser; Faust; Andrea; phantoms, all,
In Masefield’s eyes you lodge; and to the wall
I turn you,—hand a-tremble,—lest you make
Of mine own stricken eyes a mirror, too.
Wherein the sad world’s sadder for your sake.
III
HIS “DAUBER”
O Masefield’s “Dauber!” You, who being dead,
Yet speak: heroic, dauntless, flaming soul,
Too suddenly snuffed out! Here take fresh toll
Of cognizance, and, in your ocean bed,
Serenely rest, assured that who has read
What you would fain have pictured of the Pole
Would gladly match your part against the whole
Of many a modern artist, Paris-bred.
And more than this: if you, indeed, are his,
Then, by a dual truth, he, too, is yours;
For, marked and credited by what endures,
Were it the only thing, which bears his name,
(O deathless Soul, I speak you true in this!)
“The Dauber” has brought Masefield to his fame.
IV
HIS “GALLIPOLI”
“Small wonder,” speaks my pensive self, “that he
Whose passion ’tis to sing of men who fail,—
(Belabored, broken by The Unseen Flail)
Small wonder that be makes Gallipoli
His fervent text, for could there be
A costlier failure in Earth’s shuddering tale?
Think of heroic Sulva’s bloody swale;
Of Anzac’s tortured thirst and agony!”
But as I read, protesting voices cry: “Not we,
Not we, who fell among the daffodils,
Who conquered Death among those blistered hills,
And found our glory after mortal pain;
Not we, who failed and lost Gallipoli;
The sad, strange failure theirs who mourn in vain!”
V
HIS MEAD
So, Masefield, have your royal words once more
Called forth the praise of men, where praise is due;
Your great elegiac, tragically true,
Must leave all Britain prouder than before;
And, in spite of all that breaking hearts deplore,
And all that anguished consciences must rue,
One arrowed gladness surely pierces through
From London’s centre to Canadian shore:
When England, sobbing, mourns Gallipoli,
When warm tears flow for Rupert Brooke
And all the splendid Youth her error took
As hostage from the fields of daffodils,
Let this a present, living solace be:
You are not sleeping in those cruel hills!
AMY BRIDGEMAN
1620-1920
Before him rolls the dark, relentless ocean;
Behind him stretch the cold and barren sands;
Wrapt in the mantle of his deep devotion
The Pilgrim kneels, and clasps his lifted hands;
“God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us
Through seas and sorrows, famine, fire, and sword;
Who, in Thy mercies manifold hast taught us
To trust in Thee, our leader and our Lord;
“God, who hast send Thy truth to shine before us,
A fiery pillar, beaconing on the sea;
God, who hast spread thy wings of mercy o’er us;
God, who hast set our children’s children free,
“Freedom Thy new-born nation here shall cherish;
Grant us Thy covenant, changing, sure:
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
Freedom and Truth, immortal shall endure.”
Face to the Indian arrows.
Face to the Prussian guns,
From then till now the Pilgrim’s vow
Has held the Pilgrim’s sons.
He braved the red man’s ambush,
He loosed the black man’s chain;
His spirit broke King George’s yoke
And the battleships of Spain.
He crossed the seething ocean;
He dared the death-strewn track;
He charged in the hell of Saint Mihiel
And hurled the tyrant back.
For the voice of the lonely Pilgrim
Who knelt upon the strand
A people hears three hundred years
In the conscience of the land.
Daughter of Truth and mother of Courage,
Conscience, all hail!
Heart of New England, strength of the Pilgrims,
Thou shalt prevail.
Look how the empires rise and fall!
Athens robed in her learning and beauty,
Rome in her royal lust for power—
Each has flourished for her little hour,
Risen and fallen and ceased to be.
What of her by the Western Sea,
Born and bred as the child of Duty,
Sternest of them all?
She it is and she alone
Who built on faith as her corner stone;
Of all the nations none but she
Knew that the truth shall make us free.
Daughter of Courage, mother of heros,
Freedom divine.
