Chapter I: Front Matter

POEMS

BY

ELIZABETH STODDARD

1895

CONTENTS

THE POET'S SECRET
NOVEMBER
MUSIC IN A CROWD
"I LIVE WITHIN THE STRANGER'S GATE"
THE HOUSE OF YOUTH
THE HOUSE BY THE SEA
CHRISTMAS COMES AGAIN
MARCH
THE SPRING AFAR
WHY?
AUGUST
OCTOBER
"THE WILLOW BOUGHS ARE YELLOW NOW"
"IN THE STILL, STAR-LIT NIGHT"
AUTUMN
THE AUTUMN SHEAF
IN THE CITY
"I LOVE YOU, BUT A SENSE OF PAIN"
NAMELESS PAIN
A BABY SONG
THE WIFE SPEAKS
THE HUSBAND SPEAKS
"ONE MORN I LEFT HIM IN HIS BED"
BEFORE THE MIRROR
"THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER REACH"
A SUMMER NIGHT
"FAN ME WITH THESE LILIES FAIR"
"OH, THE WILD, WILD DAYS OF YOUTH!"
"ON MY BED OF A WINTER NIGHT"
"HALLO! MY FANCY, WHITHER WILT THOU GO?"
YOU LEFT ME
"O FRIEND, BEGIN A LOFTIER SONG"
"NOW THAT THE PAIN IS GONE, I TOO CAN SMILE"
THE COLONEL'S SHIELD
A FEW IDLE WORDS
VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ
THE RACE
THE WOLF-TAMER
THE ABBOT OF UNREASON
EL MANOLO
MERCEDES
THE BULL-FIGHT
ON THE CAMPAGNA
THE QUEEN DEPOSED
A UNIT
ZANTHON--MY FRIEND
ACHILLES IN ORCUS
ABOVE THE TREE
TO AN ARTIST
A LANDSCAPE
FROM THE HEADLAND
AS ONE
THE VISITINGS OF TRUTH KNOWN ELSEWHERE
WE MUST WAIT
UNRETURNING
CLOSED
MEMORY IS IMMORTAL
THE TRYST
NO ANSWER
ON THE HILLTOP
THE MESSAGE
EXILE
A SEASIDE IDYL
THE CHIMNEY-SWALLOW'S IDYL
LAST DAYS

POEMS

THE POET'S SECRET.

The poet's secret I must know,
If that will calm my restless mind.
I hail the seasons as they go,
I woo the sunshine, brave the wind.

I scan the lily and the rose,
I nod to every nodding tree,
I follow every stream that flows,
And wait beside the steadfast sea.

I question melancholy eyes,
I touch the lips of women fair:
Their lips and eyes may make me wise,
But what I seek for is not there.

In vain I watch the day and night,
In vain the world through space may roll:
I never see the mystic light
Which fills the poet's happy soul.

Through life I hear the rhythmic flow
Whose meaning into song must turn;
Revealing all he longs to know,
The secret each alone must learn.

NOVEMBER.

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;
Long have I listened to the wailing wind,
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,
For autumn charms my melancholy mind.

When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!

Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier
These waiting mourners do not sing for me!

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods.
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,--
The loss of beauty is not always loss!

MUSIC IN A CROWD.

When I hear music, whether waltz or psalm,
Among a crowd, I find myself alone;
It does not touch me with a soothing balm,
But brings an echo like a moan

From some far country where a palace rose,
In which I reigned with Cleopatra's pride:
"Come, Charmian! bring the asp for my repose."
And queenly, men shall say, she died.

There lived and ruled a happy, noble race,
Primeval souls who held imperial power--
My kindred, gone forever from their place,
And I am here without a dower!

They were a Vision, though. And are these real,
These men and women, moving as in sleep,
Who, smiling, gesture to the same Ideal,
For which the music makes me weep?

Have they my longings for that other world
New to them yet? I grant that Music's swell
Is like the sea; they may be thither hurled
By storms that thunder and compel;

Or, like those voyagers in the land of streams,
Glide through its languid air, its languid wave,
To learn that _Here_ and _There_ are but two dreams,
That end in Nothing and the Grave!

"I LIVE WITHIN THE STRANGER'S GATE."