That touched our spring with golden scent;
Now in the garden low upon
The wind-stripped way its stalk is bent.
Our rose of dreams is passed away,
That lit our summer with sweet fire;
The storm beats bare each thorny spray,
And its dead leaves are trod in mire.
The songs Love sang to us are dead;
Yet shall he sing to us again,
When the dull days are wrapped in lead,
And the red woodland drips with rain.
The marigold of memory
Shall fill our autumn then with glow;
Haply its bitterness will be
Sweeter than love of long ago.
The cypress of forgetfulness
Shall haunt our winter with its hue;
The apathy to us not less
Dear than the dreams our summer knew.
INDIAN SUMMER[44]
[From _Kentucky Poems_ (London, 1903)]
The dawn is warp of fever,
The eve is woof of fire;
And the month is a singing weaver
Weaving a red desire.
With stars Dawn dices with Even
For the rosy gold they heap
On the blue of the day's deep heaven,
On the black of the night's far deep.
It's--'Reins to the blood!' and 'Marry!'--
The season's a prince who burns
With the teasing lusts that harry
His heart for a wench who spurns.
It's--'Crown us a beaker with sherry,
To drink to the doxy's heels;
A tankard of wine o' the berry,
To lips like a cloven peel's.
''S death! if a king be saddened,
Right so let a fool laugh lies:
But wine! when a king is gladdened,
And a woman's waist and her eyes.'
He hath shattered the loom of the weaver,
And left but a leaf that flits,
He hath seized heaven's gold, and a fever
Of mist and of frost is its.
He hath tippled the buxom beauty,
And gotten her hug and her kiss--
The wide world's royal booty
To pile at her feet for this.
HOME[45]
[From _Nature-Notes and Impressions_ (New York, 1906)]
A distant river glimpsed through deep-leaved trees.
A field of fragment flint, blue, gray, and red.
Rocks overgrown with twigs of trailing vines
Thick-hung with clusters of the green wild-grape.
Old chestnut groves the haunt of drowsy cows,
Full-uddered kine chewing a sleepy cud;
Or, at the gate, around the dripping trough,
Docile and lowing, waiting the milking-time.
Lanes where the wild-rose blooms, murmurous with bees,
The bumble-bee tumbling their frowsy heads,
Rumbling and raging in the bell-flower's bells,
Drunken with honey, singing himself asleep.
Old in romance a shadowy belt of woods.
A house, wide-porched, before which sweeps a lawn
Gray-boled with beeches and where elder blooms.
And on the lawn, whiter of hand than milk,
And sweeter of breath than is the elder bloom,
A woman with a wild-rose in her hair.
LOVE AND A DAY[46]
[From _The Poems of Madison Cawein_ (Indianapolis, 1907, v. ii)]
I
In girandoles and gladioles
The day had kindled flame;
And Heaven a door of gold and pearl
Unclosed, whence Morning,--like a girl,
A red rose twisted in a curl,--
Down sapphire stairways came.
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love: "What must I do,
All on a summer's morning?"
Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me: "Go woo.
If she be milking, follow, O!
And in the clover hollow, O!
While through the dew the bells clang clear,
Just whisper it into her ear,
All on a summer's morning."
II
Of honey and heat and weed and wheat
The day had made perfume;
And Heaven a tower of turquoise raised,
Whence Noon, like some pale woman, gazed--
A sunflower withering at her waist--
Within a crystal room.
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love: "What must I do,
All in the summer nooning?"
Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me: "Go woo.
If she be 'mid the rakers, O!
Among the harvest acres, O!
While every breeze brings scents of hay,
Just hold her hand and not take 'nay,'
All in the summer nooning."
III
With song and sigh and cricket cry
The day had mingled rest;
And Heaven a casement opened wide
Of opal, whence, like some young bride,
The Twilight leaned, all starry eyed,
A moonflower on her breast.
Said I to Love: "What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?"
Said I to Love: "What must I do,
All in the summer gloaming?"
Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."
Said Love to me: "Go woo.
Go meet her at the trysting, O!
And 'spite of her resisting, O!
Beneath the stars and afterglow,
Just clasp her close and kiss her--so,
All in the summer gloaming."
IN A SHADOW GARDEN[47]
[From _The Shadow Garden, and Other Plays_ (New York, 1910)]
Shadow of the Man: Elfins haunt these walks.
The place is most propitious and the time.--
See how they trip it!--There one rides a snail.