Light of New England, Star of the Pilgrim,
Still shalt thou shine.
Yet even as we in our pride rejoice,
Hark to the prophet’s warning voice:
“The Pilgrim’s thrift is vanished
And the Pilgrim’s faith is dead,
And the Pilgrim’s God is banished,
And Mammon reigns in his stead;
And work is damned as an evil,
And men and women cry,
In their restless haste, ‘Let us spend and waste,
And live; for to-morrow we die.’
“And law is trampled under;
And the nations stand aghast,
As they hear the distant thunder
Of the storm that marches fast;
And we,—whose ocean borders
Shut off the sound and the sight,
We will wait for marching orders;
The world has seen us fight;
We have earned our days of revel;
‘On with the dance’! we cry.
It is pain to think; we will eat and drink!
And live; for to-morrow we die.”
“We have laughed in the eyes of danger;
We have given our bravest and best;
We have succored the starving stranger;
Others shall heed the rest.’
And the revel never ceases;
And the nations hold their breath;
And our laughter peals, and the mad world reels,
To a carnival of death.
“Slaves of sloth and the senses,
Clippers of Freedom’s wings,
Come back to the Pilgrim’s Army
And fight for the King of Kings;
Come back to the Pilgrim’s conscience;
Be born in the nation’s birth;
And strive again as simple men
For the freedom of the earth.
Freedom a free-born nation still shall cherish,
Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure:
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
Freedom and Truth immortal shall endure.”
Land of our fathers, when the tempest rages,
When the wide earth is racked with war and crime,
Founded forever on the Rock of Ages,
Beaten in vain by surging seas of time,
Even as the shallop on the breakers riding,
Even as the Pilgrim kneeling on the shore,
Firm in thy faith and fortitude abiding,
Hold thou thy children free forever more.
And when we sail as Pilgrims’ sons and daughters
The spirit’s Mayflower into seas unknown,
Driving across the waste of wintry waters
The voyage every soul shall make alone,
The Pilgrim’s faith, the Pilgrim’s courage grant us;
Still shines the truth that for the Pilgrim shone.
We are his seed; nor life nor death shall daunt us.
The port is Freedom! Pilgrim heart, sail on!
LE BARON RUSSELL BRIGGS
THE CROSS-CURRENT
Through twelve stout generations
New England blood I boast;
The stubborn pastures bred them,
The grim, uncordial coast,
Sedate and proud old cities,—
Loved well enough by me,
Then how should I be yearning
To scour the earth and sea.
Each of my Yankee forbears
Wed a New England mate:
They dwelt and did and died here,
Nor glimpsed a rosier fate.
My clan endured their kindred;
But foreigners they loathed,
And wandering folk, and minstrels,
And gypsies motley-clothed.
Then why do patches please me,
Fantastic, wild array?
Why have I vagrant fancies
For lads from far away.
My folk were godly Churchmen,—
Or paced in Elders’ weeds;
But all were grave and pious
And hated heathen creeds.
Then why are Thor and Wotan
To dread forces still?
Why does my heart go questing
For Pan beyond the hill?
My people clutched at freedom.—
Though others’ wills they chained,—
But made the Law and kept it,—
And Beauty, they restrained.
Then why am I a rebel
To laws of rule and square?
Why would I dream and dally,
Or, reckless, do and dare?
O righteous, solemn Grandsires,
O dames, correct and mild,
Who bred me of your virtues!
Whence comes this changing child?—
The thirteenth generation,—
Unlucky number this!—
My grandma loved a Pirate,
And all my faults are his!
A gallant, ruffled rover,
With beauty-loving eye,
He swept Colonial waters
Of coarser, bloodier fry.
He waved his hat to danger,
At Law he shook his fist.
Ah, merrily he plundered,
He sang and fought and kissed!
Though none have found his treasure,
And none his part would take,—
I bless that thirteenth lady
Who chose him for my sake!
