The wind swept down the clinging vines,
In twisting gusts the trees were bared,
It rocked and tossed the rasping pines;
Unmoved, amid the tempest there,
And as the wraith of grim despair,
Still clutched the limb, that dusky form,
Repeating to the driving storm,
“Who cares for me? Who, who?”
The arbor gleamed with tangled vines,
Where, erstwhile, hung, ’mid emerald sheen,
The clustering wealth of unpressed wines;
And charms of scarlet, gold and green,
With opulence of fruit and grain,
Poured riches for October’s reign;
Now, conquered, robbed, usurped her throne,
Her sorrow welling in the moan,
“Who cares for me? Who, who?”
* * * * *
The morning sun is mocking cold—
The vanquished queen stands, pale, forlorn,
Her gauzy veil of dream and gold,
And royal robes, all rent and torn,
With bannered glories, trampled down,
To bring her victor’s sparkling crown.
She feebly smiles and passes on
To join the old October’s, gone—
November wails—“Who cares.”
On the Beach.
O, tell me, rolling, tossing billow,
Where thy place of rest may be!—
Who shall find, and who peruse them,
Were these lines consigned to thee!
Will the wild winds catch and carry,
’Mid the waves tumultuous roar,
Leaving them where golden glory
Flames along the sunset shore?
Pillowed on thy throbbing bosom
_Where_ will this wee, waifling drift?
Will an eager hand stretch for it,
Thinking some strange tale to lift—
A record brief of direst peril
In a storm-wrecked sinking ship—
The moment when all hope had left them—
The tale ne’er told by human lip?
Or, will thy rolling, rocking cradle
Hold the casket unrevealed,
Till thy wrenching, prying fingers
Hath its secrets all unsealed?—
Dropping then the worthless trifle
Where wealth’s storm-wrecked treasures lie,
In thy mystic, wave-worn caverns,
Hidden aye, from mortal eye.
Hidden.
Oft the heart is full of weeping
When no tears escape the lids;
Bravely will stands guard o’er feeling
And the tell-tale flow forbids,
And for love of those who love us
Every sign of sorrow hides,
Counterfeiting joy and gladness
Where in secret, grief abides.
Though we try to gild with sunshine
Thorny paths we needs must tread,
Hiding, ’neath a show of courage,
That we go with shrinking dread—
Tho’ we hush the sob of mourning
For the strong true love we knew,
Yet affection’s sacred altar
With forget-me-nots we strew.
Every sentient heart holds hidden,
From the gaze of prying eyes,
All its sorrows. E’en its raptures
From such sharing it denies.
Love of some and dread of others
Shut the heart with bolts and bars;
We shrink to wound our loving dear ones—
We dread the sympathy that jars.
But, when night is darkly brooding
Over earth with raven wings,
Feeling may, with unseen fingers,
Sweep the spirit’s trembling strings.
Then, within its secret chamber,
May the heart’s own words be said—
There alone, with Love’s one taper,
All its bitter tears may shed.
My Robins Are Gone.
My robins are gone—
The last one has flown;
With a pang in my breast
I look into the nest
And know I’m forever alone.
The night will come in thro’ the crimsoning west,
Repeating that lesson of pain—
“The robin that once has flown out of the nest
Seeks never its shelter again.”
My robins are gone, etc.
O, glad was my heart with its fullness of love
When fondly I cared for them all,
But now I’m alone, in the shadowy grove,
And they are too far for recall.
My robins are gone, etc.
The world was so wide, and the skies were so blue,
They tempted my darlings away;
In the bright, dewy morning so buoyant they flew,
Nor dreamed of the noon-heat of day.
My robins are gone, etc.
I’ll stay by the lonely, embowered, old nest—
Some stars will beam down thro’ the night;
I’ll hush my heart’s cry with a “God knoweth best,”
And wait for the dawn of the light.
Tho’ my robins are gone,
Tho’ the last one has flown,
They’ll think of the tree
That is sheltering me,—
They’ll be to me ever my own.
Winterbloom.
Oh! beautiful winterbloom, why did you tarry?
