Chapter III

The songs you sing are simple songs,
Your words are words that children use
To tell of love, complain of wrongs;
You may the guiding notes confuse,
(If any notes e’er met your eyes!)
They rise, and live, and lingering,
Each song and word alternate dies
In words you speak, in songs you sing.

FOR A NEW YEAR’S MORN.

Like some tired reader who has put aside
His book a little while, sick of the tale,
Careless a moment how the plot may run,
Indifferent to the part he has perused,
Then with new interest going back to find
How fared it with the story’s people, so
Here at the gate of this new year I stand.
Weary we grew long since, my Comrade soul!
So tired we are of all our eyes have found,
So strong our yearning for new sights and sounds!
Yet on this morn the world is fair again,--
Ah, very fair, and full of light and joy;
And holding forth new hope that comes of faith,
And adding to our faith that lies in God.
Now, like some traveler in a desert lost,
Straining his eyes across the wastes of sand,
Then, sudden, finding tracks but freshly made
That give new courage to the wanderer,--
So now, my Comrade soul, we turn away
From dreary wastes, we see the tracks that show
Where others have gone on and found the way
As we can find it. Come, old Comrade,--friend!
Give me your hand, we must march on again!

THREE FRIENDS.

[Paul Hamilton Hayne, Sidney Lanier and Robert Burns Wilson]

Three noble friends the South has given me,
Two biding now beyond the farthest gate,
One living still, great-hearted, soul elate,
From trammeling passions free.

The twain now unbeholden to our eyes,
Were soldiers for a cause they thought was right--
They were such men as set the torch alight
That marks our destinies;

Yet, with a song that rings above the din
Of battle, and with brows where there might rest
The victor’s crown, or singer’s wreath, more blest,
Through hymns of peace to win.

I read one morning, in a day long gone,
The songs of Hayne, all odorous of the pines;
The heart of Nature throbbed along the lines--
Her joy was in his dawn.

The hills and streams to him were never dumb,
They gave their secrets to his own heart’s keeping;
Grand music in the oaks and pines was sleeping
Waiting for him to come!

And you, Lanier, cut down like some tall tree
By an insidious foe--upright and strong
Until the last, and with your parting song
From Deathland floating free!

Sweet dawns were yours, bright noons and starry nights;
Your heart lay on the bosoms of the hills--
Clear was your soul as dew that God distills
Upon His sacred heights!

And you are gone, and only one remains
Of the three Southern singers loved so well;
To-night the wind in sympathy would quell
The grief of woods and plains--

Saying: “They were our friends, they understood
The messages we spoke into their ears;
Now they have passed beyond our hopes and fears
Unto a higher Good.”

But he who still is here, he well has caught
The spirit that is Nature’s, and is hers
Only for her most loved interpreters--
Ah, nobly he has wrought!

And Southern winds that to the northward roam,
And misty stars that shine above us dim,
Each evening bring me utterance of him
To my far Northern home!

A RHYME OF LITTLE GIRLS.

Prithe tell me, don’t you think
Little girls are dearest
With their cheeks of tempting pink,
And their eyes the clearest?
Don’t you know that they are best
And of all the loveliest?

Of all girls with roguish ways
They are surely truest;
Sunshine gleams through all their days,
They see skies the bluest,
And they wear a diadem
Summer has bestowed on them.

Lydia doesn’t care a cent
For the newest dances;
She is not on flirting bent,
Has no killing glances,
But without the slightest art
She has captured many a heart.

Older sisters cut you dead,
Little sisters never;
They don’t giggle when they’ve said
Something very clever,--
They just get behind a chair,
Frowning, smiling at you there.

Florence, Lydia, Margaret
Or a gentle Mary,
They form friendships that, once set,
Never more can vary,--
Stanch young friends they are and true
Always clinging close to you.

Buds must into blossoms blow,
(Morn so early leaves us!)
Maids must into women grow,
(There’s the thing that grieves us!)
Psyche knots of flying curls,
That’s good-bye to little girls!

THE BATTLES GRANDSIRE MISSED.

Come, boy, and sit upon my knee,
And turn to me your eyes,
That I, down in their depths may see
A hint of those blue skies
Beneath which once my father fought
(Your grandsire! and I am not old!)
What time our banner’s stars were caught
In treason’s eager hold.

A boy, as you are now a boy,
I did not understand
That traitors could their flag destroy
And cut in twain their land;
I heard the tramp of marching men,
So long ago that seems!
You can not know what times were then
Though you may guess, in dreams.

And then my father went away;
How would it be if I
Should leave you, boy of mine, to-day--
Should leave you and should die?
Your eyes are wet; O closer come!
There is no more of war;
Peace long has shown that there are some
Kind things to struggle for.