ABBIE FARWELL BROWN
CANDLEMAS
O hearken, all ye little weeds
That lie beneath the snow,
(So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!)
The sun hath risen for royal deeds,
A valiant wind the vanguard leads;
Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds
Before ye rise and blow.
O furry living things, adream
On winter’s drowsy breast,
(How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!)
Arise and follow where a gleam
Of wizard gold unbinds the stream,
And all the woodland windings seem
With sweet expectance blest.
My birds, come back! the hollow sky
Is weary for your note.
(Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!)
Ere May’s soft minions hereward fly,
Shame on ye, Laggards, to deny
The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye,
The tawny, shining coat!
ALICE BROWN
SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN
O swift forerunners, rosy with the race!
Spirits of dawn, divinely manifest
Behind your blushing banners in the sky,
Daring invaders of Night’s tenting-ground,
How do ye strain on forward-bending foot,
Each to be first in heralding of joy!
With silence sandalled, so they weave their way,
And so they stand, with silence panoplied,
Chanting, through mystic symbollings of flame,
Their solemn invocation to the light.
O changeless guardians! O ye wizard first!
What strenuous philter feeds your potency.
That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness,
Ready to learn of all and utter naught?
What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite
To odorous hot lendings of the heart?
What wind-but all the winds are yet afar,
And e’en the little tricksy zephyr sprites,
That fleet before them, like their elfin locks,
Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet
To pluck the robe of patient majesty.
Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep,
So range the firs, the constant, fearless ones.
Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait,
Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm.
And yet expectant, as who knows the dawn,
And all night thrills with memory and desire,
Searching in what has been for what shall be:
The marvel of the ne’er familiar day,
Sacred investiture of life renewed,
The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame.
Low in the valley lies the conquered rout
Of man’s poor, trivial turmoil, lost and drowned
Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled,
Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main.
And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch,
One great good limpid world—so still, so still!
For no sound echoes from its crystal curve
Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird
Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn,
And has no heart to finish, for the awe
And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn.
Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars!
Light, the revealer of dread beauty’s face!
Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad!
Mighty libation to the Unknown God!
Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst
And little leaves drink sweet delirium!
Being and breath and potion! living soul
And all-informing heart of all that lives!
How can we magnify thine awful name
Save by its chanting: Light! and Light! and Light!
An exhalation from far sky retreats,
It grows in silence, as ’twere self-create,
Suffusing all the dusky web of night.
But one lone corner it invades not yet,
Where low above a black and rimy crag
Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield,
The holy, useless shield of long-past wars,
Dinted and frosty, on the crystal dark.
But lo! the east,—let none forget the east,
Pathway ordained of old where He should tread.
Through some sweet magic common in the skies,
The rosy banners are with saffron tinct;
The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire,
And led by silence more majestical
Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes!
He holds His spear benignant, sceptrewise,
And strikes out flame from the adoring hills.
ALICE BROWN
BURNT ARE THE PETALS OF LIFE
Burnt are the petals of life as a rose fallen and crumbled to dust.
Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must
Forever be sifted, more precious than sunbeams that
open the budding to-morrow.
Once was a passion completed,-too perfect, the
Gods have not broken to borrow—
Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must
Forever be sifted. O, loving to-morrow
The rose of the past is, Life-Eternity’s dust.
ELSIE PUMPELLY CABOT
FOUR FOUNTAINS AFTER RESPIGHI
Fresh mists of Roman dawn;
For water search the cattle;
Faintly on damp air sounds the shepherd’s horn
Above fountain Giulia’s prattle.
Triton, joyous and loud
Of Naiads summons troops;
A frenziedly leaping and mingling crowd,
Dancing, pursuing groups.
At high noon the trumpets peal,
Neptune’s chariot passes by;
Trains of sirens, tritons, Trevi’s jets heal
Then trumpets’ echoes sigh.
Tolling bell and sunset,
Twittering birds and calm;
Medici’s fountain, shimmering net,
Into the night brings balm.
