Chapter I: ROWED her out on the broad bright sea,

Till the land lay purple upon our lee.

The heavens were trying the waves to outshine,
With never a cloud to the far sea-line.

On the reefs the billows in kisses broke—
But oh, I was dying for one small smoke.

She spoke of the gulls and the waters green—
But what is nature to Nicotine?

She spoke of the tides, and the Triton myth;
And said Jones was engaged to the blonde Miss Smith.

She spoke of her liking lemon on clams;
And Euclid, and parallelograms.

For her face was fair and her eyes were brown,
And she was a girl from Boston town.

And I rowed and thought—but I never said—
“Does Havana tobacco trouble your head?”

She talked of algæ—she talked of sand—
And I thought: “Tobacco you cannot stand.”

She talked of the ocean-steamer’s speed—
And I yearned for a whiff of the wicked weed.

And at last I spoke, between fright and fret:
“Would you mind if I smoked a cigarette?”

She dropped her eyes on the ocean’s blue,
And said: “Would you mind if I smoked too?”
_H. C. Bunner._

THE WAY TO ARCADY

OH, what’s the way to Arcady,
To Arcady, to Arcady;
Oh, what’s the way to Arcady,
Where all the leaves are merry?

Oh, what’s the way to Arcady?
The spring is rustling in the tree—
The tree the wind is blowing through—
It sets the blossoms flickering white.
I knew not skies could burn so blue
Nor any breezes blow so light.
They blow an old-time way for me,
Across the world to Arcady.

Oh, what’s the way to Arcady?
Sir Poet, with the rusty coat,
Quit mocking of the song-bird’s note.
How have you heart for any tune,
You with the wayworn russet shoon?
Your scrip, a-swinging by your side,
Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide.
I’ll brim it well with pieces red,
If you will tell the way to tread.

Oh, I am bound for Arcady,
And if you but keep pace with me
You tread the way to Arcady.

And where away lies Arcady,
And how long yet may the journey be?

Ah, that (quoth he) I do not know—
Across the clover and the snow—
Across the frost, across the flowers—
Through summer seconds and winter hours.
I’ve trod the way my whole life long,
And know not now where it may be;
My guide is but the stir to song,
That tells me I cannot go wrong,
Or clear or dark the pathway be
Upon the road to Arcady.

But how shall I do who cannot sing?
I was wont to sing, once on a time—
There is never an echo now to ring
Remembrance back to the trick of rhyme.

’Tis strange you cannot sing (quoth he),
The folk all sing in Arcady.

But how may he find Arcady
Who hath nor youth nor melody?

What, know you not, old man (quoth he)—
Your hair is white, your face is wise—
That Love must kiss that Mortal’s eyes
Who hopes to see fair Arcady?
No gold can buy you entrance there;
But beggared Love may go all bare—
No wisdom won with weariness;
But Love goes in with Folly’s dress—
No fame that wit could ever win;
But only Love may lead Love in
To Arcady, to Arcady.

Ah, woe is me, through all my days
Wisdom and wealth I both have got,
And fame and name, and great men’s praise,
But Love, ah, Love! I have it not.
There was a time, when life was new—
But far away, and half forgot—
I only know her eyes were blue;
But Love—I fear I knew it not.
We did not wed, for lack of gold,
And she is dead, and I am old.
All things have come since then to me,
Save Love, ah, Love! and Arcady.

Ah, then I fear we part (quoth he),
My way’s for Love and Arcady.

But you, you fare alone, like me;
The gray is likewise in your hair.
What love have you to lead you there,
To Arcady, to Arcady?

Ah, no, not lonely do I fare;
My true companion’s Memory.
With Love he fills the Spring-time air;
With Love he clothes the Winter tree.
Oh, past this poor horizon’s bound
My song goes straight to one who stands—
Her face all gladdening at the sound—
To lead me to the Spring-green lands,
To wander with enlacing hands.
The songs within my breast that stir
Are all of her, are all of her.
My maid is dead long years (quoth he),
She waits for me in Arcady.

Oh, yon’s the way to Arcady,
To Arcady, to Arcady;
Oh, yon’s the way to Arcady,
Where all the leaves are merry.
_H. C. Bunner._

DA CAPO

SHORT and sweet, and we’ve come to the end of it—
Our poor little love lying cold.
Shall no sonnet, then, ever be penned of it?
Nor the joys and pains of it told?
How fair was its face in the morning,
How close its caresses at noon,
How its evening grew chill without warning,
Unpleasantly soon!

I can’t say just how we began it—
In a blush, or a smile, or a sigh;
Fate took but an instant to plan it;
It needs but a moment to die.
Yet—remember that first conversation,
When the flowers you had dropped at your feet
I restored. The familiar quotation
Was—“Sweets to the sweet.”

Oh, their delicate perfume has haunted
My senses a whole season through.
If there was one soft charm that you wanted
The violets lent it to you.
I whispered you, life was but lonely:
A cue which you graciously took;
And your eyes learned a look for me only—
A very nice look.

