[Illustration]
SPIDER-WEBS IN VERSE
A COLLECTION OF
LYRICS FOR LEISURE MOMENTS
SPUN AT IDLE HOURS
BY
CHARLES WILLIAM WALLACE
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND LITERATURE
WESTERN NORMAL COLLEGE
“The spider’s touch--how exquisitely fine!”
--_Pope._
LINCOLN, NEB.:
STATE JOURNAL COMPANY, PRINTERS.
1892.
COPYRIGHT 1892
BY
C. W. WALLACE
TO
JUDGE T. D. WALLACE
AND
MRS. OLIVE WALLACE.
MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER:
No word, no act, no consecrated gift of mine, how great or slight
soever it may be, can ever repay the beneficence and love of you to
whom I owe life and whatever of prosperity has been granted me.
As my eyes glance in retrospect along the fading perspective of years
and lose themselves in the dim days of the cradle, and thence to the
present look forwards to the distant peaks of hope that rise above
unknown mists and shadows and horizons, I hear the counseling words
of a father, and feel the ever-present touch of a mother’s hand, as
both guide me with love into the dim unknown of life. Though I pass
onwards with a father’s “God-speed,” and a mother’s lingering embrace
and loving kiss, and leave you both fondly looking after me, still your
presence in my memory is ever a guiding reality that even now directs
this good right hand of mine to inscribe these dedicatory words of
filial affection.
If in the days agone I ever seemed unheeding of that counsel of
a father, and unmindful of that dearest love of a cherished and
cherishing mother, I can but say that both that counsel and that love
reach through those moulding and shaping years of my life and take hold
on my heart with a firmness and a gentleness that nothing else of all
the years can boast.
It is but right and just, therefore, that in these your later days
I should likewise be your guide and your stay in so far as my hand
may let;--that I should reach out my strong young arm and steady the
tottering years that throng around you.
Withal, if I can afford you even one slight pleasure, it is my heart’s
desire so to do. It is, therefore, with somewhat more than filial love
that I dedicate this little volume to you, my Father and my Mother,
both together my counselor and guide, still mercifully spared to your
children; and in doing so, I can but express the hope that your years
may yet be many and happy; that the iris struck by a New Sun from the
crystals of the whitened and whitening wintry years may be as full of
beauty and joy as were the early spring blossoms of love and hope that
you pressed to your bosoms in youth.
Your Son,
CHARLES.
BY THE WAY.
As the presentation of these collected verses in their present printed
form has been induced largely by the request of many of my former
college students and by the importunities of my most intimate friends,
and as this volume has consequently been prepared chiefly for their
pleasure, it is hoped that those into whose hands the book may fall
are already so well acquainted with the author that the selections
themselves need no formal introduction to make them agreeable company
and engaging companions.
In justice, I should here say that this collection contains only a
few out of the vast number of good, bad, and indifferent pieces of
verse that I have been making at odd hours of a busy life, ever since
my boyhood, for my own pastime, pleasure, and literary and linguistic
improvement, with no thought nor distant dream of ever permitting them
thus to invade the domains of the sovereign public.
That the little book that thus modestly goes forth will attain either
a large circulation or great popularity I neither expect, nor attempt
to bring about; but that men and women with hearts that love and souls
that look above may find much quiet pleasure and satisfaction in the
following pages I do sincerely hope.
It is neither my desire nor befitting to my work to lay claim to
any degree of excellence in the verses herein presented. Quite to
the contrary, I see and regret many defects which I can now neither
remove nor repair. But, however defective they may be in form or in
spirit, I have ever thought that little else than the interpretation
of the relations of the human soul to life, here and hereafter, and
the presentation of the good, the beautiful, and the true of the human
heart is worthy of serious effort.
As a consequence, most of these pieces are dual in meaning--one, in
plain view, the reality; the other, less distinct, the finer ideality,
the reflection, or mirrored image of the first.
It is this second, this finer and often, at first, obscure meaning
that, in my judgment, is the essential--the preserving salt--of any
poem. Certainly if not this meaning but the apparent one, the one on
the surface, is the basis of judgment on these poems, they will fall
far below the estimate accorded that poetry which is deemed worthy of
existence.
I wish here to return my thanks for the hearty reception accorded the
few selections of the prospectus, and to express the hope that the
completed volume will equal whatever expectations the recipients of the
prospectus may have.
Also, I cannot pass without noting the fact that a large share of the
first edition of this volume was engaged nearly six months before it
went to press, even before I had determined what productions I should
use, and that, too, upon the mere announcement that the publication was
contemplated for the present summer.
I wish, therefore, thus publicly to thank those who have given this
substantial earnest of their appreciation.
Any opinion or criticism, favorable or unfavorable, or any suggestion
or correction on thought, arrangement, typography, or other point, that
the reader may see fit to express, is not only invited and encouraged,
but will be most gratefully received and carefully considered.
One word more. If a selection will not bear a second reading, or a
third, a fourth, or a fiftieth reading; if it does not grow better and
better at each reading; if it does not lift the soul to a higher plane,
a nobler aim, a purer life, and a grander view; if at each successive
reading something does not come out of it and enter the heart, and
then pass back into the poem again, and thus again and again, each
beautifying and ennobling the other, like a sunset halo among the
clouds and the liquid, translucent image thereof in the mirroring lake,
then it is no true poem, and should be cast aside.
The only proof of the excellence of a poem is that it makes the heart
larger and the soul nobler for having read it, and that at each
successive reading both the poem and the reader grow better and better.
Believing, as I do, that poetry is nothing less than the interpretation
of the Divine in the human heart (whether in the mood of tears or of
laughter), I can but hope, in entrusting these “children of the brain”
to the care of others, that in the heart of each little waif some good
may be found, some song may be heard, some beauty be revealed, some
experience be verified.