JESSICA CARR
IN THE TROLLEY CAR
The swart Italian in the trolley car,
Hoarded his children in his arms and breast;
The mother, all unheeding, sat afar,
Her splendid eyes were vague, her lips compressed.
One Raphael-boy slipped from his father’s knee,
Climbed to her side, and gently stroked her cheek,
She turned away, and would not hear his plea,
She turned away, and would not even speak.
With trembling lips the child crept back again
To the warm shelter of his father’s breast;
We looked indignant pity, for till then
We thought that mother-love bore every test.
We rose to go, the father-mother said,
In deep, low tones, “Don’t t’inka hard you bet
The younges’ was too-seeck, and he is dead,
She will be alla right, when she forget.”
When she forgets! “Great-Heart,” hold closer yet
Thy precious brood and let it feel no lack!
Until her soul shall wake, but not forget,
When the warm tides of love come surging back.
RUTH BALDWIN CHENERY
IN IRISH RAIN
The great world stretched its arms to me and held me to its breast,
They say I’ve song-birds in my throat, and give me of their best;
But sure, not all their gold can buy, can take me back again
To little Mag o’ Monagan’s a-singing in the rain.
The silver-slanting Irish rain, all warm and sweet that fills
The little brackened lowland pools, and drifts across the hills;
That turns the hill-grass cool and wet to dusty childish feet,
And hangs above the valley-roofs, filmed blue with burning peat.
And oh the kindly neighbor-folk that called the young ones in,
Down fragrant yellow-tapered paths that thread the prickly whin;
The hot, sweet smell of oaten-cake, the kettle purring soft,
The dear-remembered Irish speech—they call to me how oft!
They mind me just a slip o’ girl in tattered kirtle blue,
But oh they loved me for myself, and not for what I do!
And never one but had a joy to pass the time of day
With little Mag o’ Monagan’s a-laughing down the way.
There’s fifty roofs to shelter me where one was set before,
But make me free to that again—I’ll not be wanting more,
But sure I know not tears nor gold can turn the years again
To little Mag o’ Monagan’s a-singing in the rain.
MARTHA HASKELL CLARK
CRETONNE TROPICS
The cretonne in your willow chair
Shows through a zone of rosy air,
A tree of parrots, agate-eyed,
With blue-green crests and plumes of pride
And beaks most formidably curved.
I hear the river, silver-nerved,
To their shrill protests make reply,
And the palm forest stir and sigh.
Curious, the spell that colors cast,
Binding the fancy coweb-fast,
And you would smile if you could know
I like your cretonne parrots so!
But I have seen them sail toward night
Superbly homeward, the last light
Lifting them like a purple sea
Scorned and made use of arrogantly;
And I have heard them cry aloud
From out a tall palm’s emerald cloud;
And I brought home a brilliant feather,
Lost like a flake of sunset weather.
Here in the north the sea is white
And mother-of-pearl in morning light,
Quite lovely, but there is a glare
That daunts me.
Now the willow chair
Suggests a more perplexing sea,
Till my heart aches with memory
And parrots dye the air around,
And I forget the pallid Sound.
GRACE HAZARD
TO HILDA OF HER ROSES
Enough has been said about roses
To fill thirty thick volumes;
There are as many songs about roses
As there are roses in the world
That includes Mexico … the Azores … Oregon…
It is a pity your roses
Are too late for Omar…
It is a pity Keats has gone…
Yet there must be something left to say
Of flowers like these!
Adventurers,
They pushed their way
Through dewy tunnels of the June night
Now they confer….
A little tremulous….
Dazzled by the yellow sea-beach of morning
If Herrick would tiptoe back…
If Blake were to look this way
Ledwidge, even!
GRACE HAZARD CONKLING
DANDELION
O Little soldier with the golden helmet,
What are you guarding on my lawn?
You with your green gun
And your yellow beard,
Why do you stand so stiff?
There is only the grass to fight!
