When the skies lour dark
O'er the plague-stricken bark
As she drifts on the desolate sea,
How sad is the Song of the Sea!
When overhead hangs the dun cloud,
Like a pall o'er the dead sailor's shroud
As he sinks in the vast wandering sea,
How sad! how sad!
How sad is the Song of the Sea!
I'll sing you a Song of the Sea!
When the fierce lightnings flash,
And the stormy waves dash,
And the rocky shore looms on the lee,
How dread is the Song of the Sea!
When the hearts of the bravest will quail
As they shrink from the furious gale
And the wrath of the menacing sea,
How dread! how dread!
How dread is the Song of the Sea!
ALEXANDER RAE GARVIE
_From_ "PHANTASY"
Fancy many forms assumes!
'Tis a bee among the blooms,
In the noon of June, that sips
Honey from the heart and lips
Of Anacreon's glorious rose.
Now how warily it goes
Past grim dragons to the trees
Growing in Hesperides!
And anon with Jason hears
Sirens' luring song, and steers
Straightway from the fatal shore,
While each rower strains his oar.
'Tis a bat at twilight still,
Flitting round a lonesome mill;
'Tis a falcon fleet that flies
Into depths of opal skies;
Oft it is a sullen owl--
Pallas' learnëd pensive fowl,
Hooting hoarsely 'mong the trees;
And again, o'er troubled seas
As a petrel bold it wings
Tirelessly. Sometimes it sings
Lark-like in the heavens' scope
When dew gleams on grassy slope.
Roaming meadows, daisy-decked,
'Tis a child afoot, unchecked,
Gladness in her azure eyes,
As she sees with mute surprise
Brooding birds in hedges' heart,
Building nests with simple art.
And at dawning, near a mere,
Girdled by the bulrush spear,
Fancy as a heron stalks
Heedful of the hated hawks.
Fancy is a butterfly
Born to live brief life and die.
'Tis a pink-lipped shell afloat,
Fit for tiny fairy's boat;
Fair in fiction, false in fact,
Shunned by men who are exact,
Loved by poet whom it guides
When on Pegasus he rides;
Lover's joy when maid is true,
Lover's woe when, stricken through
With sharp dart, his trust is slain!
Bright and dark and bright again,
Phantom! none thy face may paint,
Since--now sinner, and then saint--
Thou dost peer from cowl or crown,
Now with smile, anon with frown.
Sweet Sprite! thou alone canst trace
Airy pictures of thy face;
Thou who limnest Rosamond,
Guinevere, and Juliet fond.
Fancy, Fancy, come and charm,
Grasped by clutch of graven gold,
Jove's fetters, her to have and hold!
This swift Ariel serves us well,
Lets us in the glamour's spell,
Drink beside Bacchante fair,
Toy with Pyrrha's braided hair,
Hear Apollo's matchless lute
And the twy-formed Faun's soft flute;
Shows us Aphrodite rise
From foamy seas to sunny skies,
Leads us down the track of Time,
Bears us into every clime;
Often paces kirkyard green
Mourning in her garb and mien,
Mingles with the dancing crowd,
Broiders banners, weaves a shroud,
Keeps a fast or festival--
Lean Lent here, there--Carnival
Starves or surfeits, Fancy free,
Sojourning in Italy.
As an Arab, lo! how calm
Under frondage of the palm;
Like a Norseman, winter-bound,
(Lest he be in dulness drowned);
Over ice on skate-blades whirs
Past the shaggy, sombre firs.--
Ha, my Fancy! art thou mad,
Or with Folly's mantle clad?
PIERCE STEVENS HAMILTON
_From_ "THE HEROINE OF ST JOHN"
I
'Tis dawn; but not such morning-tide
As we had guessed the eve before:
Armed ships within our harbor ride,
And armëd men are on the shore.
But these are not the ships, or men,
That sailed with Sieur La Tour away:
Ah, no, their vengeful chief we ken,--
Accurst D'Aulnay de Charnisé!