C. W. W.
LINCOLN, 22 June, 1892.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Barefoot After the Cows, 6
Beautiful May, 62
Borrowing Brains, 52
Boy Bards, 178
Browning, 116
Buzz, 141
Choral of Sunset, A, 1
Chorus, 110
Close Attachment, A, 126
Come to the Shadows, 12
Common Lot, The, 17
Dead Man’s Life, The, 124
Death--Life, 135
Death-Howl, The, 131
Deep unto Deep (Double Threnody), 65
Demoniac, The, 128
Deploration, A, 122
Down to the Candy-man’s Shop, 10
Dreamy April Evening in the Woods, A, 109
Echo Song, 18
“False Womankind,” 32
Family of the Ephemera, 36
Father Time, 148
Freedom’s Battle Song, 142
Gift and Giver, 8
Good-Night, My Love, 71
Good-Night (Song), 68
Gravity--Life, 134
Greatest Thing on Earth, The,--
I. From Sun to Sun, 178
II. What the Striving? 179
III. The World is Too Much Ours, 180
IV. Hand and Heart, 181
V. Courting the Crowd, 182
VI. Immortal and God-given, 183
VII. Asking Hearts, 184
VIII. The Crowning Glory, 186
Hal a-Huntin’, 144
Halloween, 51
Happy Days of Yore, 156
Haunted House, The, 20
Hot?--Well, Rather! 135
Human Heart, The, 28
Humpty Dumpty Idiotic Chap, A, 66
If So, Peace Till Next New Year, 46
I Love You, Kate, 123
In the Angels’ Keep, 58
I’se Seen a Light in de Sky, 34
I Wonder, 44
Just as Usual, 121
Life, 52
Life’s Lost Skiff, 125
Life’s Philosophy, 120
Life to Love (A Triolet), 11
Lonely! 33
Lone Wayside Wild-Rose, The, 59
Lover’s Complaint, The, 140
Lurlei, The, 111
Madrigal, 117
Memories of the Past, 156
Mince Pie, 14
Mist-Wing, 15
Modern Tragedy Averted, A, 25
’Mong the Mountains of the Soul, 143
Mortal, A, 105
My Defeat, 46
Nightmare, The, 30
Old Benoni Tree, The, 2
On Kingsley’s “Farewell,” 150
On Plucking a Crocus, 133
Our Alma Mater, 147
Part of the New England Lament, etc., 150
Pity the Poor, 124
Poet’s Prayer, The, 2
Press of Penury, The, 50
Rex Fugit, 118
Shut In, 40
Shut Your Eyes and Go to Sleep, 115
Sickle of Flowers, The, 118
Sleep (Sonnet), 55
Slumber Rhapsody, A, 5
Song of the Stars, 42
Song on the Sea, 56
Sonnets of Life, 23
Sorto’ Played-Out Ol’ Bouquet, A, 9
Soul of My Soul, 13
Sweetest of All, The, 138
Tears and Laughter, 14
There’s a Laugh, 47
This Touch of an Angel’s Hand, 119
Thought, 58
Through Reverent Eyes, 71
Thus Life’s Tale, 149
To a Wild-Rose Bouquet, 55
To Fancy, 69
To Miss ----, 114
To Morpheus, 108
To Sleep, 49
To Thee Above, 109
Tough Mutton, Perhaps, 114
Transformation, The,--A Psychological Mystery, 151
Twenty, 61
Ups and Downs, 2
Useless? 105
Washington, 142
Weather Fiend, The, 129
What is Poetry? 76
Wheel and Shuttle, 49
White-Enthroned Above Me, 59
Whither? 147
Who Knows? 131
Woodland Lay, 57
Words and Thoughts, 117
Write from the Heart, 146
Year Ago, A, 137
SPIDER-WEBS IN VERSE.
A CHORAL OF SUNSET.
I’ve a notion the clouds at sunset
Sing chorals in the sky
As they let down their billowy tresses
And kiss
The sun
“Good-bye!”
And the music comes in at the portals
That Heaven has left in the heart,
As the shine gets into the flower
Where the leaves
Have slipped
Apart.
THE POET’S PRAYER.
Sweet Zephyr from celestial isles
That all the earth with joy beguiles,
I would that thou wouldst blow to me,
And blow to me thy purest breathing song;
I would that thou wouldst come to me
And tell to me whate’er is right and wrong;
I would that thou wouldst lay thy hand
And rest thy hand upon my throbbing brow,
And that the words thou giv’st to me
And tak’st from me would be received as thou.
UPS AND DOWNS.
The world is like a coach and four,
And men as there you find ’em:
For some must ride and some must drive
And some hang on behind ’em.
Or like the farmer’s ’tater cart,--
The best on top to brag on:
For some must rise and some must fall
Like ’taters in the wagon.
THE OLD BENONI TREE.
Brother Grant, do you remember
Days and years we spent together
Thro’ the summer’s shiny weather
Till apples dropped in late September?
Nurtured where the warm suns shine in,
We were dreamers then, my brother,
As we lisped to one another,
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
Guess you haven’t forgotten that yet,
Have you? I can shut my eyes and
See the old tree where we sat yet,--
Hear the rhythm of that thing rise and
Fall like echoes of the distant brine in
Some fair shell; and like it clinging
To the past, my heart keeps singing,
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
I’ll be plagued if I can tell yet
What that hitching nonsense jingle
Meant, can you? I can smell yet,
Tho’, the blossoms;--hear the lingle
Of the bells of lolling kine in
Slaughter’s grove;--see the pink of
Fruit above us when I think of
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
I can taste those old Benoni
Apples yet--(fall apples--mellow
As the winds that kissed the bony
Branches into blossom; yellow--
Butter-yellow--and as fine in
Taste as Flemish Beauty pears were)--
For our burdensomest cares were,
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
Ah, my boy, you haven’t forgotten
How with wooden men we pounded
Them when green till almost rotten
Just to get the juice out? Sounded
Mighty tempting with that wine in
There just squushing for the skin to
Burst and let us both fall into
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
Ha! ha! ha! what little scheming
Rascals we were then, my laddie!--
Knock off apples just half-dreaming
Ripeness, stain the stems that had a
Fresh look with some dirt--divine in
Innocence!--then run to mother,
Each one chuckling to the other,
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
Tell her then we’d found them lying
On the ground (we had, too!) asking
If we might not have them, trying
Every childish art, nor masking
Mouths just watering to dine in
Glory on them. When we’d got our
“Yes!” all earth I’m certain, caught our
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
Oh the days and days together
In the lazy days of childhood
Through the shade and shiny weather
Of the Long Agone’s deep wildwood
When we clad our men of pine in
Every phase of human action,
Sang to them the old “attraction,”
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een”!