HILDA CONKLING
RED ROOSTER
Red rooster in your gray coop,
O stately creature with tail-feathers red and blue,
Yellow and black,
You have a comb gay as a parade
On your head:
You have pearl trinkets
On your feet:
The short feathers smooth along your back
Are the dark color of wet rocks,
Or the rippled green of ships
When I look at their sides through water.
I don’t know how you happened to be made
So proud, so foolish,
Wearing your coat of many colors,
Shouting all day long your crooked words,
Loud… sharp… not beautiful!
HILDA CONKLING
VELVETS
(BY A BED OF PANSIES)
This pansy has a thinking face
Like the yellow moon.
This one has a face with white blots;
I call him the clown.
Here goes one down the grass
With a pretty look of plumpness;
She is a little girl going to school
With her hands in the pockets of her pinafore.
Her name is Sue.
I like this one, in a bonnet,
Waiting,
Her eyes are so deep!
But these on the other side,
These that wear purple and blue,
They are the Velvets,
The king with his cloak,
The queen with her gown,
The prince with his feather.
These are dark and quiet
And stay alone.
I know you, Velvets,
Color of Dark,
Like the pine-tree on the hill
When stars shine!
HILDA CONKLING
THE MOODS
The Moods have laid their hands across my hair:
The Moods have drawn their fingers through my heart;
My hair shall never more lie smooth and bright,
But stir like tide-worn sea-weed, and my heart
Shall never more be glad of small sweet things,—
A wild rose, or a crescent moon,-a book
Of little verses, or a dancing child.
My heart turns crying from the rose and book,
My heart turns crying from the thin bright moon,
And weeps with useless sorrow for the child.
The Moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair,
And made my heart too wise, that was a child.
Now I shall blow like smitten candle-flame:
I shall desire all things that may not be:
The years, the stars, the souls of ancient men,
All tears that must, and smiles that may not be,—
Yes, glimmering lights across a windy ford,
And vagrant voices on a darkened plain,
And holy things, and outcast things, and things,
Far too remote, frail-bodied to be plain.
My pity and my joy are grown alike.
I cannot sweep the strangeness from my heart.
The Moods have laid swift hands across my hair:
The Moods have drawn swift fingers through my heart.
FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS
HILL-FANTASY
Sitteth by the red cairn a brown One, a hoofed One,
High upon the mountain, where the grasses fail.
Where the ash-trees flourish far their blazing bunches to the sun,
A brown One, a hoofed One, pipes against the gale.
I was on the mountain, wandering, wandering;
No one but the pine trees and the white birch knew.
Over rocks I scrambled, looked up and saw that Strange Thing,
Peakèd ears and sharp horns, pricked against the blue.
Oh, and, how he piped there! piped upon the high reeds
Till the blue air crackled like a frost-film on a pool!
Oh, and how he spread himself, like a child whom no one heeds,
Tumbled chuckling in the brook, all sleek and kind and cool!
He had berries ’twixt his horns, crimson-red as cochineal.,
Bobbing, wagging wantonly they tickled him, and oh,
How his deft lips puckered round the reed, and seemed to chase and steal
Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music low!
I said “Good-day, Thou!” He said, “Good-day, Thou!”
Wiped his reed against the spotted doe-skin on his back,
He said, “Come up here, and I will teach thee piping now.
While the earth is singing so, for tunes we shall not lack.”
Up scrambled I then, furry fingers helping me.
Up scrambled I. So we sat beside the cairn.
Broad into my face laughed that hornèd Thing so naughtily.
Oh, it was a rascal of a woodland Satyr’s bairn!
So blow, and so, Thou! Move thy fingers faster, look!
Move them like the little leaves and whirling midges. So!
Soon ’twill twist like tendrils and out-twinkle like the lost brook.
Move thy fingers merrily, and blow! Blow! Blow!”
Brown One! Hoofèd One! Beat time to keep me straight.
Kick it on the red stone, whistle in my ear.
Brush thy crimson berries in my face, then hold thy breath, for—wait!
