Chapter III: Part 3

’Tis a strength that holds each feeling
But a slave to do its will—
Every wish, abjectly kneeling,
Waits its mandate to fulfill
Or creeps, by stealth, in shadow.

’Tis Life’s sacred, golden chalice,
From as rich a vintage filled
For the cottage, as the palace—
Sweetest draughts have been distilled
With want upon the lever.

’Tis a tender, true devotion,
Never soiled by thoughts of pelf,
But with gladsome, sweet emotion
To its altar bringing _self_,
A sacrificial offering.—

Joy’s bell whose silver ringing
Down the ages has been borne
Ever since in Eden, singing,
Wedded love hailed rosy morn—
Still the tones fall sweet as ever.

’Tis the Horeb of the spirit,
Where no coarse-shod thought may tread,
The part divine, which souls inherit
From love’s holy Fountain-Head,
Influent with our being.

Sleighing.

Hear the bells, distant bells!
How the merry music swells,
As the steed, with noble speed,
Nearer, nearer, nearer comes,
Strength doth wing his flying feet;
Onward, onward, onward going,
With a strong and rythmic beat;
Youth, with health and beauty glowing,
Blends a rippling, laughter peal
With the ringing hoofs of steel—
How the mingling music hums!

Hear the bells, joyous bells!
Love’s sweet tale their music tells,
As they go o’er glistening snow;
Wildly, wildly, rushing by,
Fainter grow the hoof-beats now,
Fainter, fainter, fainter growing;
Venus shines on evening’s brow,
Moonlight floods o’er earth are flowing;
O, the reckless wild delights
Of a sparkling, winter night’s
Sleighing, ’neath a moonlit sky!

Ho, the bells, merry bells!
Rapture in their music dwells;
Raptures sweet, in bliss repeat,
Gliding, gliding, o’er the snow.
Every pulse with pleasure thrills;
To the heart new joys revealing.
As when springtime, bird-note trills
Stir the sweetest fount of feeling,
Welling with all tender thought,
From the dulcet music caught,
Blending all in joyous flow!

* * * * *

Hark, the bells—homeward bells!
Something now their music quells,
For they go, tinkling—so—
Tinkle—tinkle—seem to wait;
Why that steed such lagging feet,
When returning, homeward going?
(’Mong the furs their faces meet)—
Ah! that nag is very knowing,
Stepping lightly o’er the snow—
Have their whispers, soft and low,
Changed his mood and changed his gait?

First Love.

Tender and true as the starlight of heaven,
Sweet as the heart of a bud when it opes,
Swift as the flash of the cloud-leaping levin,
Rich as the springtime in promise and hopes,
Pure as the gleam of the dew on the flowers
Is love’s first awakening in youth’s dreamy hours.

It sings in the heart like a forest-hid rill—
Runs over its rim like a rock-basined spring;
Strong, it o’erpowers cold reason with will,
Impulsively binding two lives with a ring.
It goes where it listeth, unreined as the wind,
So reckless, ’tis said, that the love god is blind.

Joyful, yet trembling like a zephyr-kissed rose,
Flushing and paling like skies of the dawn,
Silent, lest speech shall the secret disclose,
Wayward and shy as a mountain-bred fawn,
Flying the bosom where yearning to rest,
Hushing the tenderness, thrilling the heart,
Palpitant tempests disturbing the breast;
Enjoying—enduring the sweet and the smart
That comes of the wounding with Cupid’s first dart.

Man.

O, grand and worshipful that being MAN,
As fashioned by a maiden’s dream-lit mind!
To her, his soul has nobleness enshrined—
’Tis pure—Love’s altar-place, where God began,
’Neath Eden’s flow’ry groves, the household plan.
In rose-mist wreathed, by sweet enchantment blind,
How oft she’s worshiped, wedded, but to find
The real, no more her dream, than piping Pan.

Some “noble deeds” bear cold ambition’s stain,
And chaff is found among Love’s golden grain.
’Tis well the rose-mist lifts and clearer beams
Show man’s real self, e’en tho’ it give her pain,
Else, so idolatrous, she might, it seems,
Forget her God, if he were all she dreams.

Trust of Childhood.