O, why in Spring’s glory of budding and bloom,
Were hidden your jewels, wee, golden and starry,
To open them now, in November’s chill gloom?
The crocuses first heard the warm breezes calling,
The dandelions glowed in their emerald sea
And lilies, sun-kissed, in the lakelets were lolling—
All Flora’s enchantments were beckoning thee.
When June, in soft airs, swung her rose-freighted censer,
And dew gems were set with the buttercup’s gold—The
annual bloom, growing brighter and denser—
Why still, from the summer, your beauty withhold?
“When Spring in her gladness poured beauty around you,
And joy bells rang with most musical tone,
When opulent Summer with riches had crowned you,
My coming had then been unheeded, unknown.
Now flowers of springtime and summer have left you,
The winter’s foreclosure has shadowed the home—
Of the last clinging leaves the cold winds have bereft you—
As a friend in Adversity, now I am come.”
The Old Home.
The empty hammock, in the grove,
The playful breeze is swinging—
Wild birds, of varied note and plume,
In Babel jargon singing,
Come boldly near my silent door,
And e’en the woodland thrushes
Pour forth for me, their floods of song,
In sweet, melodious gushes.
And nearer still, the squirrels come,
Among the walnuts leaping,
And gather in their winter stores
Without the toil of reaping.—
The tennis plot is overgrown
With long, untrodden grasses—
Above it hangs, from unpruned boughs,
Their foliage wealth in masses.
The lichens lengthen on the trees—
They blotch, with gray, the fences
And prove decadence is of years,
Whatever our pretenses;
The storm-worn roof and gables all
Suggest inceptive mosses—
The ample house, with silent rooms,
Hope’s argosy and losses.
The shrubs that once bore stately bloom
Are now a bushy tangle,
Where tribes of beetles, thro’ the spring,
O’er blighted beauty wrangle;
And goldenrod, with kindly grace,
Hides, with her shining tassels,
Neglected spots, where once was built,
Young Fancy’s airy castles.
The bell, that called the dinner hour
With deep, revibrant clanging,
Is woven round with maple boughs,
Its stranded rope, down-hanging,
Has won a morning-glory bloom
To twine its frayed out fringes,
And trumpet vine creeps o’er the gate
To hide its broken hinges.
Now silence reigns where once was heard
The ring of childish laughter;—
They’ll come no more—“our little boys”—
In all the years hereafter;
Yet winds oft join with listless mood
To cheat me with the seeming—
A dimpled hand tugs at the latch—
But ah! ’twas only dreaming.
They’re out upon the field of Life
Where blades of strength are clashing,
Where true and false contend for aye
With thought’s bright spear-points flashing,
And we must hush love’s hunger-cry
And still the selfish yearning—
Must hide the heart’s fond worship, tho’
Its altar fires are burning.
But mother-love can make her strong
To check her own heart’s throbbing,
And bid them go with steady voice
While _self’s_ in secret, sobbing;
Then she will whisper broken words
Alone with God in prayer,
And find that heavenly blessing falls
For every cross we bear.
Thought.
Backward, backward Thought has traveled,
Back into the dim unknown,
When the spheres in cosmic star-dust
Circled His eternal throne—
Back where cosmogonic darkness,
Wrought upon by Spirit light,
Yielded elemental centers
And protoplastic satellite.
Back, where first creative forces,
By impulsion from “The Cause,”
Start the universe in motion,
Guided by unerring laws—
Hurl the spheric fiery masses
Thro’ abysmal depths of space—
Meting out to each an orbit
With defined, unchanging place.
Thought, from thence, fares down the aeons
Thro’ the long chaotic night,
While His omnipresent agents
(Each a vast deific might)
Fashion to His will and purpose
Thro’ infinitude of spheres;
In our own group change evolving
Till Earth’s infant life appears—
Till creation felt Time’s fullness,
Surging thro’ unmeasured night,
That should rend the swathe of vapors
With command—“Let there be Light—”
Felt the rolling, tossing tumult
Of the fierce, internal sweep
When the thunder-toned volcanos
Lifted lands from shoreless deep.