Joy comes bubbling to my lips. I pipe, oh, hear!
Blue sky, art glad of us? Green wood, art glad of us?
Old hard-heart mountain, dost thou hear me, how I blow?
Far away the sea-isles swim in sun-haze luminous.
Each one has a color like the seven-splendored bow.
Wind, wind, wind, dost thou mind me how I pipe, Now?
Chipmunk chatt’ring in the beech, rabbit in the brake?
Furry arm around my neck: “Oh, Thou art a brave one, Thou!”
Satyr, little satyr-friend, my heart with joy doth ache!
Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music tremulous,
Water over steaming rocks, water in the shade,
Storm-tune and sun-tune, how they flock up unto us,
Sitting by the red cairn, gay and unafraid!
Brown One, Hoofèd One, give me nimble hoofs, Thou!
Give me furry fingers and a secret furry tail!
Pleasant are thy smooth horns: if their like were on my brow
Might I not abide here, till the strong sun fail?
Oh, the sorry brown eyes! Oh, the soft kind hand-touch,
Sudden brush of velvet ears across my wind-cool cheek!
“Play-mate, Pipe-mate, thou askest one good boon too much.
I could never find thee horns, though day-long I seek.
“Yet, keep the pipe, Thou: I will cut another one.
Keep the pipe and play on it for all the world to hear.
Ah, but it was good once to sit together in the sun!
Though I have but half a soul, it finds thee very dear!
“Wise Thing, Mortal Thing, yet my half-soul fears thee!
Take the pipe and go thy ways,—quick now, for the sun
Reels across the hot west and stumbles dazzled to the sea.
Take the pipe, and oh-one kiss! then run, run, run! run!”
Silence on the mountain. Lonely stands the high cairn,
All the leaves a-shivering, all the stones dead-gray.
O thou cold small pipe, which way is fled that Satyr’s bairn?
I am lost and all alone, and down drops the day.
I was on the mountain, wandering, wandering
There I got this Pipe o’ dreams. Strange, when I blow,
Something deep as human love starts a-crying, troubling.
Is it only sky-music, earth-music low?
FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS
THE MIRAGE
Across the Bay are low-lying cliffs,
Where stand fishermen’s cottages:
I can barely distinguish them with the naked eye.
But to-day the cliffs are lifted, escarpt,
Perpendicular, mysterious, inaccessible,
And those sordid dwellings have become
The magnificent fortified castles of Sea-kings.
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE
THE ROAD BEYOND THE TOWN
A road goes up a pleasant hill,
And a little house looks down:
Ah! but I see the roadway still
And the day I left the town.
The day I left my father’s home,
It’s many a year ago,
And a heart and hope were brave to roam
the long, long road I know.
The long, long road by hill and plain,
It’s tired the heart might be:
But hope stayed bright in sun or rain,
And a Voice that called to me.
A Voice that called me over the hill
And out of the little town:
Ah! but I see the roadway still.
And the good house looking down.
The house that spake me never a No!
As I started brave away,
But said with a blessing, Go!
And followed me every day.
It followed me down the road of years,
For a father’s heart is true,
And joy is sweet in a mother’s tears
For the deeds her child may do.
The poor little deeds, all powerless
For the Kingdom of God would be,
Save in His mercy will He bless
The road that goes with me:
The road that left a pleasant hill,
Where a little house looks down:
Ah! but I bless the roadway still,
And the land beyond the town.
MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.
THE LILAC
The scent of lilac in the air
Hath made him drag his steps and pause
Whence comes this scent within the Square,
Where endless dusty traffic roars?
A push-cart stands beside the curb,
With fragrant blossoms laden high;
Speak low, nor stare, lest we disturb
His sudden reverie!
He sees us not, nor heeds the din
Of clanging car and scuffling throng;
His eyes see fairer sights within,
And memory hears the robin’s song
As once it trilled against the day,
And shook his slumber in a room
Where drifted with the breath of May
The lilac’s sweet perfume.