Through my hazing, half-closed lashes
As I watch the steady blazing
Of my fangled oil-stove, plashes
Of that olden rhythm come lazing
From the lethy mists, and shine in
Irised splendors where the tilting
Timid Robin still is lilting,
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
Oh the golden old Benonis
With a heart as rich and yellow
As the moon, no apple known is
Half so high or half so mellow,
For they’ve drunk the sun’s whole shine in
And preserved our boyhood’s story
With it’s olden, golden glory,
“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”
A SLUMBER RHAPSODY.
Sleep, sleep, sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
The wind is in the west
And night is on the deep,--
Sleep and rest, rest and sleep,
Sleep, sleep.
Dream, dream, dream and sleep, dream and sleep,
The stars their vigils keep
And skies with glories gleam.
Dream and sleep, sleep and dream,
Dream, dream.
Sleep, rest, dream and rest, sleep and dream,
The morning sun will beam
And cares thy day infest,--
Rest and sleep, sleep and rest,
Rest, rest.
BAREFOOT AFTER THE COWS.
I am plodding down the little lane again
With my trousers rolled above my sunburnt knees;
And I whistle with the mocking-bird and wren
As they chatter in the hedging willow-trees.
And my foot as light and nimble as the airy wings they wear
Trips along the little lane again to-day;
And my bare feet catch the tinkle thro’ the silent summer air
Of the jingle-langle-ingle far away.--
Klangle-ling ke-langle,
Klingle-lang ke-lingle
Dingle-lingle-langle down the dell;
Jingle-langle lingle,
Langle-lingle r-r-angle,
Ringle-langle-lingle of the bell.
From the lane across the prairie o’er the hill
Down a winding little path the cows have made,
In my thought to-night I’m going, going still,--
For the sinking Sun is lengthening its Shade!
And I find them in the hollows--the hollows of the dell
And I find the drowsy cattle in the dell,
By the ringle-rangle-jingle,--the jangle of the bell,
By the ringle and the jangle of the bell.--
Klang-ke-link ge-lingle,
Jangle-ling ke-langle,
Klink ke-langle-lingle down the dell;
Klangle-link ke-langle,
K-link ke-lank ke-lingle,
Lingle-link ke-langle of the bell.
As the cows across the prairie homeward wind
O’er the hill and toward the broadened sinking sun,
Steals a silence o’er the wooded vale behind
Where their shadows, lengthened, darken into one.
And I whistle back the echoes,--the echoes left behind,
That are wand’ring in the tangles of the dell;
And in answer to the message--the message that I wind,
Call the echoes of the klangle of the bell:--
Langle-langle lingle,
Lingle-langle lingle,
Lingle-lingle-langle down the dell;
D-r-r-ingle-langle-langle,
R-r-angle-ringle-langle,
Langle-lingle-r-r-angle of the bell.
At the lighting of the Candles of the Night
When my tangled locks have found the pillow’s rest,
I can hear the langle-lingle, soft and light,
Like the cradle-rocking lulling of the blest.
And upon the ear of Fancy--of Fancy born of Sleep,
Comes the klangle from a distant dreamy Dell;
For the angels lull me dreaming--dreaming in their keep,
To the klingle-langle-lingle of the bell.--
Kling-ge-lang-ge-lingle,
Klangle-lingle-langle,
Langle-lingle-lingle from the dell;
Kling-ge-ling-ge-langle,
Ling-ge-lang-ge-lingle,
Lingle-lingle-langle of the bell.
GIFT AND GIVER.
Not what we give, but what we share.--_Lowell._
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.--_Shakespeare._
Not the binding of this book
Nor its leaves with marble edge;
But the poet’s heart and soul
In each thought upon the page
Makes the book of worth,
Lifts us from the earth,
From the common sod
Nearer unto God.
Not the gold that’s in the gift
Nor the sense of doing duty;
But the giver in the gold
With a heart that’s full of beauty
Makes the gift of worth,
Lifts us from the earth,
From the common sod
Nearer unto God.
A SORTO’ PLAYED-OUT OL’ BOUQUET.
They’re withered--sorto’ withered now,
They’ve got a musty smell;
So I must shet the book up tight
An’ set an’ wait a spell.
They’re withered--sorto’ withered now,
They’ve lost their red an’ green,
An’ the leaves are crushed an’ crumpled up
With crinkled buds atween.
They’ve got a sorto’ musty smell
That almost makes me sick,
For they ’mind me o’ the days in June
We got ’m ’long the crick.
They wan’t no style about them tho’,
Like city flowers is--
They’s jist the good ol’-time Wil’-Rose
That God set out fer His.
I stuck ’em in this Good Ol’ Book
Long ’fore they drooped an’ died,
An’ here each day they’ve smiled at me
When I have only cried.
I touch ’em--an’ I touch her hand
That put ’em here in mine!
I see ’em--an’ I see her lips
More temptin’er ’an wine.
’T’s a sorto’ played-out ol’ bouquet,
Ol’-fashion’ roses too;
But then it’s beautif’ler to me
Than fresher ones to you.
Jist let me look agin--’y jing!
I see her smile there yet!
Somehow it sorto’ all comes back,
An’ I see her smile there yet.
They’re withered--sorto’ withered now,
They’ve got a musty smell;
So I must shet the book up tight
An’ set an’ wait a spell.
DOWN TO THE CANDY-MAN’S SHOP.
Here we go hippety-hop,
All for a stick of candy
Down to the candy-man’s shop--
Tell you what he’s a dandy.
