For the linden shades of Baden,
For the glooms of Schwartzenwald;
So a homesick brief he scrawled
To his mother, her to tell
That he was not strong or well.
(Of the Fräulein wrote he not,--
Haply Gabriel forgot.)
Soon the doting mother old,--
Four-score were her years and three,--
Sent the lout a purse of gold,
With the summons--“Come to me!
Komm zu mir, mein Sohn, geschwind,
Komm zu mir, mein liebes Kind.”
From the Ohio’s crooked vale,
Flying fast by rail and sail,
Home to Schwartzenwald away,
Eastward to the Land of Play,
Gabriel of Schwartzenwald
Followed the mother-tongue that called
From the fatherland in tearful tone,
“Komm, Gabriel, mein lieber Sohn!”
Followed the mother-voice and the call
Of the nameless Fräulein, short or tall,
And the coaxing lisp of the linden leaves,
And the bark of a dog forlorn that grieves
For an absent master; the gurgle, too,
Of bottled grape-juice and foamy brew,
And the tweedle-dee of the fiddle gay
That leads to the dance on a holiday;--
Followed his dreams and his memories,
Whirled with the sleeping speed of wheels,
Flew on the eager wings of the breeze,
Doubting of naught that his foolish heart feels,
Sure that the country of Do-as-you-please,
If any such ever is found upon earth,
Is the home of our mother, the land of our birth.
COFFEA ARABICA.
More entrancing than aroma
From the Hindu sacred soma,
Comes a fragrant
Essence vagrant
Floating up
From my quaint Zumpango cup,
Incense rare,
Evanescent steam ascending,
Curling, wavering, fading, blending,
Vanishing in viewless air.
Let me sip and dream and sing
Musing many an idle thing,
Let me sing and dream and sip
Making many an fancied trip
Far away and far away
Over ocean, gulf and bay
To islands whence the spicy wind
Breathes languor on the tropic sea,
To sultry strands of teeming Ind,
To coasts of torrid Araby,
To realms no Boreal breath may chill,
Like rich Brazil,
Or Jabal’s clouded hill on hill,
Or warm Bulgosa’s valley low,
To zones where Summer splendors glow,
Where seasons never come or go,
Where coffee trees perpetual blow.
While I drowse and dream and sip,
Sailing, sailing slides a ship
Over the glittering sea,
Measuring leagues of night and day,
Bearing and bringing to me,
Bringing from far away, away,
The pale green magical berry,
The seed of the virtuous cherry,
The bean of the blossom divine!
Bringing from over the brine,
Bringing from Demarara,
From balsamy San Pará,
Bringing from Trans-Sahara,
From hoard of the Grand Bashaw,
Or redolent chests of Menelek,
An Abyssinian cargo
Richer than freight of Argo,
Treasured in garners under the deck,
Bringing and bearing for me
The gift of the coffee tree!
Better than blood of the Spanish vine,
Or ruddy or amber wine of the Rhine;
Bearing the bean of the blessed tree!
Better than bousa or sake fine,
Or sampan loads of oolong tea,
Souchong, twankay, or bohea,--
Bringing the virtuous bean divine,
The coffee-tree cherry,
The magical berry,
More entrancing than aroma
From the Hindu sacred soma.
AN INDIA SHAWL.
This dainty shawl an Eastern shuttle wove,
Where Ravee stream winds sunward from Cashmere;
By nimble gold ’twas borne around the sphere
For one who gave it me in friendly love.
To rival nature’s hues the weaver strove,
For beauty’s sake and not barbaric show;
Behold, commingled here, elusive glow
The brilliant, innocent dyes of field and grove.
This silk soft web was never merchandise;
A charm of peerless art proclaims it rare,--
A sumptuous robe that Majesty would prize,
And India’s British Empress well might wear;
’Tis mine for thee within whose beaming eyes
I see love’s India, O my queenly Fair!
APOLOGY.
Full well my loyal heart remembers
The vow of rapture’s lavish tongue,
For thee to smother grief’s Decembers
In joy’s June roses and make over
The world;--how easily, fond lover,
Could I when life and hope were young.
When troth-plight had begemmed thy finger
Unhappiness should cease to be;
No shape of care near thee should linger;
Exultant, I, thy love to guerdon,
Would weep thy tears and bear thy burden,
Yea, purchase thy Gethsemane.