An angel comes down from the realms of light,
To guard me in slumber, thro’ hours of the night;
Her presence is gentle, I feel she is there,
As soon as I’ve uttered my evening prayer;
So tenderly watching she stays in my room
Till darkness has folded his mantle of gloom.
I’ve felt on my forehead her soft finger tips
And the touch of her kiss, lightly pressed on my lips,
To waken me gently, ere leaving my bed,
When morning’s bright beauties o’er earth had been spread.

Forbearing to open my earth-gazing eyes
To look on the guardian sent from the skies,
I’ve listened and heard, e’en the rustle of wings;
And then at the casement, where mocking bird swings,
A sweeping of roses and jasmines I’ve heard,
And knew that their beauty and perfume were stirred
By her gossamer robes, as she hastened away,
To the rose-tinted gateway that opens to day;
(For Heaven, I know, is but little beyond,
Where glories of morn, in its borders have dawned);
And then by the holiness left in the room,
Afloat, like the fragrance from violet bloom,
I knew that a presence had surely been there,
Had left with me blessing, and wafted my prayer
To the throne of the Father for guidance and care.

* * * * *

O, trust of my childhood! bright halo of youth!
Come, veil for tonight the stern visage of truth;
With faith that’s elysian, I’d drift down the stream
To imagery islands, with beauty agleam,
And hear, as I heard in the far away years,
(Ere fancy’s young dream had been melted in tears),
A strain from a harp, floating over to me,
From a cloud-bannered sky, bending down to the sea,
Where golden-crowned angels could plainly be seen
With robings of white, in the glimmering sheen.

Then Heaven was near, and the curtain of blue
So thin, that at sunset the glory shone through;
Those silken illusions, inflated with joy,
Phylosophy’s hand has been swift to destroy;
And reason’s keen steel, that’s so cruelly cold,
Has cut thro’ the shimmer of heavenly gold,
And left but the hard-featured science of light
That will not be veiled for a dream of tonight.

Alone.

“Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone.”

In her soul’s secret temple she’s standing alone:
Her being’s real self, in the silence will bow;
O’er that altar, once glowing, cold ashes are strown—
Where sunshine once flooded, the shadows fall now.

Away from the world, and alone with her God,
She kneels in this consecrate place and may weep;
This temple, by coarse sandaled grossness, untrod,
Is never unbarred till the world is asleep.

She leaves there her grief, with its shadowy stole,
Concealing her anguish, with trembling and fear;—Must
laugh, tho’ it lines a black scath on her soul,
For the world will not _pay_ for the sigh and the tear.

Aye, leaves there her sackcloth and shuts to the door;
She puts on the mask for the frivolous world
Her frail barque is launched ’mid its tumult and roar—
Unhelmed, thro’ its mammon-cut channels ’tis hurled.

The laugh, the world echoes, grows empty and hard
When the jingle of gold is the mirth-stirring power;
The soul is, by Avarice, shrivelled and scarred
When it barters for pottage, a heavenly dower.

God fits us, thro’ suffering, for Sympathy’s needs;
’Tis warring with wrong that will win for the Right;
Oft Sorrow’s lone path, to His ripe vineyard, leads—
Christ gave us, through Gethsame, heavenly light.

Go work in His vineyard wherever ’tis needed
And earnestly work for the sake of the need;
Be Fame’s fickle promise forever unheeded,
Unknown, in thy labor, the miser’s low greed.

Night.

Thro’ azure paths fair Venus comes with golden bars
To close the gates of Day. The twilight’s dusky stole
Is lightly spangled o’er with heaven’s brightest stars;
Soon Night will bring her countless ones whose ceaseless roll
Thro’ boundless depths of space, repeat creation’s song.
Thus canopied by God’s omnipotence, outspread,
The earth doth lull and soothe her surging, restless throng
With brooding calm. Sleep’s poppied sweets for toil are shed.

When strife is hushed to rest, by Nature’s drowsy hum
And barter’s dins are stilled—its flaunting ensigns furled,
When, drugged with Somnus’ wines, earth’s noisy crowds are dumb
And stillness spreads her slumber-robe, so softly o’er the world,
’Tis joy to watch Night’s queenly orb, climb up the eastern stair,
And pour her flood of silver light o’er hills and bowers,
That in the sacred silence gleam, so radiant and fair,
In glistening robes of green and dewy, fragrant flowers.