Now quick the drum is beat to arms;
We run the flag of France on high;
The battle fierce each bosom warms,
And adds a light to every eye.
And forth our lady chieftain came,
All fearless from her chaste alcove;
But first she snatched from duty's claim
One moment for a mother's love;--
One moment pressed her darling child,
And kissed its slumbers with a tear;
One moment more from warfare wild--
She breathed a brief impassioned prayer;
Then to the ramparts hied in haste,
To personate her absent lord,--
A baldrick o'er her swelling breast,
And by her side a pendant sword.
With glowing cheek, and eye that gleamed,
And voice forbidding all alarm,
Yet graceful, beautiful, she seemed
A warrior in an angel form....
II
Now dark D'Aulnay a parley seeks;
Demands surrender of the fort!
But, ha! soon back his herald takes
An answer fearless, prompt, and short:--
"Madame will hold this fort St John,
As she has held it once before,
Despite of every robber loon,
For France and for her lord, La Tour."...
Three days D'Aulnay's beleaguering force
Assailed our fort with might and main;
To every wile he had recourse,--
To fail again and yet again....
No craven cry our lady heard,
Though small our band and sorely pressed;
One soul our every action spurred,--
Her lion's heart in woman's breast!...
III
'Twas Easter morn.--A sudden cry!--
Our every heart a moment quailed:--
"The guard!--quick--ho!--the enemy
Our ditch and parapet have scaled!"...
Too true: a rampart's coin they'd won,
With skulking treachery for their guide;
De Charnisé himself led on,
With Ponce--the traitor!--by his side.
With one wild shout of "Vive La Tour!"
We dash upon their bristling van;
Where waves our lady's sword before,
Herself unscathed by fiend or man.
Our headlong charge the foe appalled;
They shrank; they staggered--turned for flight;
D'Aulnay a parley loudly called
And waved the craven signal white.
He vaunted his o'erwhelming force;
Our stout defence, he said, was well;--
Our longer strife would end in worse;
He offered terms most honorable.
Our lady viewed, with pitying eye,
Her band toil-worn, diminishëd;
With heaving breast and deep-drawn sigh,
She slowly, sadly bowed her head.
IV
Our keys surrendered, arms laid down,
We--penned and prisoned helplessly;--
Then dark and vengeful was the frown
Of stern D'Aulnay de Charnisé.
That demon in a human form,
Dark-souled, incarnate treachery,--
Now swore, with loud upbraiding storm,
The prisoned garrison should die....
No sound, no utterance, passed her lips,
The while that awful deed was done;
As if her soul were 'neath eclipse--
Her beauteous form transformed to stone.
Then, with one long, loud piercing shriek,
That form upon the earth she cast.
No more can D'Aulnay vengeance wreak:
The heroine's heart has burst at last!...
S. FRANCES HARRISON
VILLANELLE
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars,
Straight and sharp, of a gay glad green,
My jonquil lifts its yellow stars.
Barter, would I, for the dross of the Czars,
These golden flowers and buds fifteen,
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars?
Barter, would you, these scimitars,
Among which lit by their light so keen
My jonquil lifts its yellow stars?
No, for the breast may burst its bars,
The heart its shell, at sight of sheen
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars:
Miles away from the mad earth's jars,
Beneath a leafy and shining screen,
My jonquil lifts its yellow stars.
And I--self-scathed with mortal scars,
I weep, when I see, in its radiant mien,
Sprung from a sword-sheath fit for Mars
My jonquil lift its yellow stars.
CHÂTEAU PAPINEAU
The red-til'd towers of the old Château,
Perched on the cliff above our bark,
Burn in the western evening glow.
The fiery spirit of Papineau
Consumes them still with its fever spark,
The red-til'd towers of the old Château!
Drift by and mark how bright they show,
And how the mullion'd windows--mark!
Burn in the western evening glow!
Drift down, or up, where'er you go,
They flame from out the distant park,
The red-til'd towers of the old Château.
So was it once with friend, with foe;
Far off they saw the patriot's ark
Burn in the western evening glow.