For thee should hemlock turn to honey,
Thy hand, unhurt, the thorn might hold,
Darkness should light thee, and the sunny
Celestial days, triumphal, singing
Around the globe, should bless thee, bringing
Anew to earth the Age of Gold.
Thy beauty and thy grace to glory,
Would I inweave thy golden name
In shining weft of song and story;
Would I, on love’s heroic mission,
Ascend the sunned peak of ambition
To pluck the Alpine flower, fame.
O season of delirious passion!
What knew or recked my spirit then
Of deeds in less transcendent fashion
Than youth’s high drama realizes
In visions, dreams, and enterprises,
That lift to godhood mortal men!
Naught is impossible to Heaven,
Nor to the puissance of youth!
Imagination’s quickening leaven
Works in the pulsing brain and being
Till every sense hath second-seeing
And all that should be true is truth.
O glorious falsehood and illusion!
Call not the lover’s transports lies:
The white light of his heart in fusion
Makes visible the far ideal,
Only the low earth is unreal,
Secure the lover walks the skies.
I trod with thee the starry spaces,
I told the only tale I knew;
We dwelt in spirit, not in places,
And, if the promises then spoken,--
Be witness, O my God!--were broken,
The promising was heavenly true.
UNRECONCILED.
When winter’s loom of cloud
Weaves robes of snow
To wrap the hills in shroud,
My meditations go
Where shuddering tempests blow
Above a little grave.
When spring’s pale wild-flowers wake
Where sunbeams play,
Must not my full heart break?
Birds, blossoms, come with May,--
Would that, some happy day,
My child could come again.
When air-built cloud-fleets sail
Blue summer’s sky,
And violets exhale
Their fragrant souls and die,
My soul lifts Rachel’s cry,
For, oh! the child is not.
Most mournful time of all
Is when the leaf
Fades, withering to its fall,
Ending its term so brief,
Like him, my joy, my grief,
Lost in the senseless grave.
The new moons come and go,
Stars rise and set,
Time’s healing waters flow
Across my wound, and yet
Grief cannot pay love’s debt;--
Love’s solace is to mourn.
ANNIVERSARY.
This is your birthday, dearest? Dearest wife,
Fond sweetheart of my youth and of my prime,
Lover and friend and comrade, in whose life
I live unconscious of the flight of time!
Three-score? and must we grant it so? Why, then
Thank Heaven we have tasted life thus long,
For life is rich, and shall grow sweeter when
Like mellowing wine age renders it less strong.
We shall grow old together, count the years,
Welcome each sunrise and each setting sun;
Together laugh our laugh or weep our tears,
Wait, act and suffer, till the sands be run.
I owned Golconda and the Coast of Pearl,
Being a boy--it was but yesterday;
One shared my fortune, giving hers--one girl--
Whither, my darling, fled youth’s dream away?
Where are the morning and the wealth of spring?
Gone with the air-built castle--vanished, gone!
The dew of youth went sunward, and the wing
Is broken now that soared at golden dawn.
It is too late for riches, land and gold;
Too late to pluck the flaming rose of power;
My hands have bled to gather what they hold--
Buds of dead hope--ambition’s phantom flower.
Yet all I am I dedicate to you,
As on our spousal morning, Love, and bring
This heart-born offering to pledge anew,
In Autumn song, the promises of Spring.
AMAUROTE.
Safe in towery Amaurote
Now I dwell;
From the tumbling sea my boat,
Like a bell of foam afloat,
Up Anyder’s refluent stream
Voyaged well;
And I woke unto a dream
Realized in realm remote
Of Utopia.
Whiles my eudæmonian guide
Thrummed her lyre,
Charmful o’er the billows wide,
In the distance I espied
Gleam of opalescent dome,
Golden spire;
Then my soul foreknew its home
Far beyond the roaring tide,
In Utopia!
All was sooth as poets old
Gave renown;
All that seers and sages told,
Fabling of an Age of Gold;--
Towery Amaurote was there,
Blissful town!
Far away from everywhere,
Flushed with rosy light, behold!
In Utopia.
Visioned splendor reared from naught
Rose sublime;
Art and Beauty thither brought
All Imagination taught
Of the mystery of Man
And of Time;
Wisdom, smiling on the plan,
Bade the wonderwork be wrought,
In Utopia!
Have I eaten of the lote
So its spell
Laps and lulls me to devote
Hours Lethean, far remote
From the dreadful things that be?
Nay, I dwell
Where o’er dream-deeps Poesie
Sang me, in a foam-bell boat,
To Utopia.
THE END