All hail, blest hour of cool repose, when Labor’s chains
That bind the mind, thro’ all the day, to weary tasks
Are loosed! Ay, now, the soul, in freedom from their pains,
May drink from founts of pure supernal joy. It basks
In glories which the night o’er earth and sky hath strown.
Compassion sweet, the dewy coolness doth impart
And dreamy perfumes, by the balmy breezes blown,
Are evening’s sweet acopic, when she folds us to her heart.

Disappointment.

We plant sometimes a tender flower—
Watch and wait through sun and shower;
Mark its tiny leaflets, green,
Then, the upward shoot between,—
Springing, springing, tendrils clinging,
Hopes like cherubs round it winging
Whispering of the blooming time.

Watch the buds burst thro’ their sheathing,
Beauty’s promise, round them wreathing,
Dream of fragrance they enfold,
Lovely blooms, almost, behold,
Reach an eager hand for grasping—
Find the tendrils all unclasping—
Withered, ere the blooming time.

Love’s Ideal.

Was there ever a love like the love of my dream?
Love, holy, unselfish, devoted and pure,
Unfailing and sweet as the flow of a stream
Whose source is a spring, that God made to endure.

A love that is LOVE, with no blending of dross;
Where soul, unto soul, giveth strength of its own—
A love that knows never of languor or loss,
Or silently grieves that its _spirit_ has flown.

A love with its possibles nobly fulfilled,
Where heart unto heart is e’er loyal and true,
Where blessing for each, is thro’ kindness distilled—
A rodomel never embittered with rue.

A love that the angels, rejoicing to see,
Would guard in life’s paths from the harpies that roam;
Peace, Happiness, Charity,—loveliest three—
Would make, for such lovers, a Heaven of Home.

A Legend of the Lily.

Abroad, June moon was brightly beaming
In the depths of heaven’s blue,
While the asphodels were bending
With the clinging beads of dew,
When the silver rays in silence,
Glinting thro’ the swaying trees,
Saw a modest flower turning
To a roving, balmy breeze.—

Heard the zephyr softly whisper:
“Ah! my Lily, charming, sweet—
Sure the god of love has led us
In this bowery place to meet;
Richest odors I will bring you
From the islands of the sea;
Aye, your beauty has enchained me—
Will you give your heart to me?”

With a touch exquisite, subtile,
Then he turned to his, her face;
In her blush of deeper crimson,
That she faltered, he could trace.
“I have sought you—will you trust me?
Faithful as the stars I’ll be—
With your fragrant breathings, answer,
Will you give your love to me?”

Frail the flower, tranced enraptured
By the lover’s soft caress,
To his tender wooing answered,
With impulsive rashness,—“yes.”
Then, exultant, zephyr gloried
In the treasure he had won—
Deftly stole her sparkling jewels,
Sharing with the rising sun.

Brushed the spangles from her tresses
With his playful finger tips,
Bolder grew with his caresses—
Gathering sweetness from her lips;
Robbed her beauty of the freshness
That was hers in early morn—
Left her ’neath the sun of noonday,
Burning like the gaze of scorn.

Drooping as in heat of censure
Evening found her in the dust,
Lifted her with tearful pity
From the blight of trampled trust;
But the tender flush of loving
From her face was blanched and gone,
Yet a beauty, born of trial,
Met the radiant glow of dawn.

Now for her the moon is shining
With a calm and holy light;
Dew-like gems of rarest beauty
Sparkles on her brow at night;
With her white face turned toward heaven
In her vestal robe she stands,
As a priestess, at an altar,
Lifting consecrated hands.

Chastest forms of beauty round her—
Stars that gem the vaulted blue
Join with her in silent warning,—
“Let thy love be pure and true—
Trusting e’en the black-browed storm-cloud,
With its leaping lightning-blaze,
Rather than the rover’s whisper,
Neath the moon’s enchanting gaze.”

To James Newton Mathews.[2]

Must write a sonnet!—ere the Poet’s rank,
With its devouring hopes, I dare to claim—
Ere I with them may seek a place or name—
Ere I may taste Castalia’s fount, where drank
The bards of eld, or find the flowery bank
Of clear Penneus, flashing back the flame
Of sunset fires. Thro’ moorlands, low and dank,
Alone, must grope, unlit by torch of fame.