The heart of boyhood in him stirs;
The wonder of the morning skies,
Of sunset gold behind the firs,
Is kindled in his dreaming eyes:
How far off is this sordid place,
As turning from our sight away
He crushes to his hungry face
A purple lilac spray.
WALTER PRICHARD EATON
GOD, THROUGH HIS OFFSPRING NATURE, GAVE ME LOVE
God, through his offspring Nature, gave me love,
Though man in opposition saith me nay,
And taketh from my heart its life to-day,
As through the valley of the world I rove.
Still unaccompanied, within the grove
That doth enamored beings hold at play,
My spirit must pursue its lonely way,
And strive to pluck some flowers that bloom above.
Oh, wherefore then doth Nature give desire
To have that which mankind may not possess,
And force him to endure on earth hell’s fire,
And live in one perpetual distress?
Some evil power must such love inspire,
And with it masquerade in Cupid’s dress!
CHARLES GIBSON
TO MUSIC
“Music, the language, the atmosphere of the Soul.”
Fly back where Melodies like lilies grow,
My weary heart is bending low;
Fly higher yet to joyful realms above,
Where holy Angels dwell in love.
Fly higher still and hear the Angel throng
And bring to me their Glory-song:
Ah Music, thou and I above the World
May dwell where heaven with shining song is pearled!
While Sun and Moon and all the planets roll
I’ll love thee, Music, language of my soul!
Music-lark from on high, song that doth fly,
Spark of the sky!
MAUDE GORDON-ROBY
THE VOICE IN THE SONG
High in the apple bough jauntily swinging,
Hid by the branches in bridal array,
Straight from his heart, all his life in his singing,
Chants a wee bird, lures his mate with his lay.
“Sweet, sweet, my sweet,
Hear I entreat!
Say, love, together, this bright sunny weather,
Gold of the west we shall weave in a nest!
Have no fear! Trust me, dear!
Sunshine of May that will gild every day
Pledge I to thee if thou’lt harken to me.”
Lo! in the light thro’ the gay branches streaming,
Quivering in answer to all the bird sings,
Warm on a breath, leaps a soul with love gleaming,
Speeds to its mate on its glittering wings.
“Dear, on thy breast
Earth yields its best!
Loud in the singing I heard thy call ringing,
Pleading and strong in the voice of the song,
Whisper low,—Yes, just so!—
Softly revealing the depth of thy feeling,
Words in whose fire glow thy love and desire.”
MARY GERTRUDE HAMILTON
HYMNS AND ANTHEMS SUNG AT
WELLESLEY COLLEGE
I
MOUNT CARMEL
Where art Thou, O my Lord?
Mount Carmel saw the throng
Of priests and heard the song;
To Baal was their call—
From morn till night did fall.
Where art Thou, O my Lord?
Again Mount Carmel heard
Not in the spoken word,
Not in the earthquake’s shock,
Not in the rending rock
Where art Thou, O my Lord?
The still voice softly speaks;
Each soul it swiftly seeks
Not in the thunder roll,
But in the inmost soul.
II
VESPER HYMN
Send peaceful sleep, O Lord, this night,
To keep us till the morning light;
And let no vision of alarm
Come near to do Thy children harm
Within Thy circling arms we lie,
O God, in Thine infinity;
Our souls in quiet shall abide
Beset with love on every side.
III
THIS IS THAT BREAD
This is that Bread that came down from Heaven,
he that eateth of this Bread shall live forever.
Bread on which angels feed,
Bread for the spirit’s need
By faith receiving,
New life do Thou impart,
New strength to every heart,
Pure love of God Thou art
To us believing.
IV
O SLOW OF HEART
O slow of heart to believe! Ought Christ not to
have suffered these things and to enter into His Glory?
Quicken, Lord, my fainting heart,
Touch my eyes that they may see,
Let me know Thee as Thou art.
Life and Immortality.
V
ALL HAIL TO THEE, CHILD JESUS
All hail to Thee, child Jesus!