All for a stick of candy
Hippety-hop we go.
Tell you what he’s a dandy
Givin’ us candy you know.
Hippety-hop we go,
Head-over-heels in our hurry.
Givin’ us candy you know
Sets us all in a flurry.
Head-over-heels in our hurry
Into the candy-man’s shop;
Sets us all in a flurry
Goin’ it hippety-hop.
Into the candy-man’s shop
Everybody just tumbles,
Goin’ it hippety-hop,
’Cause, you see, _he_ never grumbles.
Everybody just tumbles
Makin’ the candy-man grin,
’Cause, you see, _he_ never grumbles,
No matter how we come in.
Makin’ the candy-man grin,
Here we are crowdin’ and pushin’;
No matter how we come in
He knows the wush we’re a-wushin’.
* * * * *
_Return._
L-l-lp! but that’s better’n ma’s jelly,
Down to the candy-man’s shop!
Hang to my hand now, Nellie,--
Here we go hippety-hop.
LIFE TO LOVE.
_A Triolet._
It is life just to love
With a heart’s true devotion:
’Tis the great law Above.
It is life just to love,--
For the soul just to move
With a sweet, wild emotion.
It is life just to love
With a heart’s true devotion.
COME TO THE SHADOWS.
_A Pantoum._
Come to the shadows of eve
Falling like mantles around us;
Come where the winds ever weave
Songs in the tree-webs around us.
Falling like mantles around us
Sweet chime the vespers of love;
Songs in the tree-webs around us
Waft from some Idean grove.
Sweet chime the vespers of love
Borne by the zephyrs of even;
Waft from some Idean grove
Lydian measures of heaven.
Borne by the zephyrs of even
Love in his quiver bears
Lydian measures of heaven,
Softest of musical airs.
Love in his quiver bears
Aye when the star-flowers blossom
Softest of musical airs,
Night folding Day to his bosom.
Aye when the star-flowers blossom
Love sings the sweetest of themes;
Night folding day to his bosom
Lies down to rapturous dreams.
Love sings the sweetest of themes
Bidding my heart that yet never
Lies down to rapturous dreams
Fold thine own close to mine ever.
* * * * *
Out ’mid the dew-loved flowers
Come where the winds ever weave
Love in the web of the hours,
Come to the shadows of eve.
SOUL OF MY SOUL.
Out on the river that rolleth forever,
Floweth forever and moaneth for aye,
Floateth a sorrow that never shall borrow
Peace to release it from me to the sea.
Sorrow that ever my sad heart’s quiver,
Sheathing alone this one arrow of woe,
Binds as the billow that never shall pillow
Crest on the breast of the moaning flow.
O Stygian water, of heart-breakings fraughter,
Far more aburdened of mournful commotion
Than night is of stillness or Hell is of fellness,
Knoll thou and toll my ocean devotion!
Dash thy dread roll ’gainst my turbulent soul,
Strike till its tones shall thy moanings control,
Bearing emotion as deep as the ocean
Unto the one who is soul of my soul!--
Unto the maiden whom angels of Aidenn,
Wandering over the strand of the blest,
Enviously stole from the heart of my soul,
Bore to thy shore and prest to thy breast.
Let not thy plashing and turbulent dashing
Grate on the ear of my radiant Love;
Kiss her bright tresses with fondest caresses
Controlling thy rolling with love from above.
Her fair form enfold on thy bosom cold,
Rowing her soft with thy Lethean oar;
Whisper, oh whisper, as winds of the wold
Unto the one whom they bore to thy shore.
Farewell, fair Minevr! soft over the river
Unto thy rest shall the waves gently roll,
Where never forever death-rivers dissever
Heart from fond heart, or thy soul from my soul.
MINCE PIE.
Tell me not in great big _numbers_
Facts can never _lie_;
For no fact in muddled slumbers
_Lies_ so heavy as mince pie.
TEARS AND LAUGHTER.
Tears are often liveries stolen
From the equipage of grief;
Nor in Anger’s red eyes swollen
Do they e’er disguise the thief.
Tears are often pettish, Darling,
Like the foamy fretting run;
Like the foam they sparkle, Darling,
At the kisses of the sun.
Tears, true tears, are sad and lonely
Like the ocean’s music bars;
Like the music, vanish only
With the cycles of the stars.
Tears are often pent-up gladness,
Like the clouds that hold the bow;
Like the clouds they use their sadness
That their joys may better show.
Tears may often be imploring
Like the waves that kiss the skies;
Like the waves, for’er adoring,
They reflect their loved one’s eyes.
Tears? They are but kin to laughter,
Wedded as the night and day;
Like the day and night, each after
Each prepares the other’s way.
MIST-WING.
Oh my heart was light and airy
Like the mist-wing of the fairy
That I loved;
And I sang with song enchanting,
For the angel I was wanting
Dwelt above.
And I fain had clasped the maiden
In her mist-winged robes of Aidenn
With my love;
But my eyes were blind with gleamings,
And my hands, bound fast by dreamings,
Would not move.
Then my heart, with horror filling,
Mid-leap froze with awful chilling
Like to death;
For upon her mist-wings thrilling
Did a demon blow his chilling,
Blasting breath.
Where my Mist-Wing fair was ferried
There my hope and heart lie buried,
Turned to stone;
There the dreams of bygones cheery
Drone a dreary, ceaseless, weary
Monotone.
Where my fairy floats forever
O’er the ripples of the river,
Bound in sleep,
There my fondest fancies follow
And with haunting features hollow
Vigils keep.
From a star a light is streaming
In her golden tresses gleaming
Fair as Hope;
Fade the phantoms faster, faster,
From the Morning-star, life’s vaster
Horoscope.
She is waking, waking, waking,
And my soul and body breaking
Swift apart.
Joy! my spirit soon shall hold her
And forever more enfold her,
Heart to heart.
THE COMMON LOT.
_Choriambic._
Sweet bird, sitting so sad singing your song there on the limb
alone,
Why make all the sad world sympathize with every mournful tone?