Then, from formless void emerging,
Earth spread wide her fields and hills,
Woke the untrod glooms with music
Of her new-born leaping rills;—
Then the firmament, in grandeur,
Lit its unveiled depths of blue
With the moon in full-orbed beauty
And the young stars beaming through.
And the sunshine thrilled earth’s bosom,
Quickened germ-imprisoned life—
Soon the hillsides and the valleys
Were with floral beauty rife;—Forests
robed the mountain ranges,
Bound their sun-crooned brows with green,
While the mighty, sea-fed rivers
Rolled in majesty between.
* * * * *
Farther on in Life’s gradations
He who tuned the spheric roll,
Back in Nature’s barred Arcana,
Gave and clothed the human soul.
Hush, oh thought, nor dare to question
_How_ creative laws adjust!
Canst thou comprehend Jehovah
Or the elemental “dust?”
Here, oh spirit, rest with child-faith;
Covet not forbidden things.
LIFE, the vainly sought for secret,
Proof, to us, of Godhood brings—
Of the Infinite, beyond us—
Far beyond the grasp of mind;—
Kneeling, trusting, here we worship
God—Jehovah, Undefined.
Columbus.
O’er the stormy, pathless seas,
Nobly proud, the Genoese
To a shadowed realm sailed;
With a will to brave and bear,
Sought he chance to do and dare,
’Mid the perils he must share
That Earth’s grandeur be unveiled.
Pilgrims sailed to lighted shores,
Hope and Home with open doors,
But thro’ dusky deeps, unknown,
Boldly this explorer plowed,
Facing danger’s darkling crowd
And Fate’s looming, gestant cloud,
From the waste of waters blown.
Heaven gave to him a soul
Finely fashioned to control
With a wondrous spirit might—
That should sweep of doubt and fear,
Broad and bright, a pathway clear—
By it lift a hemisphere
Into Freedom’s joyous light.
Purpose, daring were sublime—
His the crowning deeds of Time;
Life, for others’ gain, was spent
Opening Earth’s great treasure-doors—
Half a world with Bounty’s stores—
Mountains, rich in precious ores—
Caves with sparkling gems besprent.
Justice gave unquestioned claim
To the highest niche of Fame,
But what recompense was Spain’s?
She, thro’ craven sons of lust,
Honor stabbed, with feigned distrust—
Trampled his great soul in dust,
Scorned and loaded him with chains.
Now she comes to steal his bones:
Earth revile! In thunder tones
Tell the tale of wrong and shame;
Write this edict out in flame—
In the hemisphere he gave,
(Which he begged might be his grave)
She, of Greed, the wasted slave,
Shall have nevermore a name.
Transcriber’s note
Poem titles were originally printed in a stylized, “Gothic”-variety
typeface (think New York Times masthead). Fonts which are a reasonable
approximation of this, and which this ebook will display if you have
them installed, include Old English Text MT, Chomsky, Cloister Black,
Old London.
The following probable printer errors were corrected.
Page 47, “i ngering” changed to “lingering” (I’m lingering now)
Page 89, “Indnite” changed to “Infinite” (lighted with Infinite love)
Page 98, “temptest” changed to “tempest” (by sorrow’s tempest shaken)
Page 104, “Chrstians” changed to “Christians” (When Christians are one)
Page 149, “Queiscent” changed to “Quiescent” (Quiescent in that blest
repose)
Page 178, “prsence” changed to “presence” (I knew that a presence had
surely been there)
Page 191, “herafter” changed to “hereafter” (beyond life’s tossing
ocean / To the great hereafter)
Page 197, “Wtih bannerd” changed to “With bannered” (With bannered
glories)
Page 198, “rollng” changed to “rolling” (thy rolling, rocking cradle)
Page 200, “shrniking” changed to “shrinking” (That we go with shrinking
dread)
Page 209, “satelite” changed to “satellite” (And protoplastic satellite)
Page 209, “unchangnig” changed to “unchanging” (With defined, unchanging
place.)
Page 210, “Lfited” changed to “Lifted” (Lifted lands from shoreless
deep.)
Page 211, “migthy” changed to “mighty” (mighty, sea-fed rivers)
Punctuation, hyphenation, and word spacing errors were amended without
further note.