Think of him now! One thought bestow,
As, blazing against the pine trees dark,
The red-til'd towers of the old Château
Burn in the western evening glow!
SEPTEMBER
I
Birds that were gray in the green are black in the yellow.
Here where the green remains rocks one little fellow.
Quaker in gray, do you know that the green is going?
More than that--do you know that the yellow is showing?
II
Singer of songs, do you know that your Youth is flying?
That Age will soon at the lock of your life be prying?
Lover of life, do you know that the brown is going?
More than that--do you know that the gray is showing?
NOVEMBER
These are the days that try us; these the hours
That find, or leave us, cowards--doubters of Heaven,
Sceptics of self, and riddled through with vain
Blind questionings as to Deity. Mute, we scan
The sky, the barren, wan, the drab, dull sky,
And mark it utterly blank. Whereas, a fool,
The flippant fungoid growth of modern mode,
Uncapped, unbelled, unshorn, but still a fool,
Fate at his fingers' ends, and Cause in tow,
Or, wiser, say, the Yorick of his age,
The Touchstone of his period, would forecast
Better than us, the film and foam of rose
That yet may float upon the eastern grays
At dawn to-morrow.
Still, and if we could,
We would not change our gloom for glibness, lose
Our wonder in our faith. We are not worse
Than those in whom the myth was strongest, those
In whom first awe lived longest, those who found
--Dear Pagans--gods in fountain, flood and flower.
Sometimes the old Hellenic base stirs, lives
Within us, and we thrill to branch and beam
When walking where the aureoled autumn sun
Looms golden through the chestnuts. But to-day--
When sodden leaves are merged in melting mire,
And garden-plots lie pilfered, and the vines
Are strings of tangled rigging reft of green,
Crude harps whereon the winter wind shall play
His bitter music--on a day like this,
We, harboring no Hellenic images, stand
In apathy mute before our window pane,
And muse upon the blankness. Then, O, then,
If ever, should we thank our God for those
Rare spirits who have testified in faith
Of such a world as this, and straight we pray
For such an eye as Wordsworth's, he who saw
System in anarchy, progress in ruin, peace
In devastation. Duty was his star--
May it be ours--this Star the Preacher missed.
THEODORE ARNOLD HAULTAIN
BEAUTY
Only in dreams she appears to me,
In dreams of the earth, and the sky, and the sea;
In the scent of the rose, the breath of the spring,
The cloud of the summer, glistening;
In the sound of an orient forest dim,
Scarce heard far off on ocean's rim
By wondering traveller who descries
Naught of all its mysteries;
In the wash of the wave, the sigh of the sea,
The laughter of leaves on the wind-tossed tree.
Her hair is the dusk of an autumn night,
Her brow the moonbeam's pallid light,
Her voice is the voice of the wind and the wave,
When the breeze blows low and the ripples lave
The feet of a wooded mountain hoar
Rising on southern storied shore.
The breath from between her hallowed lips
Is the breath exhaled from a rose that sips
The dew on a lucid April day,
Soft as the spring, as summer gay.
In the flush of the early morning mist,
Which the fervid sun has barely kissed,
Far down in the balmy-breathing dale,
I get a glimpse of her flimsy veil.
In the glow of the lurid sunset hue
I see the robe which her limbs shine through.
On the grass-blade wet I see the tears
Her eyes have shed for our hopes and fears.
Her eyes ... her eyes ... the infinite deeps
Of the holiest heavens where God He keeps
All that is beautiful, good, and true--
Her eyes are the infinite heaven's blue,
Gazing in sad serenity
On restless, frail humanity.
On softly-breathing evening still,
Alone, where the whispering wayward rill
To the love-sick leaves, which gently dip
Low down to kiss it, lip to lip,
Tells secrets strange of love and pain,
Which the leaves lisp back to it again,--
Ah! then I dream that my love comes nigh,
And think that I hear her softly sigh.