Ah yes! weep then, my dear, over the loss of the dear one you love:
All hearts weep with you, dear, weep for some heart lured to the
land above.
Yet not even the deep river of tears rolls from the heart the
stone;
No, naught save the white-robed Angel of Hope born of the soul
alone.
O dove! mourning alone, croon to the moon over the one you love;
O soul! Hope is thine own, throned in the white dome of thy home
above!
ECHO SONG.
Echo, be not heartless, I implore you,
Listen to my woe;
And I’ll evermore, as now, adore you
(Tho’ that augurs that I sometimes bore you)
For I fain would know
What’s to be done.
--“Be done!”
Oh but, sir, I must beseech, entreat you
That you hear me through.--
If a rare and radiant maid should meet you
And with smiles and wiles and pranks should greet you,
Pray, what’s one to do
When one sees her?
“Seize her!”
But I’m not quite well enough acquainted
With her, don’t you see?
Echo, when her lily face is painted
(On my soul), and at my heart she’s _feinted_,
And I’m blind as she,
How can I seize her?
“See, sir.”
But alas! the laws of Love prohibit
That his subjects see;
And besides, explicitly inhibit
Other sight than blindness to exhibit.
What then? I can ne
“See,” nor “seize her.”
“Cease, sir.”
But, friend Echo (for you are most truly
Friend and counselor),
Love’s commands must all be followed duly
(Tho’ himself most blind and most unruly);
Hence I can’t “see,” sir,
“Cease,” nor “seize her.”
“Cæsar!”
Yes, that’s what I’ve been ejaculating,
But it’s idle breath.
Now, if this consuming passionating
Doesn’t stop its wild peregrinating
It’ll be my death.
Must I let it?
“Let it!”
Friend should answer friend more seriously
Nor play upon _grave_ words.
She’s affected quite as amorously
As who wakens you thus clamorously
With love’s scattered sherds,
Seeking surcease--
“Sir, cease!”
Nay, I _will not_ cease till satisfaction
Is obtained from you.
Tell me what to do in this distraction
And I’ll vary from it not a fraction.--
Truth is, there are two--
Ann and Mary.
“Marry!”
Tell me, Echo, O sweet Echo, tell me,
Oh and truly tell
What sweet thralling charm should most impel me
That no other wight may quite excel me
When I choose my belle
For matrimony--
“Money.”
Tell me then without equivocation
If you value health,
Swear it by the hills, your habitation,
Whence you issue like an exhalation,--
Which one has the wealth?
Truly answer--
“Ann, sir.”
Thanks to thee, sweet Echo, Love’s pathfinder!
We shall never part.
Forthwith I will hie me forth and find her
And the wealthiest jingling love-songs wind her
Till I win her heart
_And_ earn her _mine_.--
“_Ann!_--dern her _mine_!”
[This last he hears in after years.]
THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
Hope and Love have gone away
Closing every window-blind,
Locking every door behind,
Bearing off the key.
Tenantless the musty house
Throws on passers-by its gloom;
Nor in any haunted room
Dares a living mouse.
Old and mouldy there it stands
All mysterious and lone
With its mosses overgrown--
Ruin’s myriad hands.
Useless grow the choking weeds
While the winding eglantine
And the morning-glory vine
Scatter wild their seeds.
Times there are when winds, hard pressed,
Gibber at the ghosts within,
Hollow-voiced with staring grin,
Uninvited guests.
Rumor, waking night and day,
Sees strange sights through window-panes,
Hears weird sounds of clanking chains
Sounding far away.
Rumor tells that Hope and Love
Walk the ghosts of murdered selves
When the midnight hour twelves:
Empty rooms they rove.
But malicious town-folk say
Hope and Love are not away
But art hiding day by day:
Murderers are they!
But alas! I would ’twere so!--
Would that Hope and Love each might,
Might return e’en tho’ at night,
Tho’ at morn they go!
For Despair and Hate hide there,
Quiet thro’ the daytime quite,
Ghosting sights and sounds by night,
Demons of the air.
Counterfeiters both are they,
Coining only after night,
Minting metal ghostly white,
Holding revelry.
Aye, ’tis haunted! Hate is wed,
Wedded to his mate Despair,
And they hold high revels there:
Hope and Love are dead!
Good my friends, remove the pile,
Ere it fall to foul decay;
Hope and Love have gone away,
Ruin feeds the while.
Hope and Love have gone away,
Closing door and closing blind,
Leaving Ruin lone behind,
Bearing off the key.
SONNETS OF LIFE.
I.
A brilliant battle Darkness fought with Light,
A brilliant battle all the living day;
The Sun, awearied in the deadly fray,
Sank vanquished ’neath his armored foeman’s might,
But flung his arms far up the black’ning height,
From the quiver of the planets joyously
Drew forth his arrows, star-tipped, feathery,
And pierced the iron-plated breast of Night
With ten thousand starry-spangled blades of fire.
Night, wounded by the arrows of the Sun,
Poured out ten thousand streams of living blood
That dripped from every fire-tipped arrow dire
Down in the sorrowing sea; and the wounds each one
And the arrows all lay skyed in the doming flood.
II.
Triumphant Darkness stretched his blackened height
Along the ground of heaven; all bleeding lay
Grim Night upon the heaving breast of Day,
Exulting with a demon’s own delight.
Reviving Sun again, with heaven-born might,
Upflung his hands, far up the eastern gray,
From the shining quiver of Divinity
Drew forth his shafts, white-hot with God’s own light,
And pierced the mail of Night, blood-rusting red,
With countless dazzling fire-tipped darts of gold.
Down into the Lethal power of Chaos dread
Sank vanquished Night with all the damned dead!
And ever over Darkness, ages old,
Triumphant ruleth Light,--the great Godhead!
SYMBOLS IN SONNETS OF LIFE.