You “wonder whether grandpa got
In all the fights?” Well, lad,
It was Bull Run where he was shot,
The first big fight they had!
But let us, you and I, insist
That this of him be said:
The only battles that he missed
Were fought when he was dead.

“He would have fought, had he been there?”
You ask of me, my child;
He never would have ceased to dare
Those who our flag defiled.
And always, in the spring, keep tryst
With Memory by the head
Of one who not a battle missed
Except when he was dead.

BARRED.

One cheerless night when winter winds were sowing
Over the world their cold, white seeds of snow,
While from my window pane the fire was throwing
Taunts to the elements with its bright glow,

A poor, storm-driven bird, its lost way winging,
Paused when it saw the flame’s reflected light;
Unto the window for a moment clinging,
Then downward fell, forever lost to sight.

And so it is, I thought, that poor hearts yearning
For more of life, charmed by its outward sheen,
Must backward fall, the truth too quickly learning,
That death, cold and unyielding, stands between.

A SLUMBER SONG.

Baby, you stand by a gate that leads
Into a land of dreams;
There’s a drowsy watchman here who heeds
Never the straggling gleams
Of light that stray from the far-off sun--
Always for him it’s twilight begun--
And we stand by the gate,
And watch and wait,
And watch--and wait!

Little one, hear what the stream sings of,
Here in this quiet land;
It sings of the joy of mother love--
Sings to birds in the sand--
To the strange, tall birds with dreamy eyes,
That look at you, dear, in mute surprise,
While we stand by the gate,
And watch and wait,
And watch--and wait!

If you open the gate, no one will know;
The guard will never guess.
You must open it gently, slowly--so!
No one has heard, unless
Those dreamful birds, or the dreamland sheep,
Heard you stealing through their land of sleep
While I stood by the gate,
To watch and wait,
And watch--and wait!

Oh, strange are the birds and the sheep that dwell
Here in the land of dreams!
But you must not see, and you must not tell,
However strange it seems,
Or they’ll never let you in again,
And it would not please you, baby, then,
Just to stand by the gate,
And watch, and wait,
And watch--and wait!

BEFORE THE FIRE.

The winds go riding down the wold,
And back the forest legions throw;
A winter day the hours has told
On rosaries of drops of snow.
Through close-drawn blinds the lamplight falls,
And on a drifted whiteness lies,
Here within these cottage walls
The flames make stars of baby’s eyes.

Rude fingers tap upon the pane
And entrance at the door demand;
The storm king and his lusty train
Go rushing o’er the land;
But homes where love a vigil keeps
Know not that summer ever dies,
Know not that summer even sleeps,
When flames make stars of baby’s eyes.

The father to the mother reads,
The mother busy at his side;
He reads a tale of noble deeds,
Of men who for a nation died,
But oft they turn and fondly look
Upon the hero whom they prize
Beyond the people of the book,
Where flames make stars of baby’s eyes.

Fierce winds may ride across the night,
And storms prevail o’er flood and field,
But where one lamp throws out its light,
A happy picture is revealed
Of two, who by the fireside sit,
And watch the glowing flames, while rise
Quick shadows that around them flit
And mock the stars in baby’s eyes.

OCTOBER.

The year is getting older, day by day;
Last night I heard a fierce wind riding by,
Rattling my western window, and no ray
Of moon or star illumined the black sky.

Older the year has grown; the wind that came
Across the changing world last night to ride,
Passed here a year ago; it is the same
That rose before and summer’s strength defied.

Ah, it is you, my old, familiar friend
October, come to pitch your tents awhile,
Madly descending from the earth’s far end
Over the farthest seas for many a mile.

Yet your fierce advent and your winds severe
Are but the bluster of a friend we love;
Though you are winter’s neighbor you bring here
Rich gifts, and hang your bluest skies above.

To-morrow you will tame your restless steeds
And drive the water-freighted clouds away;
Then you will scatter far the wild-flower’s seeds
At intervals throughout a peaceful day.

Still, though your skies may be the summer’s own,
Of all your moods I like the wildest best;
I love the wind and its mad, warring tone,
Its anger, and its yearning and unrest;

For in man’s soul there is an answering mood,
A passionate storm with wind and driving rain
All through a night--love by dull pain pursued,
Then days when skies are kind and blue again,--

Blue, but they shed their bitter, biting frost,
And the sun burns with but a mocking heat,
While ghost-like zephyrs seek for something lost,
Like followers in the summer’s slow retreat.

“IN WINTER I WAS BORN.”

In winter I was born,
So all my years I’ve loved the frost and snow
And the strong tireless winds that, passing, blow
A battle note forlorn.

I love the year’s long night.
The tumult of great storms, the biting air
Make my heart’s summer time, when days are fair
And yield me true delight.

