Chapter I: Loved My Art

I loved my Art. I loved it when the tide
Was sweeping back my hopes upon the sand;
When I had missed the hollow of God's hand
Held over me, and there was none to guide.
I set my face towards it, raising high
My arm in token that I would be true
To all great motives, though I sorely knew
That there was one star wanting in my sky.
Touching the chords of many harmonies,
I needed one to make them all complete.
I heard it sound like thunder-gathered seas,
What time my soul knelt at my lady's feet.
And there transfigured in her light I grew
In stature to the work that poets do.

IT IS ENOUGH

It is enough that in this burdened time
The soul sees all its purposes aright.
The rest--what does it matter? Soon the night
Will come to whelm us, then the morning chime.
What does it matter, if but in the way
One hand clasps ours, one heart believes us true;
One understands the work we try to do,
And strives through Love to teach us what to say?
Between me and the chilly outer air
Which blows in from the world, there standeth one
Who draws Love's curtains closely everywhere,
As God folds down the banners of the sun.
Warm is my place about me, and above,
Where was the raven, I behold the dove.

THEIR WAVING HANDS

Since I rose out of child-oblivion
I have walked in a world of many dreams,
And noble souls beside the shining streams
Of fancy have with beckonings led me on.
Their faces oft, mayhap, I could not see,
Only their waving hands and noble forms.
Sometimes there sprang between quick-gathered storms,
But always they came back again to me.
Women with smiling eyes and star-spun hair
Spake gentle things, bade me look back to view
The deeds of the great souls who climbed the stair
Immortal, and for whom God's manna grew:
Dante, Anacreon, Euripides,
And all who set rich wine upon the lees.

AMY PARKINSON

THE MESSENGER HOURS

I

I thought as I watched in the dawning dim
The hours of the coming day,
That each shadow form was surely robed
In the selfsame hue of gray;
And that sad was each half-averted face,
Unlit by a cheering ray.

But as one by one they drew near to me,
And I saw them true and clear,
I found that the hours were all messengers,
Sent forth by a Friend most dear,
To bring me whatever I needed most--
Of chastening or of cheer.

And though some of them, truly, were grave and sad,
And moved with reluctant feet,
There were others came gladly, with smiling eyes,
And footsteps by joy made fleet;
But whatever with gladness or sorrow fraught,
The message each bore was sweet.

For even the saddest, and weighted most
With trial and pain for me,
Yet breathed in my ear, ere it passed from sight,
"This cross I have brought to thee
Comes straight from the Friend Who, of all thy friends,
Doth love thee most tenderly;

"He would rather have sent thee a joyous hour,
And fraught with some happy thing,
But He saw that naught else could so meet thy need
As this strange, sad gift I bring;
And He loved thee too well to withhold the gift,
Though it causes thee suffering."

II

So, now, as I watch in the dawning dim
The hours of each coming day,
I remember that golden threads of love
Run all through their garments gray;
And I know that each face as it turns to me
Will be lit with a friendly ray.

And whether they most be sombre or glad,
No hour of all the band
But will bring me a greeting from Him I love,
And reach out a helping hand
To hasten my steps, as I traverse the road
That leads to the better land.

For the Lord of that land is the Friend I love,
And I know He keeps for me
A home of delight in His kingdom fair,
That I greatly long to see;
And the hours that shall speed me on my way
I must welcome gratefully.

III

And soon I shall trace through the dawning dim,
'Mid the hours of some coming day,
A figure unlike to its sister forms,
With garments more gold than gray;
And the face of that one, when it meets my gaze,
Will send forth a wondrous ray.

So I watch for that latest and brightest hour
Which my Lord will send to me;
I know that its voice will be low and sweet,
And this shall its message be:
"Come quickly, and enter thy Home of joy,
For the King is calling thee."

I shall go to Him soon! I have waited long
To behold His beauty rare;
But I surely shall see Him and hear His voice,
And a part in His glory share,
When I answer the summons, solemn yet glad,
Which the last sweet hour shall bear.

FRANK L. POLLOCK

AD BELLONAM

Mother of Swords! while the river runs,
Or the steamer seeks the sea;
While the North wind blows from the chill of snows,
And the South from the scented Key,
So long, so long will live the song
That thy lilting bugles sing,
As the warship rides down the deep sea tides,
Where the green foams white on her armored sides,
And the wind'ard gun-shields ring.