On submitting this poem to critics, I find that various ideas are
gleaned. Some take it as a literal description of night and day, or
light and darkness! Others think that it celebrates the victory of
truth over error, right over wrong, virtue over vice, or possibly the
triumph of learning over ignorance, or civilization over barbarism.
This is not so surprising; for I confess it does, indeed, admit
various interpretations. Some say that in its obscurity, though in
nothing else, it somewhat resembles the work of some great poet.
The only consolation that I can squeeze out of all these various
opinions is that obscurity and occultness synchronously attend upon
and are concomitant with both iconographic delineations and symbolical
phraseology. ’Tis _said_ ’tis so,--and so ’tis sad!
“Sing a song o’ six-pence, pocket full of rye, four and twenty
black-birds baked in a pie,” etc., is comparatively meaningless, tho’
pleasing, unless we know what is symbolized. The “pie” is the _day_,
the “four and twenty black-birds” are the twenty-four _hours_ of the
_day_, etc., etc. The symbols thus completed give a new beauty to that
old jingle. In fact, it was that identical jingle with its symbols that
suggested _Sonnets of Life_.
As the title and staring Carlylean capitals throughout suggest, I
intended this poem to be a sort of _Analogue of Life_. In consequence
of all the foregoing, and for the delectation of those who care to read
the piece a second time, I have subjoined these
_Symbols and Notes._
I.
_Darkness_,--death.
_Light_,--life (on earth).
_day_,--one’s duration of life.
_Sun_,--one’s life.
_black’ning height_,--hour of death.
_quiver of the planets_,--thoughts, desires, longings, hopes.
_arrows_,--faith in the future.
_iron-plated breast of Night_,--gloom of one’s death.
_streams of living blood_,--hope others receive from the
Christian’s death.
_dire_,--i. e., _dire_ only to Darkness.
_sorrowing sea_,--sorrowing friends.
_skyed in the doming flood_,--acts, deeds, words, hopes, etc.,
of the dead, reflected in
humanity and especially in the
hearts of friends.
II.
_Reviving Sun_,--soul, on morning of resurrection.
_eastern gray_,--dawning of the morning of the resurrection
day.
_mail of Night_,--sleep of death.
_Last sonnet_ closes all life on earth, triumphs over death,
and brings the resurrection day.
_Last two lines_ begin and indefinitely extend the Life
Eternal.
This may aid somewhat. Too close an interpretation cannot be permitted
in any poem: ’twould make some of the most exquisite poetic thought of
literature ridiculous and nonsensical. The true poetic nature never
needs more in the interpretation of any poem than the title and the
naked poem itself to _suggest_ thoughts and images infinitely more
beautiful than explanation can possibly make them.
A MODERN TRAGEDY AVERTED.
HE (_in despondency_).
Heartless! heartless! Oh,
I know!
Tho’ your heart forget me
And my own be turned to stone;
Tho’ no day may let me
Claim my loved one as my own,
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true!
SHE (_faithfully_).
Heartless?--heartless!--So?
Ah no!
Tho’ long years divide us
With the burdened stream of care;
Tho’ the waves deride us
With a still unanswered prayer,
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true.
HE (_joyously_).
Then not heartless?! No!
No, no!
If I’ve wronged you, Dearest,
’Tis because I’m mad for love;
’Tis that you are nearest
When my thoughts in madness move.
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true.
SHE (_flippantly_).
Then not heartless? No!
Not so!
Tho’ you gave the treasure
Of your very life to me,
I thus at my pleasure
Give it back to you, you see!--
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true.
HE (_bitterly and sadly_).
Heartless! heartless! Oh
’Tis so!
All the world is dreary:
Stars and love have ceased to shine;
Oh the weary, weary
Night that endlessly is mine!--
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true.
SHE (_tauntingly_).
Ha! I’m heartless, tho’?
No, no!
I was only funning
And I didn’t mean it once;--
Never thought of running
Into love, you great big dunce.--
’Course, my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true!
HE (_in despair_).
Heartless! heartless! Flow,
My woe!
Oh this life is bitter!--
Poison, river, rope, or gun--
Any death is fitter
Than two hearts thus dead in one.--
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true.
_She_ (_in fear, imploringly_).
No! not heartless! No!
No, no!
I am true as ever;--
Oh _don’t_ take your precious life
And I’ll be forever
Your own darling little wife.--
Still my heart is true
To you,
Still is true,
Still is true.
THE HUMAN HEART.
_Birth._
Laughter is music and music is kin to laughter:
The heart has forgotten its tears;
For life is but death, and Death is the Life hereafter--
God is revolving the years.
_Joy on Account of Birth._
With a rose-bud goblet the Morning stands glowing and burning,
Sipping the heart’s night dew;
Through dream-laded lashes the flashes of joy are returning--
God is letting them through.
_Sorrow on Account of Death._
With a Spade all golden the Night of Sorrow is digging
Deep in the heart’s confines:
A Dream drifts out with a sable shroud and rigging--
God is working the mines!
_Soul Passes Beyond._
In the hands of the angels the cymballine stars are clinking
A wealth of music untold:
For the Rising of Life, as the sun, must follow its sinking--
God has coined His gold!
_L’Envoy._
Oh, laughter is music, and both are akin to sorrow,--
The heart holds the songs of the spheres;
For life is but death, and Death is the Life to-morrow--
God is speeding the years.
THE NIGHTMARE.
In the depths of my ink bottle,
With a fiery gleaming throttle
Stood a fierce and ghoulish demon all the day;
And the murky ink was lighted
With a fiendish fire that blighted
Every sprite of good that on its bosom lay.
And my pen, from Love’s own quiver,
Wrought of gold, began to shiver
With a fearful quaking terror born of death
As I touched the hellish-lighted
Surface of the Ink that frighted
Pluto’s self and stole Persephone’s sweet breath.
Hour after fearful hour
Stood that blasting, fiendish power
In whose grasp my golden pen was ground to dust.
Oh, the wasting, endless season
Chilling heart and killing reason
As the gloating demon glutted full his lust!