Tho’ Poesy should stir my soul to song
That flowed like liquid tenderness along,
Or, wild and glad as leaping forest rills—
Tho’ Nature’s music thro’ my being thrills
And Imagery, with all her fairy throng,
My dreamy world of thought and vision fills,—
Alas! I’m doomed—this stanza is a line too long.

[2] “You must write a Sonnet to gain a Poet’s diploma.”—J. N. M.

The Great Hereafter.

Will the wrongs of life be righted,
Fruited there the hopes here blighted,
In the great hereafter?
Will the darkened lives be lighted
And dissevered souls united
In the great hereafter?

Will this wearing, wild commotion
Sink to rest and sweet emotion
Calm all strife hereafter?
Will love’s slighted, fond devotion
Reach beyond life’s tossing ocean
To the great hereafter?

Will the vows here lightly broken
With repentant tears be spoken
In the great hereafter?
The wounded one accept the token
Of the heart’s remorse unspoken
In the great hereafter?

Gladly from its idols turning
Will the soul forget its yearning
In the great hereafter?
Thro’ a quickened sense discerning
That the labors we’ve been spurning
Keep love’s holy incense burning
In the great hereafter?

Shall we find that hopes deceiving
Helped us on to grand achieving
In the great hereafter?
And be blest with glad receiving
What is now but faith, believing
In the great hereafter?
Will the soul that’s drunk the vial
Of a bitter self-denial
Feel the loss hereafter?
Or, thro’ sacrifice and trial,
Will it triumph o’er Belial,
In the great hereafter?

Will the bands by dogmas riven
Scathed and scarred by anger levin,
Make a peaceful, joyous Heaven
In the great hereafter?
For the good for which they’ve striven
Will their errors be forgiven
In the great hereafter?

There, with pomp, his work resuming
Will the bigot, still presuming,
God’s prerogative assuming
In the great hereafter,
Sit as judge, his brother dooming,
And with creed-lit torch reluming
Fires of torture “unconsuming,”
Through the great hereafter?

Will the Wrong, the Right assailing,
Wring from suffering helpless wailing
In the great hereafter?—
Conquered Good, with banners trailing,
Seeking streams for Hope’s regaling,
Be mirage-lured, till faint and failing,
Faith becomes a phantom, sailing
Through the great hereafter?

Or, shall our spirit eyes beholding
God’s mysterious plans unfolding
In the great hereafter,
See His strength the Right upholding
And his love the weak enfolding
In the great hereafter?

Struggling here with opposition,
Gives, perchance, the strong volition
Some may need for angel mission,
In the great hereafter;
And the ills of life’s condition,
To the tried may bring fruition
Of a joyous, sweet elysian
In the great hereafter.

What has seemed Fate’s unfair dealing,
May unveil, a joy revealing
In the great hereafter:
Though denying our appealing,
Made in agony of feeling,
God may still, with love’s own healing,
_Higher destiny, be sealing_
For the Great Hereafter.

Late October.

The night was black—the dismal rain
First dripped from sullen, inky clouds,
And then was dashed against the pane,
By winds that shrieked like demon crowds;
When, on the midnight’s ebon breast,
The storm, a moment, lulled to rest,
I heard this low, half stifled moan
With sorrow braided in the tone—
“Who cares for me? Who, who?”

The lurid lightning’s fitful glare
Lit all the far, horizon’s rim—
It showed the walnut, stripped and bare,
And clutching one great, leafless limb
Sat something weird, of dusky form;
Defenceless, in the pelting storm,
She faced alone that angry sky—
October’s voice seemed in the cry,
“Who cares for me? Who, Who?”

With rush and wrench an angered fiend
The loosened shutters clanged and swung,
His single stroke the grove had preened
And wide its deadened branches flung,
And from the wide, o’er-hanging eaves
He tore the crimson ivy leaves
And wildly whirled them on the blast—
The phantom murmured, as they passed,
“Who cares for me? Who, Who?”

The maples writhed as, tempest torn,
Their branches beat the gables high,
And, in the storm’s dark bosom borne,
Mad thunders bellowed thro’ the sky.
She spurned the spruce, with stately form,
Whose robes of green might shield and warm,
And yet, like sobbing on the gale,
Was monotoned that dismal wail,
“Who cares for me? Who, Who?”

Again the leaping lightnings glared,
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.