As the brooding darkness flies
At the swift approach of day,
Sun of righteousness, arise,
Chase the gloom of night away.
Great Prince of Peace, come to thine own,
And build in every heart Thy throne.
Come to shed Thy healing balm
On all nations of the earth,
Child Jesus, come with holy calm,
How we hail thy wondrous birth.
Great Prince of Peace, come to Thine own,
And build in every heart Thy throne.
All hail to Thee, Child Jesus!
VI
THE WINE-PRESS
Who is this that comes from Edom
In such glorious array,
With his festal garments gleaming,
Travelling on his royal way
With a face majestic, calm and grave?
I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
Why is thy apparel crimson,
Why is all thy garments’ pride
Stained as in the time of vintage
And with blood-red-color dyed?
Because of helpers I had none—
I have trodden the wine-press alone.
VII
WAKEN, SHEPHERDS!
(Angels) Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!
(Shepherds) Waken, Shepherds, waken;
Whence this glowing light?
Ere the dawn of morning,
Solemn signs of warning
Portent of affright!
(Angels) Courage, Shepherds, courage!
Banish your dismay,
or ye all are saved.
In the town of David
Christ is born to-day.
(Shepherds) Harken, Shepherds, harken,
Hear the angels sing!
Jehovah sends a token,
He himself hath spoken
To proclaim our King.
(Angels) Hasten, Shepherds, hasten,
This shall be your sign;
Where the kine are stabled,
In a manger cradled
Lies the Child Divine.
(Shepherds and Angels) Angels, Shepherds, People,
Shout the glad refrain!
Joy to every nation
Bringing full salvation,
Christ has come to reign.
Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!
CAROLINE HAZARD
REUBEN ROY
Little fellow, brown with wind—
I saw him in the street
Peering at numbers on the posts,
But most discreet:
For when a woman came outdoors,
Or slyly peeped instead,
He turned away, took off his hat,
And scratched his head.
I watched him from my garden-wall
Perhaps an hour or more,
For something in his attitude,
The clothes he wore,
Awoke the dimmest memories
Of when I was a boy
And knew the story of a man
Named Reuben Roy.
It seems that Reuben went to sea
The night his wife decried
The fence he built before their house
And up the side.
He wanted it but she did not,
Because it hid from view
The spot in which her mignonette
And tulips grew.
Nobody saw his face again,
But each year, unawares,
He sent a sum for taxes due—
And fence repairs.
My curiosity aroused,
I sauntered forth to see
Whether this individual
Were really he.
“Who are you looking for?” I asked
His eyes, like two bright pence,
Sparkled at mine; and then he said:
“A fence.”
“Somebody burned it Hallowe’en,
When people were in bed;
Before the judge could prosecute,
The culprit fled.”
Well, Reuben only touched his hat
And mumbled, “Thank you, Sir,”
And asked me whereabouts to find
A carpenter.
HAROLD CRAWFORD STEARNS
COUNTRY ROAD
I can’t forget a gaunt grey barn
Like a face without an eye
That kept recurring by field and tarn
Under a Cape Cod sky.
I can’t forget a woman’s hand,
Roughened and scarred by toil
That beckoned clear-eyed children tanned
By sun and wind and soil.
Beauty and hardship, bent and bound
Under the selfsame yoke:
Babies with bare knees plump and round
And stooping women folk.
MARIE LOUISE HERSEY
WREATHS
Red wreaths
Hang in my neighbor’s window,
Green wreaths in my own.
On this day I lost my husband.
On this day you lost your boy.
On this day
Christ was born.
Red wreaths,
Green wreaths
Hang in Our Windows
Red for a bleeding heart,
Green for grave grass.
Mary, mother of Jesus,
Look down and comfort us.
You too knew passion;
You too knew pain.
Comfort us,
Who are not brides of God,
Nor bore God.
On Christmas day
Hang wreaths,
Red for new pain.
Green for spent passion.
CAROLYN HILLMAN
MEMPHIS