There be they who sing that the song will cease,
The song that thy sons began;
That the good old World will loll in peace,
In the bond of the Peace of Man.
They sing,--and clear 'twixt the notes we hear
The clink of the warrior's trade,
And the thund'rous call where the hammers fall,
And the steam-power shrieks o'er the factory wall,
Where the rifled guns are made.

The Breath of the Lord may rule the sea,
And the Lies of Men the land;
And the craft of the tongue may hold in fee
The strength of the heavy hand;
But though tongues may quicken and strength may sicken,
And hands grow soft and small,
Year upon year the day draws near
Of the unsheathed sword and the shaken spear,
That shall make amends for all.

When the Armageddon sunrise breaks
On the iron-clads' smoking line,
When the last dawn lights on that last of fights
Where the strength of man shall shine,
One great grim day of the world at play,
With bugle and tuck of drum,
While the red drops beat on the shattered fleet,
Till the red sun sinks on the last defeat,
Then--let the Millennium come!

THE TRAIL OF GOLD

Under the ward of the Polar Star,
Where the great auroras snap and blaze,
There are crashing blows on the icy bar
That is set at the end of the open ways.
There are axes ringing across the crest,
The sluices shackle the streams that rolled,
As the gamesters gather from East and West,--
The men that follow the Trail of Gold.

A black line crawls o'er the glacier's face,
Where the worn pack-horses scrape and slide;
The muskeg swallows and leaves no trace,
The boats go down in the snow-swelled tide.
Blood and bones on the snow and sod,
From the cañons black to the barrens gray,
Blaze the trail that the vanguard trod,
That those who follow may find the way.

There are strange ships west of the lonely isles
Where the red volcanoes burn and freeze;
There's a fading wake o'er the misty miles,
There are smokes that trouble the Smoky Seas.
There are corpses swept from the sinking hull,
As the steamer dips to the swelling gale,
For the rising shark and the wheeling gull
That hunt the sea on the Golden Trail.

The storm sweeps out from its Polar den,
Till the air grows dense with the cutting snow;
The North makes mock of the sons of men,
As the diggers lie in the drifts below.
The workers lie where the last work ceased,
The strong men scatter the lifeless wold;
And the tall wolves howl at the gathered feast--
The hounds that hunt on the Scent of Gold.

ANDREW RAMSAY

JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER

After her bath, yet early in the day,
She donned a ketonet or tunica;
With gems enclasped it, close as a caress,
And smoothed its folds out o'er her loveliness
In fondly fashioned outlines. It was made
Of Persian satin, opaline and white,
Like moving mists around the moon arrayed,
Thro' which she shone, a lovelier light in light
Almost immortal: on a low divan
A fleecy texture tinted Tyrian,
Alone reclining, on each pliant knee
Her white feet poised by turns to sandalled be.
The sandal buckles were with gems aflame,
And those fine bands that bound each knee the same.
On restless anklets tinkled bells of gold,
A symbol which of princely lineage told.
Their music summoning a tiring maid
Who all her glorious midnight hair arrayed:
A purple black it was, alive and long,
And seemed, if such could be, like a carved song,
Some Hebrew pæan of triumphant power
Arrested, and remaining her rare dower.
'Twas girt in frequent fillets of fine gold,
Bestarred with sardon flashing manifold.
And o'er her shoulders, exquisitely graced,
A sedijin, encircled at the waist.
This sedijin was sleeveless, but both arms
Had aspen bands that blazed in jasper charms.
Her zone was also wonderful with these,
As round her neck a circlet, carved to please
In imitated foliage of lush hues
Such as Ezekiel sanctified for use.
And over these, with garnet bangles hung
And opaline, a splendid shimla clung,
Marvel of strangely interfusing sheen,
And beautiful as all that might have been.
A little scarf of white and henna dyes
Crowned her dark head for dreadful sacrifice.
Pensive her oriental eyes, and large,
Looking their last on Judah's hills, the charge
Of Israel's honor in them, and the praise
Of many a maid desponding since those days
When Jephtha's daughter wended forth to mourn
Her immature virginity forlorn.