And here another teases at a bee.--
In spite of grief my soul could almost smile.--
Elfins! frail spirits of the Stars and Moon,
'Tis manifest to me 'tis you we see.--
We never knew, or cared, once.--Would we had!--
Our lives had proved less empty; and the joy,
That comes with beautiful belief in everything
That makes for childhood, had then touched us young
And kept us young forever; young in heart--
The only youth man has. But man believes
In only what he contacts; what he sees;
Not what he feels most. Crass, material touch
And vision are his all. The loveliness,
That ambuscades him in his dreams and thoughts,
Is merely portion of his thoughts and dreams
And counts for nothing that he reckons real;
But is, in fact, less insubstantial than
The world he builds of matter-of-fact and stone.
That great inhuman world of evidence,
Which doubts and scoffs and steadily grows old
With what it christens wisdom.--Did it know,
The wise are only they who keep their minds
As little children's, innocent of doubt,
Believing all things beautiful are true.
UNREQUITED[48]
[From _Poems_ (New York, 1911)]
Passion? not hers! who held me with pure eyes:
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sere
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she! whose voice was music-sweet;
Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer.
Sweetheart I called her.--When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope, or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a wildflower's fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird;
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.
A TWILIGHT MOTH
[From the same]
Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on its state
Of gold and purple in the marbled west,
Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,
Or dim conceit, a lily bud confessed;
Or of a rose the visible wish; that, white,
Goes softly messengering through the night,
Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.
All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-harmed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces,--that no bee might greet,
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;--
Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.
Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturnes of fragrance, thy wing'd shadow links
In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith,
O bearer of their order's shibboleth,
Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.
What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear
That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,--
A syllabled silence that no man may hear,--
As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?
What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,
Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,
Some specter of some perished flower of phlox?
O voyager of that universe which lies
Between the four walls of this garden fair,--
Whose constellations are the fireflies
That wheel their instant courses everywhere,--
Mid faery firmaments wherein one sees
Mimic Bootes and the Pleiades,
Thou steerest like some faery ship of air.
Gnome-wrought of moonbeam-fluff and gossamer,
Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest
Mab or King Oberon; or, haply, her
His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.--
Oh for the herb, the magic euphrasy,
That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah me!
And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Copyright, 1896, by Copeland and Day.
[44] Copyright, 1903, by the Author.
[45] Copyright, 1906, by the Author.
[46] Copyright, 1907, by the Author.
[47] Copyright, 1910, by the Author.
[48] Copyright, 1911, by the Macmillan Company.
GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
Mrs. George Madden Martin, the mother of _Emmy Lou_, was born at
Louisville, Kentucky, May 3, 1866. She is the sister of Miss Eve Anne
Madden, who has also written several delightful books for children.
She was educated in the public schools of Louisville, but on account
of ill-health her training was concluded at home. In 1892 Miss Madden
was married to Mr. Attwood R. Martin, and they have made their home at
Anchorage, Kentucky, some miles from Louisville, ever since. Mrs.
Martin's first book was _The Angel of the Tenement_ (New York, 1897),
now out of print, which she seemingly regards with so little favor
that it is seldom found in the list of her works. _Emmy Lou--Her Book
and Heart_ (New York, 1902), made her famous throughout the
English-reading world. It ran serially in _McClure's Magazine_ during
1900. It is a masterpiece and, though she has published several
stories since, this remains as her best book hitherto. Little "Emmy
Lou" gets into the reader's heart in the most wonderful way, and, once
there, she will not be displaced. She is the most charming child in
Kentucky literature, a genuine creation. Mrs. Martin's short novel,
_The House of Fulfillment_ (New York, 1904) won her praise from people
who could not care for her child, though the heroine was none other
than "Emmy Lou" in long skirts. This was followed by _Abbie Ann_ (New
York, 1907); _Letitia: Nursery Corps, U. S. A._ (New York, 1907), was
a very winsome little girl, who causes the men of the army many
trials and vexations at various military posts where her parents
happened to be stationed. _Emmy Lou_ and _Letitia_, as has been
pointed out by one of Mrs. Martin's keenest critics, regard childhood
through the eyes of age and are best appreciated, perhaps, by adults;
while _Abbie Ann_ sees childhood through a child's eyes, and is
certainly more appreciated by children than by grown-ups. Two of Mrs.
Martin's most recent stories, _When Adam Dolve and Eve Span_, appeared
in _The American Magazine_ for October, 1911; and _The Blue
Handkerchief_, in _The Century_ for December, 1911.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _McClure's Magazine_ (February, 1903); _The Outlook_
(October 1, 1904); _McClure's Magazine_ (December, 1904).