In winter I was born,
And as I came so let me pass away,
Out from the world on a December day
When the delaying morn

In the far East shall creep
Last time for me; then let the winds I love
Come from their far-off homes and play above
The place where I shall sleep.

GOOD NIGHT AND PLEASANT DREAMS.

Good-night and pleasant dreams!
Forgotten all that play-day world of yours,
Kind angels lead you now by distant shores;
Dear childish hands clasped lightly o’er your breast,
Dear eyes with lids that keep the dark away,
What sweet content is now by you possessed!
I feel your breath against my cheek and say
Good-night, good-night!
Good-night and pleasant dreams!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!
The children’s lives so different are from ours,
Is there not made for them a land of flowers,--
A childhood’s land of sleep where they are taken,--
Where dreams are only dreams of childish toys
And only sounds of childish voices waken
The quiet ways, and say to girls and boys
Good-night, good-night!
Good-night and pleasant dreams!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!
Go to your quiet land of sleep and dreaming,
Beyond the darkness, passed the stars a-gleaming.
The plains of your sleep-land are green and fair;
Out of the night they make a land of morning
From which is banished even childish care;
Stay on, sleep on, dear child, the night world scorning,--
Good-night, good-night!
Good-night and pleasant dreams!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!
Good-bye, and gentle angels guard your sleep,
Good-night, and angels watch above you keep.
Ah, if we could our childish days prolong--
If sleep would always come as sweet as this,
Shielding us from the world of dark and wrong,
Just by the magic of a mother’s kiss,
And her good-night!
Good-night and pleasant dreams!

WHERE LOVE WAS NOT.

Once in a dream I saw a blackened world
Hung high in space, by bitter winds o’erblown;
And there no forests were, no flowers grew,
No river flowed, but all was sad and drear.
And on that smoke-encircled sphere there were
No cities full of life; no children spent
Glad hours in play; there, laughter ne’er was heard,
And day was endless day, and night ne’er came
With tired husband seeking home and wife,
And “home” was but a mocking echo there.

And walking o’er that world I met a man,
Or ghost of what was man, wan, staring-eyed,
And bowed as though with age, albeit his locks
Were fair, and seeming youthful was his face;
And unto him I said in question: “Why
This waste and desolation, and where are
The people that once dwelt upon this world?”
And slow he made reply: “But yesterday
Did Love remove his court from this drear globe,
Which was as fair a world as ever came
From the Creator’s hand, and now, so soon,
That Love is flown has come this awful change--
The cheerlessness, the people dead and gone.”

He turned from me, it seemed, and I awoke--
Back in a world that is controlled by Love.

DOWN THE AISLES.

Lone here in vague cathedral gloom I sit,
Far from the busy city’s noise and jar.
Such calm! It seems God might just now have writ
A new, sweet song of peace and whispered it
From star to star.

I almost hear a sacred anthem pealing,
As o’er the quiet aisles I turn my eyes;
It seems I hear soft prayers to heaven stealing
Up rays that lead unto the Light-revealing
In Paradise.

I think: “How oft have feet of mourners led
Down these long aisles where perfect silence reigns!
How oft have heart-uniting words been said
There at the altar, whither flowers were spread
From Love’s fair plains!”

Yes, Death and Love have hither come and gone,
With slow, sad songs, with anthems glad and free;
And still, without, the world treads on and on
In aisles that lead to darkness--or the Dawn,
O God, and Thee!

RUIN.

The slowly crumbling wall, the broken gate,
O’er which soft silvery threads of Time are spun;
Through turrets tall, once grim and stern as Fate,
Now unresisted steals the changeless sun.

The eager vines close clasp the pillars round,
As though to hide the signs of their decay;
The cheerless chambers echo with each sound
That enters in where Silence holds her sway.

Upon the ground, with torn and riven crust,
There rests the cuirass of some daring knight,
Enfolding but the cold, unspeaking dust
Of him who nevermore shall lead the fight.

And here the chariot-furrowed roadway lies,
Once trod by armies rich in valorous deeds,
Now haunted by the lonely wind which sighs
And creeps among the dead and tangled weeds.

Ruin and ruins everywhere, but yet,
In fancy, see the myriad castles tall
Whereon the banners fair of Hope are set,
Then watch the wreck and ruin of it all!

Forsaken cities far beyond the sea
Hold not such claim to pity as do those
Grand dwellings youth rears in such majesty
To crumble and form sepulchres for woes.

O memory! keep and guard your treasures well;
Contented rest, and, what the past endears,
Unto the ever hopeful future tell,
And voice your glories through the coming years.

HALF FLIGHTS.

I think it were better that lips should forever be mute
Than flattering the voice should sound, or the speech irresolute.

And better that arrows fly far past the mark, over-shot,
Than but timidly sent they should droop and transfix it not.