“Golden Pen that Love had given,
Wrought of gold from my heart riven,
Thus my palsied, broken heart must bury thee
In the fiendish ink, made blacker
By the demon’s fiery lacquer
On the surface of its dark uncertainty.”
Then a shadow came before me
And a loathing sickness o’er me
As the demon sank below and out of sight;
For I saw a stream of gold
That the demon could not hold
To the bottom of the darkness drip its light.
Then I knew that never, never
Would Love’s gold-illumined quiver
Bind again the shaft the demon could not hold;
For I saw a radiance shining
’Round the place, and angels twining
Strange and all-eternal Beauty of the gold!
Darkness reigned then, deep, unlighted,
Silence sitting near, half-frighted
By the demon’s disappointed distant wail
And far-off mingled angel voices
Tuned to music that rejoices
In the glory of a love that cannot fail.
* * * * *
Morning?--Thank God that all our seeing
And our seeming is not being!
Dear wife, let your warm cheek still against mine lie
While your loving arms and kisses
Doubly tell what loving bliss is.--
Warning:--Before you go to bed, don’t eat mince pie!
“FALSE WOMANKIND!”
ON READING A SLUR THAT WAS MADE ON HER BY THE LACK-LOVE GAY, OF QUEEN
ANNE’S DAY.
“False womankind, false womankind!”
Thus wails and rails a many a blind
And foolish heart, too long confined
Where light and love have never shined.
E’en sweetest Shakespeare’s pen, embrined
With biting bitterness of mind,
“As false as woman’s love,” has whined.
--Unkind the cut, the heart unkind.
“False womankind, false womankind!”--
I hurl the lie back from my mind
To those who thus a wreath have twined
Of roseless thorns to crown and bind
A sister’s crown, or mother’s kind
And sainted brow;--or twine and wind
It, thorns and all, round heart and mind
Of sweetheart-wife in love enshrined.
False, false the charge and false the mind
That ever says “False womankind!”
For the pæan ages wind
Unto me this truth they find
In the heart of humankind,
In the human heart enshrined:--
“None so false and none so blind
As whose loveless pens have lined
“What the heart has undermined,
‘False womankind, false womankind!’
None so true as _her_ we find:
None so pure of heart and mind,
None so sweet and so refined,
None so great and good and kind,
None so in the heart enshrined
As womankind, as womankind!”
LONELY!
TO ---- (LONG AGO DEAD.)
I am lonelier, lonelier, Dear, to-day
Than ever I’ve been before:
And the restless old ocean, foam-fretted alway,
Moans only of days of yore.
But somehow my heart is so sad in life’s whirl,
And my life is so shut in its shell,
Tho’ it heal every wound o’er with purest of pearl
Of naught but the sea will it tell.
Oh, lonely and lorn as the bittern’s boom,
I haunt every solitude known,
Only to find from the wide world’s room
A nameless something has flown.
I know not the reason, and fear nor I care;
I only know I am lonelier, Dear,
As over the well-wonted moorland I fare,
Than ever the death-wept tear.
How lonely, Dear! how long the time!--
But I’ll bear it, I’ll bear it for thee,
That at last I may join in the glad-voiced chime
Far out on the crystal sea.
I’SE SEEN A LIGHT IN DE SKY.
(A PLANTATION MELODY.)
Oh I’se gittin’ ol’ an’ grizzled,
An’ I haint got long to stay;
My head hab got to noddin’
An’ I haint right well noway.
Oh I’se gwine, gwine to leab you,
An’ doan’ you chillun cry;
Oh I know I’se gwine to leab you
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
_Chorus._
Oh yes! in de white clouds floatin’ high,
Oh yes! caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I,--
Oh I’se seen--
I’se seen a light,--
I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I’se gwine away to leab you,
An’ doan’ you chillun cry!
Oh I know I’se gwine to leab you
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh dat light am a-gittin’ brightah,
An’ de cloud am a-comin’ nigh,--
Oh I know hits de angels comin’
Fer to carry me home on high.
Oh dese eyes dey’ll nebber see you,--
Hoh my chillun doan’ you cry!--
Twell dey wake in de happy mawnin,
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
_Chorus._
Oh yes! in de white clouds floatin’ high,
Oh yes! caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I,--
Oh I’se seen--
I’se seen a light,--
I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I’se gwine away to leab you,
An’ doan’ you chillun cry!
Oh I know I’se gwine to leab you
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh good-bye to de ol’ plantation,
De mawnin’ am growin’ gray!--
Oh good-bye, an’ stop yo’ weepin’,--
De mawnin’ am breakin’ Day!
Oh yes! in de heaben dat’s comin’
I’ll meet you by-an’-by!--
Hoh yes! in de happy mawnin’,
Caze you’ll see de Light in de sky!
_Chorus._
Oh yes! in de white clouds floatin’ high!
Oh yes! caze you’ll see de Light in de sky!
Oh I,--
Oh I’se seen--
I’se seen a light,--
I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I’se gwine, gwine to leab you,
But I’ll meet you by-an’-by!
Oh I know I’se gwine to meet you,
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky.
FAMILY OF THE EPHEMERA.
(To be read in connection with the following poem, “Shut In.”)
Somewhere, sometime, I know not when or where, I have heard a strangely
beautiful and beautifully strange and altogether wonderful story--a
story of a pygmy people.
In the long, long ago that has slipped into the lethal tide of the flow
of Time where even the years have forgotten the rolling chime that
they used to sing to the shore of a heavenly clime (and where poets
don’t ever, nor ever, nor ever rhyme), whence even Tradition, asleep,
forgets to climb, so long ago that I don’t know but that the time still
antedates all dates, there lived the Family of the Ephemera.
As the sun came up in the morning, the race came into existence.
During the night, a toad-stool of wonderful dimensions had sprung up,
and beneath this over-shadowing phenomenon, built by the genii of
darkness, the first glint of the new day’s sun kissed the first born of
a new race--the Adam and Eve of the Family called Ephemera.
As the sun arose, and ere, e’en years ere it showed its lower disk,
the family increased most startingly. The whole of their known world
was peopled. They developed the resources of their vast little land.