EMMY LOU'S VALENTINE[49]
[From _Emmy Lou--Her Book and Heart_ (New York, 1902)]
About this time rumors began to reach Emmy Lou. She heard that it was
February, and that wonderful things were peculiar to the Fourteenth.
At recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines. The
echoes reached Emmy Lou.
The Valentines must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing.
And to get no valentine was a dreadful thing--dreadful thing. And even
the timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats.
Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was
she to survive the contumely and shame?
You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your
valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to
prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things
reached Emmy Lou.
Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so
grateful did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine.
And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the
Fourteenth day of February. The drug-store window was full of
valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see
them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a
valentine. And she would have to say, No.
She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she
went to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her
wraps. Nor did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through
the crack of the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room.
Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something
square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all
over flowers and scrolls.
Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink.
She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it.
Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door opened.
Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her book, for
since you must not--she would never show her valentine--never.
The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and
Emmy Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being
able to say it.
Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but
no one else might see it.
It rested heavy on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading
on it. She studied surreptitiously. The reading was made up of
letters. It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She
knew some of the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did
not know by pointing them out on the chart at recess. Emmy Lou was
learning. It was the first time since she came to school.
But what did the letters make? She wondered, after recess, studying
the valentine again.
Then she went home. She followed Aunt Cordelia about. Aunt Cordelia
was busy.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou.
Aunt Cordelia listened.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "and e?"
"Be," said Aunt Cordelia.
If B was Be, it was strange that B and e were Be. But many things were
strange.
Emmy Lou accepted them all on faith.
After dinner she approached Aunt Katie.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, "m and y?"
"My," said Aunt Katie.
The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to
copy them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom
was out at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the
other boy was gone.
"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the
slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.
Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little
girl, and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.
Now she was alone, so she stopped.
"Get any valentines?"
"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's
friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it."
"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been
reading the long verses inside to me."
"Can you show them--valentines?" asked Emmy Lou.
"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl.
The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and
the aunties, sitting around, reading.
"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou.
They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it
came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to
come back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been
forgotten. Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing
because of the mother who would never come back, and looked troubled.
But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee.
In the valentine's centre were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's
forefinger pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands.
"I can read it," said Emmy Lou.
They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked
over Aunt Cordelia's shoulder.
"B," said Emmy Lou, "e--Be."
The aunties nodded.
"M," said Emmy Lou, "y--my."
Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n,
e--Valentine. Be my Valentine."
"There!" said Aunt Cordelia.
"Well!" said Aunt Katie.
"At last!" said Aunt Louise.
"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie.
FOOTNOTE:
[49] Copyright, 1902, by McClure, Phillips and Company.
MARY ADDAMS BAYNE
Mrs. Mary Addams Bayne, novelist, was born near Maysville, Kentucky,
in 1866. Upon the death of her parents, she made her home with her
brother, Mr. William Addams of Cynthiana, Kentucky, recently an
aspirant for the gubernatorial chair of Kentucky. Miss Addams was
married to Mr. James C. Bayne, a banker and farmer of Bagdad,
Kentucky. Mrs. Bayne was a teacher and a short-story writer for some
years before she became a novelist. Her first book, _Crestlands_
(Cincinnati, 1907) was a centennial story of the famous Cane Ridge
meeting-house, near Paris, Kentucky, the birthplace of the Stoneite or
Reformed church. _Crestlands_ is important as history and
entertainingly told as a story. It was followed by _Blue Grass and
Wattle_ (Cincinnati, 1909), the sub-title of which is more
illuminating, "The Man from Australia." This novel relates the
religious life of a young Australian, educated in Kentucky, and his
many fightings within and without form an interesting story. From the
literary standpoint _Blue Grass and Wattle_ is an advance over
_Crestlands_, and it is an earnest for yet superior work in Mrs.
Bayne's new novel, now in preparation. In the fall of 1912 Mrs. Bayne
purchased the old Burnett place at Shelbyville, Kentucky, and this she
has converted into the most charming home of that town.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters of Mrs. Bayne to the Author; _The Christian
Standard_ (December, 1907).
THE COMING OF THE SCHOOLMASTER[50]
[From _Crestlands_ (Cincinnati, 1907)]
The spirit of Indian Summer, enveloped in a delicate bluish haze,
pervaded the Kentucky forest. Through the treetops sounded a sighing
minor melody as now and then a leaf bade adieu to the companions of its
summer revels, and sought its winter's rest on the ground beneath. On a
fallen log a red-bird sang with jubilant note. What cared he for the
lament of the leaves? True, he must soon depart from this summer-home;
but only to wing his way to brighter skies, and then return when
mating-time should come again. Near a group of hickory-trees a colony of
squirrels gathered their winter store of nuts; and a flock of wild
turkeys led by a pompous, bearded gobbler picked through the underbrush.