Or when, on a windy summer day,
(The golden sunshine-gleam on the bay)
To me, ensconced far out on the high
And rocky weed-strewn promontory,
Come multitudinous sights and sounds--
The rush of the boisterous wave which bounds
Far up the cliff, the sea-bird's call,
The flying spume, the cloudlets small
That dance through the ether hand in hand--
The joy suffused o'er the sea and the land,--
Then, too, I dream that my love is near,
And think that I catch her laughter clear.
Only in dreams she appears to me,
In dreams of the earth, and the sky, and the sea.
CHARLES HEAVYSEGE
MAGNANIMOUS AND MEAN
Open, my heart, thy ruddy valves;
It is thy master calls;
Let me go down, and curious trace
Thy labyrinthine halls.
Open, O heart, and let me view
The secrets of thy den;
Myself unto myself now show
With introspective ken.
Expose thyself, thou covered nest
Of passions, and be seen;
Stir up thy brood, that in unrest
Are ever piping keen.
Ah! what a motley multitude--
Magnanimous and mean!
NIGHT
'Tis solemn darkness; the sublime of shade;
Night, by no stars nor rising moon relieved;
The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,
O'er which my eyeballs roll in vain, deceived.
Upward, around, and downward I explore,
E'en to the frontiers of the ebon air,
But cannot, though I strive, discover more
Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.
Oh, Night, art thou so grim, when, black and bare
Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn,
Like a nude Ethiop 'twixt two houris fair,
Thou stand'st between the evening and the morn?
I took thee for an angel, but have wooed
A cacodæmon in mine ignorant mood.
THE COMING OF THE MORN
See how the Morn awakes. Along the sky
Proceeds she with her pale, increasing light,
And, from the depths of the dim canopy,
Drives out the shadows of departing night.
Lo, the clouds break, and gradually more wide
Morn openeth her bright, rejoicing gates;
And ever, as the orient valves divide,
A costlier aspect on their breadth awaits.
Lo, the clouds break, and in each opened schism
The coming Phœbus lays huge beams of gold,
And roseate fire and glories that the prism
Would vainly strive before us to unfold;
And, while I gaze, from out the bright abysm
A flaming disc is to the horizon rolled.
THE MYSTERY OF DOOM
'Twas on a day, and in high, radiant heaven,
An angel lay beside a lake reclined,
Against whose shores the rolling waves were driven,
And beat the measure to the dancing wind.
There, rapt, he meditated on that story
Of how Jehovah did of yore expel
Heaven's aborigines from grace and glory,--
Those mighty angels that did dare rebel.
And as he mused upon their dread abode
And endless penance, from his drooping hands
His harp sank down, and scattered all abroad
Its rosy garland on the golden sands;
His soul mute wondering that the All-wise Spirit
Should have allowed the doom of such demerit.
JOHN FREDERIC HERBIN
SIMON
I
Simon bent to his hissing saw,
Simon the chopper gnarled and tough,
All the years, till his hands were rough
As the clumsy shape of a bruin's paw,
Knotted and big with his labor long,
Yet sure in the work that made them strong.
Snarling with curse for his hairy throat,
Poverty feared his strong, rough grasp,
Sick with rage at the saw's bright hasp
That flashed with howl and cut with gloat.
The mother of death and a merciless fate,
She filled his life with the gloom of hate.
Yet his heart strives upward to his tongue
Incomplete in shreds of song
To help his heavy days along
Through life with mental clouds o'erhung.
Harsh as the saw the tunes depart,
Half-made and dull from the singer's heart.
II
Simon the sage worked night and day,
Simon the chopper wise and true;
Only his song to help him through,
And only his whistle to turn away
The endless gloom of a lowly place,
And the dreary tedium from his face.
His gleaming axe gives up to the light
Hearts of stubborn sticks and blocks--
A century maple or birch unlocks
Its fibres gathered through day and night;
And he marks it all with his ancient lore
As he reads the secret of bark and core.
In forest lore is Simon wise:
The beech that ripens on the hill,
The oak a century cannot kill,
Are well-read books before his eyes;
A forest beneath his axe has turned
In the fifty years his blade has burned.