And sometimes your hand would touch my hand,
With a sweetly particular touch;
You said many things in a sigh, and
Made a look express wondrously much.
We smiled for the mere sake of smiling,
And laughed for no reason but fun;
Irrational joys; but beguiling—
And all that is done!

We were idle, and played for a moment
At a game that now neither will press:
I cared not to find out what “No” meant;
Nor your lips to grow yielding with “Yes.”
Love is done with and dead; if there lingers
A faint and indefinite ghost,
It is laid with this kiss on your fingers—
A jest at the most.

’Tis a commonplace, stale situation,
Now the curtain comes down from above
On the end of our little flirtation—
A travesty romance for Love,
If he climbed in disguise to your lattice,
Fell dead of the first kisses’ pain:
But one thing is left us now; that is—
Begin it again.
_H. C. Bunner._

THE MAID OF MURRAY HILL

SAINT Valentine, Saint Valentine!
I love a maid of New York town,
And every day, on my homeward way,
She walks the Avenue down.
At five o’clock, dear Saint, she goes
Tripping down Murray Hill,
And the hands of the clock in the old brick spire
Stand still, stand still, stand still!

Saint Valentine, Saint Valentine!
Oh, could you know how fair a maid—
So trim of dress, and so gold of tress,
You’d know why I’m afraid.
I see her pass, I smile and bow,
As I go up Murray Hill,
And I say to a foolish hope of mine:
Be still, be still, be still!

Saint Valentine, Saint Valentine,
Oh, could you see how close her gown
Binds tight and warm about her form,
This maid of New York town,
You’d know a mountain would to me
Be less than Murray Hill,
If only around her my arm could slip,
And she’d stand still, stand still.

Saint Valentine, Saint Valentine!
She is so fair, so rich, so great,
I have no right to think what might
Be this poor clerk’s estate.
And yet the bells in yon brick spire,
As we pass on Murray Hill,
They ring, they ring—she’s not for me—
And still—and still—and still—
_H. C. Bunner._

KITTY’S SUMMERING

HAVE you seen e’er a sign of my Kitty?
Have you seen a fair maiden go by
Who was wed in this summer-struck city
About the first week in July?
How fair was her face there’s no telling;
She was well-nigh as wealthy as fair,
And of marble and brick was her dwelling
On the North side of Washington Square.

Have you seen her at Newport a-driving?
Have you seen her a-flirt at the pier?
Is she written among the arriving
At the Shoals or the Hamptons this year?
Or out where the ocean bird flutters
Are the sea-breezes tossing her hair?
For closed are the ancient green shutters
In the house on North Washington Square.

So you, too, are trying to find her?
Then climb up these stairways with me,
That twist and grow blinder and blinder,
Till the skylight near heaven you see.
Is the sun my dull studio gilding?
Ah, no, it is Kitty sits there—
She has moved to the Studio Building
On the South side of Washington Square.
_H. C. Bunner._

FORFEITS

THEY sent him round the circle fair,
To bow before the prettiest there.
I’m bound to say the choice he made
A creditable taste displayed;
Although—I can’t say what it meant—
The little maid looked ill-content.

His task was then anew begun—
To kneel before the wittiest one.
Once more that little maid sought he,
And went him down upon his knee.
She bent her eyes upon the floor—
I think she thought the game a bore.

He circled then—his sweet behest
To kiss the one he loved the best.
For all she frowned, for all she chid,
He kissed that little maid, he did.
And then—though why I can’t decide—
The little maid looked satisfied.
_H. C. Bunner._

WHEN WILL LOVE COME?

SOME find Love late, some find him soon,
Some with the rose in May,
Some with the nightingale in June,
And some when skies are grey;
Love comes to some with smiling eyes,
And comes with tears to some;
For some Love sings, for some Love sighs,
For some Love’s lips are dumb.
How will you come to me, fair Love?
Will you come late or soon?
With sad or smiling skies above,
By light of sun or moon?
Will you be sad, will you be sweet,
Sing, sigh, Love, or be dumb?
Will it be summer when we meet,
Or autumn ere you come?
_Pakenham Beatty._

HELIOTROPE

AMID the Chapel’s chequered gloom
She laughed with Dora and with Flora
And chattered in the lecture-room—
That saucy little sophomora!
Yet while, as in her other schools,
She was a privileged transgressor,
She never broke the simple rules
Of one particular professor.

But when he spoke of varied lore,
Paroxytones and modes potential,
She listened with a face that wore
A look half fond, half reverential.
To her, that earnest voice was sweet,
And, though her love had no confessor,
Her girlish heart lay at the feet
Of that particular professor.

And he had learned, among his books
That held the lore of ages olden,
To watch those ever-changing looks,
The wistful eyes, the tresses golden,
That stirred his pulse with passion’s pain
And thrilled his soul with soft desire,
And bade fond youth return again,
Crowned with its coronet of fire.