At a wayside puddle a deer bent his head to slake his thirst, but
scarcely had his lips touched the water when his head was reared again.
For an instant he listened, limbs quivering, nostrils dilating, a
startled light in his soft eyes; then with a bound he was away into the
depths of the forest. The turkeys, heeding the tocsin of alarm from
their leader, sought the shelter of the deeper undergrowth; the
squirrels dropped their nuts and found refuge in the topmost branches of
the tree which they had just pilfered; but the red-bird, undisturbed,
went on with his caroling, too confident in his own beauty and the charm
of his song to fear any intruder.
The cause of alarm was a horseman whose approach had been proclaimed
by the crackling of dried twigs in the bridle-path he was traversing.
He was an erect, broad-shouldered, dark-eyed young man with ruddy
complexion, clear-cut features, and a well-formed chin. A rifle lay
across his saddle-bow, and behind him was a pair of bulky saddle-bags.
He wore neither the uncouth garb of the hunter nor the plain home-spun
of the settler, but rather the dress of the Virginian cavalier of the
period, although his hair, instead of being tied in a queue, was
short, and curled loosely about his finely shaped head. The broad brim
of his black hat was cocked in front by a silver boss; the gray
traveler's cape, thrown back, revealed a coat of dark blue, a
waistcoat ornamented with brass buttons, and breeches of the same
color as the coat, reaching to the knees, and terminating in a black
cloth band with silver buckles.
He rode rapidly along the well-defined bridle-way, and soon emerged
into a broader thoroughfare. Presently he heard the high-pitched,
quavering notes of a negro melody, faint at first and seeming as much
a part of nature as the russet glint of the setting sun through the
trees. The song grew louder as he advanced, until, emerging into an
open space, he came upon the singer, a gray-haired negro trudging
sturdily along with a stout hickory stick in his hand. The negro
doffed his cap and bowed humbly.
"Marstah, hez you seed anythin' ob a spotted heifer wid one horn broke
off, anywhars on de road? She's pushed down de bars an' jes' skipped
off somewhars."
"No, uncle. I've met no stray cows; but can you tell me how far it is
to Major Hiram Gilcrest's? I'm a stranger in this region."
"Major Gilcrest's!" exclaimed the darkey. "You'se done pass de turnin'
whut leads dar. Did' you see a lane forkin' off 'bout a mile back by
de crick, close to de big 'simmon-tree? Dat's de lane whut leads to
Marstah Gilcrest's, suh."
"Ah, I see! but perhaps you can direct me to Mister Mason Rogers'
house? My business is with him as well as with Major Gilcrest."
"I shorely kin," answered the negro, with a grin. "I b'longs to Marse
Mason; I'se his ole uncle Tony. We libs two mile fuddah down dis heah
same road, an' ef you wants to see my marstah an' Marstah Gilcrest
bofe, you might ez well see Marse Mason fust, anyways; kaze whutevah
he say, Marse Hiram's boun' to say, too. Dey's mos' mighty thick."
The stranger turned his head to hide a momentary smile.
"You jes' ride straight on," continued Uncle Tony, pointing northward
with his stick; "fus' you comes to a big log house wid all de shettahs
barred up, settin' by itse'l a leetle back frum de road, wid a woods
all roun' it--dat's Cane Redge meetin'-house. Soon's you pass it, you
comes to de big spring, den to a dirty leetle cabin whar dem pore
white trash, de Simminses, libs. Den you strikes a cawnfiel', den a
orchid. Den you's dar. De dawgs and chickens will sot up a tur'ble
rumpus, but you jes' ride up to the stile and holler, 'Hello!' and
some dem no-'count niggahs'll tek you' nag and construct you inter
Miss Cynthy Ann's presence. I'd show you de way myse'f, on'y Is'e
bountah fin' dat heifer; but you carn't miss de way."
With this he hobbled off down the road in search of the errant heifer.
Meanwhile our traveler rode steadily forward until, in another
half-hour, he came in sight of a more prosperous-looking clearing than
any he had seen since leaving Bourbonton.
FOOTNOTE:
[50] Copyright, 1907, by the Standard Publishing Company.
ELIZABETH CHERRY WALTZ