He speaks and knows as a wise man knows,
Gathering together with dulling sense
The labor's grudging recompense,
Thoughtful and patient as wisdom grows.
He drifts away from the walks of men,
In a field where he alone has ken.
Simon is wise in days without tears,
Though arms never rest and work cannot sleep,--
Wise in the patience that never shall weep;
And toil looms yet in the coming years:
Ceaseless and hungry is human desire,
And Simon must feed the quenchless fire.
III
Simon the digger delves in the earth,
Preparing a pillow for weary head,
For tired limbs and heart a bed,--
Young, or gray, or dumb at birth,
He makes all ready with prelude dirge,
With careless foot on his own dark verge.
Like the book recording the village birth,
Fifty years he has kept the file
Of all defunct,--and who meanwhile
May soon desire a strip of earth
Are clearly writ--and the ancient book
Has stamped a gloom upon his look.
And he often grappled with death in the grave,
While Time stood by whetting his scythe.
Water may drip, and worms may writhe,
And the coffin will soon leave the chapel-nave:--
Who mourn the dead, as who soon forget,
Look into the grave, unburied yet.
First to come and last to go,
Simon waits on a fallen stone;
No tear, no fear, though he work alone
To make a grave where weeds may grow.
He fingers the sod with a tender care
As if part of the body resting there.
IV
Seasons have furrowed his features deep,
Bark-like and grim as the axe's food--
His days have grown slow with the growing wood--
Furrows that never smile or weep.
Axe and spade turn light away,
He labors in gloom at bright midday.
Seventy years of months and days
Weigh on his head and bend him down;
His brow with thought has become a frown.
Seldom a smile o'er his wrinkles plays,
For his labor makes him a gloomy lore;
Forgetting no face he has covered o'er.
V
Problems of living are hard to learn;
The duty is clear, reward but a hope;
Philosophy fails beyond life's dark scope.
The sage is the digger whose dawns return
That he drag the lingering minutes away--
There is no day but the present day.
What work is well when thrust to a close?
Wisdom foretells no hidden good;
Suffering follows the hardihood
Of plunging thus into future woes.
Living, alone, can quench distress;
The moment seized is the one to bless.
Poverty near, and death at his heels,
Simon is rich in the wealth of years;
Working for bread, without joy, without tears,
Till the changeless calm will gently steal
Across his face and will silence his song.
Where riches are equal his rest will be long.
THE DIVER
Like marble, nude, against the purple sky,
In ready poise, the diver scans the sea
Gemming the marsh's green placidity,
And mirroring the fearless form on high.
Behold the outward leap--he seems to fly!
His arms like arrow-blade just speeded free;
His body like the curving bolt, to be
Deep-driven till the piercing flight shall die.
Sharply the human arrow cleaves the tide,
Only a foaming swell to mark his flight;
While shoreward moves the silent ring on ring.
And now the sea is stirred and broken wide
Before the swimmer's passage swift and light,
And bears him as a courser bears a king.
ACROSS THE DYKES
The dykes half bare are lying in the bath
Of quivering sunlight on this Sunday morn,
And bobolinks aflock make sweet the worn
Old places, where two centuries of swath
Have fallen to earth before the mower's path.
Across the dykes the bell's low sound is borne
From green Grand Pré, abundant with the corn,
With milk and honey which it always hath.--
And now I hear the Angelus ring far;
See faith bow many a head that suffered wrong,
Near all these plains they wrested from the tide!
I see the vision of their final griefs that mar
The greenness of these meadows; in the song
Of birds I feel a tear that has not dried.
THE SONNET
How fair thou art the poets long have known;
And I have sought the beauty which is thine
Through many days and nights of cloud and shine,
Until one note of all sweet notes outblown
Has spelled my ear; for dearest things alone
Are found companionless; and the divine
And single inspiration shall entwine
The laurel till it fit the brow of one.
And thou art rare among the things most rare;
The beam consummate of the lights of day;
The fullest note struck from the living flood
Of melody; the gem that has most care
In the kind workman's hand, till he shall say,
"Thy beauty is the acme of all good."