Her sunny smile, her winsome ways,
Were more to him than all his knowledge,
And she preferred his words of praise
To all the honours of the college.
Yet “What am foolish I to him?”
She whispered to her heart’s confessor.
“She thinks me old and grey and grim,”
In silence pondered the professor.

Yet once when Christmas bells were rung
Above ten thousand solemn churches,
And swelling anthems grandly sung
Pealed through the dim cathedral arches;
Ere home returning, filled with hope,
Softly she stole by gate and gable,
And a sweet spray of heliotrope
Left on his littered study table.

Nor came she more from day to day
Like sunshine through the shadows rifting:
Above her grave, far, far away,
The ever silent snows were drifting;
And those who mourned her winsome face
Found in its stead a sweet successor
And loved another in her place—
All, save the silent old professor.

But, in the tender twilight grey,
Shut from the sight of carping critic,
His lonely thoughts would often stray
From Vedic verse and tongues Semitic,
Bidding the ghost of vanished hope
Mock with its past the sad possessor
Of the dead spray of heliotrope
That once she gave the old professor.
_Harry Thurston Peck._

BORDERLAND

AND have you been to Borderland?
Its country lies on either hand
Beyond the river I-forget.
One crosses by a single stone
So narrow one must pass alone,
And all about its waters fret—
The laughing river I-forget.

Beneath the trees of Borderland
One seems to know and understand,
Beside the river I-forget,
All languages of men and birds;
And all the sweet, unspoken words
One ever missed are murmured yet
By that sweet river I-forget.

One hears there many things afar
From cities where strange peoples are,
Beyond the river I-forget;
And stranger things are in the air,
But what they are one does not care,
For Hope lies sleeping and Regret
Beside the river I-forget.

Some day together hand in hand
I’ll take you there to Borderland,
Beyond the river I-forget;
Some day when all our dreams come true,
One kiss for me and one for you,
We’ll watch the red sun sink and set
Across the river I-forget.
_Herman Knickerbocker Vielé._

EPITHALAMIUM

THE marriage bells have rung their peal,
The wedding march has told its story.
I’ve seen her at the altar kneel
In all her stainless, virgin glory;
She’s bound to honor, love, obey,
Come joy or sorrow, tears or laughter.
I watched her as she rode away,
And flung the lucky slipper after.

She was my first, my very first,
My earliest inamorata,
And to the passion that I nursed
For her I well nigh was a martyr.
For I was young, and she was fair,
And always gay and bright and chipper,
And, oh, she wore such sunlit hair,
Such silken stockings! such a slipper!

She did not wish to make me mourn—
She was the kindest of God’s creatures;
But flirting was in her inborn,
Like brains and queerness in the Beechers.
I do not fear your heartless flirt—
Obtuse her dart and dull her probe is;
But when girls do not mean to hurt,
But _do_—_Orate tunc pro nobis!_

A most romantic country place;
The moon at full, the month of August;
An inland lake across whose face
Played gentle zephyrs, ne’er a raw gust.
Books, boats, and horses to enjoy,
The which was all our occupation;
A damsel and a callow boy—
There! now you have the situation.

We rode together miles and miles,
My pupil she, and I her Chiron;
At home I reveled in her smiles
And read her extracts out of Byron.
We roamed by moonlight, chose our stars
(I thought it most authentic billing),
Explored the woods, climbed over bars,
Smoked cigarettes and broke a shilling.

An infinitely blissful week
Went by in this Arcadian fashion;
I hesitated long to speak,
But ultimately breathed my passion.
She said her heart was not her own;
She said she’d love me like a sister;
She cried a little (not alone);
I begged her not to fret, and—kissed her.

I lost some sleep, some pounds in weight,
A deal of time, and all my spirits,
And much—how much I dare not state—
I mused upon that damsel’s merits.
I tortured my unhappy soul,
I wished I never might recover;
I hoped her marriage bells might toll
A requiem for her faithful lover.

And now she’s married, now she wears
A wedding-ring upon her finger;
And I—although it odd appears—
Still in the flesh I seem to linger.
Lo, there my swallow-tail, and here
Lies by my side a wedding favor;
Beside it stands a mug of beer,
I taste it—how divine its flavor!

I saw her in her bridal dress
Stand pure and lovely at the altar;
I heard her firm response—that “Yes,”
Without a quiver or a falter.
And here I sit and drink to her
Long life and happiness, God bless her!
Now fill again. No heel-taps, sir;
Here’s to—Success to her successor!
_E. S. Martin._

INFIRM

“I WILL not go,” he said, “for well
I know her eyes’ insidious spell,
And how unspeakably he feels
Who takes no pleasure in his meals.
I know a one-idea’d man
Should undergo the social ban,
And if she once my purpose melts
I know I’ll think of nothing else.

“I care not though her teeth are pearls—
The town is full of nicer girls!
I care not though her lips are red—
It does not do to lose one’s head!
I’ll give her leisure to discover,
For once, how little I think of her;
And then, how will she feel?” cried he—
And took his hat and went to see.
_E. S. Martin._

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS