SONGS FOR THE EVENING HOUR
THE SPIRIT OF EVENING
O, the day hurries by
With a flush in the sky
Like the blush on a young girl's cheek,
While her feet touch the tips
Of the hill, and her lips
Are moist with a dew that is sweet.
On the slopes she has kissed
There cling veils of white mist
She has loosed from her shoulders in flight.
And I reach through the haze
Till my soul reels and sways,
Asking Evening the secret of Night.
Then I see the veils shift,
Setting shadows adrift;
The Sibyl has cycled her flight.
And my soul in its gaze
Through the challenging haze
Stands baffled and blind in the night.
A BEACON FACE
To-day a passing throng with anxious pace
Brought me a glimpse of one sweet, noble face
Transfigured by the tenderness and grace
Of seasoned sorrow and a hard-lost race.
It shamed me that I looked so sullen, sad,
When I, full richly blessed and amply clad
Should live in smiles and making others glad,
And keep within whatever spite I had.
This face, whose smile was built on grief lived through,
Both lifted up my own, yet warned me too,
For as the shining beacon, born of barren rocks
And reared on reefs that hide their rending shocks
Would not be there dispensing its warm light
Were there not dangers lodged in wily night;
Just so, this passing, patient face
Could ne'er have touched me at my hurried pace
But for the courage of its tender grace
That came with sorrow and a hard-lost race.
THE VOICE FROM THE FIELD
[Dedicated to the National burying ground at Gettysburg on the
occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of that Battle.]
Across the field in silent files they sleep,
With none to rout their ranks while Death doth keep
His watch relentless o'er the nameless heap
Of unknown men beneath the numbered stones.
More orderly are they than when they marched
In broken regiments the sun had parched
And powder torn, across the fields, fire-arched.
And from their silence now rise up loud tones
Which speak to all that breathe, a new command,
Whose voice shall ring through all the peaceful land:
“Be strong! Keep brave thy heart and clean, thy hand,
To right with promptness all the wrongs that rise
To hide the God-head's face from brothers' eyes.
Rear up in love the Nation's life we bore!
Be strong, be strong, till wrong shall be no more!”
THE BURNING OF CHAMBERSBURG
[JULY 30, 1864]
They come, they come,
The town with fear is dumb!
Their guns have fired from Federal Hill,
It seems we hear their voices still
Demanding gold in tones more bold
Than all the warnings ever told
Since Chambersburg these hundred years
Has triumphed over frontier fears.
They come, they come,
With ruin planned for some
Whose homes, the seat of hearts' desire,
They pitilessly loot and fire
Till only desolate ashes mark
The sight of hearths forever dark,
And only memories live unmarred
To haunt the walls the flames have charred.
They're here, they're here,
They're snatching all that's dear!
The glare of flames, the noonday night
Of smokes that choke our shrieks of fright;
The screams of birds, the horses' neighs,
The pets that mourn in countless ways;
The splash of silver thrown in wells—
All this of hideous plunder tells.
They've gone, they've gone,
Their ranks are speeding on;
Their vandal work accomplished now,
They southward flee and care not how
Our sick, unhoused, have joined our dead,
And well men vainly seek a bed
Whereon to lay the frenzied head
Of some dear one, by fever fed.
They've gone, they've gone,
Their years are speeding on.
Yet, should they come again to-day
We'd greet them in a fervent way:
The Chambersburg they left in tears
Is born anew these fifty years,
And crowned with triumphs toil has won,
Stands royal host, with silenced gun.
THE WEDDING AT PANAMA
Severed forever,
Yet closer than ever
Two neighboring continents lie.
The day when these lands
Could reach out and touch hands
Forever is gone and passed by.
Severed forever,
Yet closer than ever,
For what a new union is this!
They are neighbors made kin
Since the wedding has been
Of seas that were wed with a kiss.
Now both mighty oceans were born of these lands
That fed them with streams from their breast,
And wedded, will bring to the old parent-sands
New wealth from the East and the West.
So, kindred forever,
And closer than ever
Two neighboring continents lie:
Their children are one,
A new era begun,
That's watched with a world-sweeping eye.
A BALLAD OF EUGENICS
“Our modern monogamous family represents the survival of
religious, ethical, economic, and legal elements from all the
intermingling streams which unite to form civilization.”—_Edward
Devins._
A mighty stream runs past my house,
Right through my grounds it flows;
From unseen springs it comes, and then
To unseen springs it goes.
And rich deposits in my fields
It brings from distant lands,
The welcome wealth of mingled streams
That rose from blended sands.
But oftentimes a drifting wreck
It carries to my door,
And I must hold it, I who see,
To check it evermore;
Lest some one farther down the stream
Whose face I cannot see
Might snag his craft and perish there,
And dying, censure me.
Not lightly can I turn its way
Aside from channels old,
Yet I can change the shores I own,
Thus much can be controlled.