ANNIE CAMPBELL HUESTIS
GENTLE-BREATH
Oh, Gentle-breath goes singing, goes singing through the grass,
And all the flowers know her and love to see her pass.
Oh, all the flowers know her, and well they know the song
That Gentle-breath goes singing, goes singing all day long.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!
They do not know you sing of death.
Oh, Gentle-breath comes crooning a tender lullaby.
The merry day is over, the stars are in the sky--
The stars are in the sky, and the flowers droop their heads,
They cannot hear her passing, so airily she treads.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!--
How mournfully she murmureth!
Oh, Gentle-breath comes crying--comes crying in the night
Among the sleeping flowers, with footsteps swift and light.
Her tears are on their faces--she sheds them for their sakes,
And there is in her singing a tender heart that breaks.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!--
How tunefully she sings of death!
Oh, Gentle-breath goes wailing--goes shivering away,
And Icy-breath comes howling, and clouds are dull and gray.
Oh, Icy-breath comes howling--the pine trees sob o'erhead
For the leaves that all have fallen, the flowers that are dead.
O Gentle-breath! O Gentle-breath!
They did not know you sang of death.
O promise sweet!--I hear it!--the falling of the rain!
The leaves once more shall rustle, the flowers come again!
The flowers come again, with their faces fresh and sweet,
And all the grass shall tremble 'neath the touches of your feet.
For you will come, O Gentle-breath!
And sing again your song of death!
THE LITTLE WHITE SUN
The sky had a gray, gray face,
The touch of the mist was chill,
The earth was an eerie place,
For the wind moaned over the hill;
But the brown earth laughed, and the sky turned blue,
When the little white sun came peeping through.
The wet leaves saw it and smiled,
The glad birds gave it a song--
A cry from a heart, glee-wild,
And the echoes laugh it along:
And the wind and I went whistling, too,
When the little white sun came peeping through.
So welcome the chill of rain
And the world in its dreary guise--
To have it over again,
That moment of sweet surprise,
When the brown earth laughs, and the sky turns blue,
As the little white sun comes peeping through!
TWENTY-OLD AND SEVEN-WILD
O Twenty, running through the wood!
Where friendly leaves and grasses stir,
Where airs are sweet and trees are strong,
And hiding birds call out to her,
And every little timid thing
That creeps within the woods to sing
Seems just to have a voice for her.
O Twenty, running through the wood!
A woman grown, and yet a child!
Now in the sun, now in the shade--
The wild gone out to meet the wild.
And who can say life is not sweet
To eager eyes and fearless feet
To Twenty-old and Seven-wild.
She leaves the quiet road that winds
Its pretty way the whole wood through
And makes a pathway for herself,
As who at Twenty would not do?
Unseen and seen, the wind and she
Go through the bush and round the tree--
Go roving 'round and singing through.
Such pleasure just to lose herself!
O Seven-wild! O Twenty-old!
The shadows stealing from the night
Tread measures strange with gleams of gold.
And Mayflowers lift their faces pink:--
Now who could look at them and think
Of being young or being old?
O Twenty, running through the wood!
Its wildness has a power to still;
The voices low from rock and twig
The silences with music thrill,--
And suddenly _she_ silent grows,
And, searching out the path she knows,
Turns back--but carries home the thrill.
WILLIAM EDWARD HUNT
GOLDEN-ROD
Beshrew the coinëd gold!--and so take heed,
Nor palter with the dross to form a god--
Behold, the dandelion gilds the clod,
The buttercup adorns the dewy mead!
Doth it not bring contentment to thy greed?--
Then satiate thine avarice: the sod
Gleams with illimitable golden-rod,--
And of a surety thou art rich indeed!
The burnished banner of the summer's prime
Waves happy mortals to a golden feast
(The largess rare of yon high Eastern priest!)
Unstained by goaded greed, or shame, or crime.
Oh, glorious yellow golden-rod!--sublime
Free-offering to the greatest and the least.
THE SEA'S INFLUENCE