They cultivated the soil. They delved in the mines for gold. They
carried on commerce with their widely scattered selves. They built
homes and cities. Their cities were magnificent, their houses built of
exquisitely carved and polished stone quarried from a grain of sand.
Each window was made of the filmy iridescence of a single sunbeam, and
curtained with richly embroidered tapestries woven from threads of the
delicate shadow cast by a single ray of spectral purple. Their tables
were filled with all the rich and dainty micros of the land. Withal,
they were a happy, though barbarous people.
The sun arose. Men of the present generation had already grown
gray-headed, while myriads of their posterity were just starting on
their paths. Generation after generation had already come and gone,
each leaving the wealth of its history, its experience, its scientific
researches, its learning to the inheritants of the next.
Centuries to them came and went, governments grew old, decayed, and
passed into tradition, while others sprang up in their places;--for to
this strange and fast-living people, our moments were days, our seconds
were months, our minutes were years, our hours were centuries, and our
days were ages untold that lap the two ends of time into one unbroken
eternity.
The sun was mid-forenoon. The Family of the Ephemera had grown old
and wise. They pointed with vaunting pride to their intelligence and
prosperity, to their grand achievements reaching down the long,
fretted colonnades of history and vanishing in the dim perspective of
tradition’s mystery. They looked upon all around, beneath, and above
them, and rejoiced that all was for them. Their wise philosophers
pointed to the sun and said, “All for us!” They told and taught how
that great sun had always remained in its present place; for even in
the memory of the oldest inhabitants no one had ever known the sun to
be in other place than now. Nay, even history knew it not. They said,
however, that there was a tradition, but not authenticated by history
nor by later scientific investigation, that the sun long, long æons ago
had occupied a position nearer the horizon. They showed how and why
all things were made for them; how the great toad-stool, towering an
immeasurable distance above them, had been placed on earth for them,
and them alone, and philosophized how it was impossible for another
to exist in the universe. They rejoiced that their little world was
created, and endowed with all its richest blessings, for none other
than them. They were a happy people, and prosperous. Their want of
wisdom made them more happy and more prosperous.
Centuries came and went. The sun stood in the zenith. So stood the
race of Ephemera. Wiser philosophers than those of the mid-forenoon
of their existence still pointed toward the great red sun, and said,
“It was always _there_; it was made for _us_!” Crowns crumbled. New
nations arose as from chaos, flourished, and died. Others took their
places. Schools had always been tolerated. They were now fostered. They
pointed their telescopes toward the mighty fret-work of the toad-stool
above them, and computed the number of huge radial beams that supported
its broad outer rim. The students of the universities and colleges
delved deep into the lore of their ancestral nations. They studied
history; they read their poets; they reasoned and computed with their
mathematicians; they looked down into the earth and up into the heavens
with their philosophers, and, withdrawing to their own narrow cells,
they said, “All for us, all for us!”
The sun passed the zenith, declining to the west. The race declined!
Still, philosophers said, pointing to the sun, “’Twas alway thus; ’twas
made for us!”
They said Time was for them, and them alone. They could not conceive
another similar or a different people. With prophecy, they looked into
the future. They claimed that, also: for a hope and a faith, placed
in their hearts at their creation, had grown and strengthened, that
they should all meet again in another world, a brighter and a better
world, all for them, all for them. The gods, with whom they peopled all
things, watched over and guarded them, and them alone.
The sun sank low. The lower limb touched the horizon. With the going
down of the sun, the race decayed in its old age. As the last ray of
sun passed over the land of the Ephemera, only two of this strange
Family, wandering hand in hand, old and lone, turned their eyes to the
waning light of the west, and sank to rest as the ray shot up and out
into the unfathomed sky beyond, and glinted its gold on the clinking
stars, the beautiful golden gates of the sable and iron-bound night!
Thus passed away the Family of the Ephemera. Strange, strange story!
A race wrapped up in themselves, never dreaming that there might be
innumerable other realms like their little own; that there might be
peoples on peoples beyond their ken in worlds unknown as superior to
them as the gods of Olympus were superior to the Romans.
A strange, strange story!--for we are looking through an inverted
microscope, the large end at the eye, and the small end turned upon
Time, Events, and the Human race!
SHUT IN.
I.
Oh the narrowness man has been born to descry in,
Where the convex surface of every eye,
Even unto the night of the day we shall die in,
Still perfectly fits in the concave sky!
II.
I wonder sometimes if the star-illusions
We see at first glance in the infinite sky,
Are not the suggestions, the far-intrusions,
Of systems on systems beyond the eye.
I wonder if ever the thought may confound them
Who inhabit a silvery orb of mist,
Seeing myriads of silvery others around them,
That myriads on myriads more may exist.
Oh say, do the sprites of each tiny frost-crystal
That burns with the pent-up fire of suns
Ever dream or imagine the same holy vestal
Is burning in myriads of similar ones?
Do the spirits that dwell in the dust of a sun-beam,
As each in its course like a planet whirls,
Ever know they are bathed in the light of but _one_ beam
From the sun of but _one_ mighty system of worlds?
III.
Oh the narrowness man has been born to descry in,
And the infinite bounds of his hopes and desires!
Even unto the night of the day he shall die in
Aspiring and falling he still aspires.
But I know in my heart that in worlds elysian
The convex surface of every eye,
With a perfected soul and an infinite vision,
Will range o’er a perfected, infinite sky.
IV.
For I dreamed a dream, in the midnight quiet,
Of a golden day in a happy time;
And my thoughts leaped up at the dream-god’s fiat
And sang in my heart this golden chime:--
O rise thou my soul, look beyond thy dark prison,
The warder is shifting the mortal bars;
An infinite sun in the east has arisen,
There’s an infinite system beyond the stars.
SONG OF THE STARS.
I dreamed one night when the golden stars,
Like an eastern maid o’er her soft kanoon,
Leaned out of their skyey bowers above
And sang in sweet measures an olden tune.