And all that marks my lifetime's goal
Is that its onward flow
Down past my house and through my lands
May ever purer grow.
IMMORTALITY
[Suggested by the death of a young girl.]
The white, soft robes that cling
About her tender form and young
Have caught earth's last faint breeze
And flutter in the earliest breath
Of God's new-dawning day,
Revealing on the topmost step
The slender foot that rests
Upon the threshold she shall cross,
And baring the young arm
That mothered infant Hope.
And in her dreaming eyes so mild,
That glance a moment down
To where her loved ones longing dwell,
There lives no hungering regret;
For on the doorway latch there rests
The fragile hand so pale;
It moves, the door swings softly now,
The sweet soul enters in,
While one long ray of light falls through
And filters down to earth.
SONNET TO NEMESIS, GODDESS OF REMORSE
O Nemesis, thou goddess born of Night,
Thou younger sister of stern Death and Sleep,
Close-couched art thou with those grim Three who keep
The spun and measured threads of life aright;
O Nemesis, that shuns each form of light,
By night o'er all the world thy glance doth sweep
To seek out crime, its penalty to reap
When rosy dawn has put the stars to flight.
Thy fateful voice rings dread from age to age,
Oft times as baying dog or hooting owl;
And clear upon thy all-recording page
Is writ each deed e'er done with purpose foul.
Not even can thy brother Death assuage
Thy pangs, Remorse, more dread than Cerberus' growl.
THOUGHTS OF GOD
Whoever the God that has called me to light,
Has willed that my soul should have faith in His might:
God is our fountain-head, God is our source,
From Him and to Him we follow our course;
Wavering, some of us, some ever bold,
All of us coming at last to His fold.
TWO MONOLOGUES
[Suggested by an article in the Philosophic Review.]
THE NIETZSCHE MAN
I'm despot here, imperious tyrant too,
And glory in my master-loneliness.
What matters it if kindred I have none,
If none I deign to call my kindly friend?
My greatest friend is my most virile foe,
Who gives me widest room my strength to prove.
All-conquering, master-man,
Through will to power, through power to life I press.
I love my neighbor, shield the poor, the weak,
I tarry on my way to cheer the brute
Who claims compassion for a wounded paw?
I want no pity, and no pity give.
Shall I who thirst for life, and must achieve,
Have ought to do with death, disease,
Or racking pain, unless it be
To mount aloft by trampling on men's graves,
By trampling over graves to mount aloft,
Aloft, till I have shaped a world myself,
Of men who live, but only live to serve?
I want no pity and no pity give.
The strong shall help the weak to die—
True charity is this, to keep the virile stock
Of master-morals whence I late have sprung
Free from the softening manner of the weak
And so, forbearance, love, and sympathy,
Your unsubstantial spirit and the God
You name the friend of sinners and the poor,
I banish with contempt. What peace can they,
What fullness, strength, purvey to me, a lord
Of Truth surmounting womanish pity, love?
For I'm the Last of Men.
HIS RIVAL SPEAKS
I'm maker and mover of men,
I've power as much as I will,
But not through compression
Nor bold violation
Of every man's birthright to live.
Aye, talk all you will of your natural man,
Of Titans discharging their strength,
Say even, we're softened, degenerate men,
Our God and philanthropy, weak.
And raising the fallen, supporting the frail
Is folly, and hindrance to progress, you say?
But stay, Overman, and look deeper, I pray.
You'll find it's no unworthy task
To utilize forces now running astray,
Restore to full strength the degenerate crowd.
Aye, this is a task not unworthy of you.
I too aim at power, but not for myself:
The more men I love, the more I can serve,
'Tis thus I would measure my strength.
You move in your separate realm where you're king,
But I rule a world that is larger than yours,
A world of God's vigorous sons.
I'm maker and mover of men if you will,
And more, I've the love of them all.
INLAND WAVES
A heaving sea life seems to me,
Its passions, surging waves.
Each soul embarks upon that sea
And each the billows braves.
Ambition's wave o'ertops the rest,
But when the storm-clouds form,
Is first to feel upon its breast
The fury of the storm.
Hope's waves at first in ripples flow,
But as they onward glide,
To billows swell, then larger grow,
Advancing side by side.
Each bark is frail, its strength is small
To cope with waves so vast,
Yet one great Guide can pilot all
And harbor them at last.
SOUL OF THE WORLD
O Thou great Father and Progenitor,
Dispensing form to mists ethereal,
Thou universal Builder and great One,
Transcending heaven, plain and sea;
The world-soul animating all,
And calling latent life to glories new,
Supreme, yet dwelling in the merest stone,
Directing all things to the perfect state!
Teach me to nurture then, within my breast,
Traces of the world-Creator's self
Infused to mortal members at my birth.
Thus shall I rest a part of the great One:
I cannot die, the world-soul is within
Which wakes, to sleep in Thee, and wake again.