The race should be vigorously pushed, though uneven the start,
And always, wherever assigned, let us act well the part,
Let firm be the footstep to tally with firm beat of heart.

But more willing am I forever to steadily plod,
Inspired by a thought that my soul is not linked to a clod,
Than failing in flight, to fall, stricken again to the sod,
And stumble along in the pathway that leads me to God.

A KIND OF MAN.

I like a man who all mean things despises,
A man who has a purpose firm and true;
Who faces every doubt as it arises,
And murmurs not at what he finds to do.

I like a man who shows the noble spirit
Displayed by knights of Arthur’s table round;
Who, face to face with life, proves his real merit,
Who has a soul that dwells above the ground;

And yet, one who can understand the worry
Of some chance brother fallen in the road,
And speak to him a kind word ’mid the hurry,
Or lay an easing hand upon his load.

Large hearted, brave-souled men to-day are needed,
Men ready when occasion’s doors swing wide;
Grand men to speak the counsel that is heeded,
And men in whom a nation may confide.

The world is wide, and broad its starry arches,
But lagging malcontents it cannot hold;
The way of life to him who upright marches,
Has ending in a far-off street of gold.

TRANSFIGURED.

“A cold, hard man I said,” as day by day
I saw him pass the door, or, brooding, sit
Before his cottage, watching children play
The summer’s lingering twilight hours away--
Ever uncouth and grim, with brows close knit.

Until, one day, a wondrous change took place;
Upon the door the sign of mourning, and
His child lay dead! But, by what heavenly grace
Did all the hardened lines fade from his face,
Leaving of former self no slightest trace,
As with sweet Grief he journeyed, hand in hand?

LOVE’S POWER.

Within the palace of a brain
A Thought of Love dwelt all alone,
And there was not another Thought
That ever dared approach his throne;

Until there came a Thought of Hate,
Half-crouching to the sacred seat,
But, Thought of Love stretched forth a hand,
And Thought of Hate died at his feet.

FIRE-HUNTING.

With dip and glide a light canoe
Crept through the waters of the lake;
So softly, lightly creeping through
That it did not the silence break.

A lantern’s penetrating glow
Burned in the dark a path of light,
And far-off, on its margin, lo!
A pair of eyes gleamed strangely bright!

The paddling ceased; there fell a hush.
Then came a ringing rifle-shot--
A plunge into the underbrush--
Upon the beach a dark blood-clot!

With dip and glide a light canoe
Crept through the waters of the lake,
So softly, lightly creeping through
That it did not a ripple make.

“HEARTACHE.”

[Lines naming a landscape painted by Mr. Theodore C. Steele, owned by Mr. Louis C. Gibson.]

Although the fields of summer time are dear
And fair the days of sunshine-flooded hours
We would not always have the summer here,--
We tire of flowers.

Let come a short October afternoon,
Or yet a dreary day November sends;--
A mist hangs o’er the tired earth, and soon
The night descends.

Like some cowled monk grown weary of the world,
The evening creeps along in somber guise,
Her face in misty shadows thickly furled
To hide her eyes.

O heartache of the earth, so near to us
These barren fields have on a sudden grown!
Cool hand of twilight touch us--tremulous,
Sick and alone.

O skies of gray, come often in our need!
Come fall, O mists, efface the marks of tears,--
The lessons of our heartache with us read,
And soothe our fears!

Dear barren field, we lay our hearts on thine,
And leafless shrub, we make thy grief our own;
Come, Spring, and touch our hearts with life divine,
All heartache flown!

FRIENDSHIP’S SACRAMENT.

When I’ve partaken of your bread and wine,
And paused awhile beneath your friendly roof,
Good thoughts and honest purposes are mine,
Awhile from trivial things I stand aloof.

It is a sacrament of friendship there,
When I’ve partaken of your bread and wine;
I feel in touch with all things sweet and fair;
My pilgrimage is to a true home’s shrine.

Like the lost Arab, when his host will bring
The bit of cake, the salt in friendly sign,
When I’ve partaken of your bread and wine
Across my desert rose and lotus spring,

And in my heart there is a genial glow.
To-night above me starry heavens shine,
Yet out of clouds the brightest stars will grow
When I’ve partaken of your bread and wine.

OMAR KHAYYAM.

King of the wise who, long ago,
Your tents built in the Persian sand,
Let me your sweet contentment know,
Here in my vigorous Western land.

Some day, when I shall stand beside
The grave where you have lain so long--
At Nishapur your body died,
But your soul lives in tender song--

I’ll pour upon your tomb the wine
Some Western grape has given me;
I’ll speak some verse, some flowing line
Born here, beyond the Western sea.

And may the time be early night
When torches in the desert glow,
And in dim tents appears a light,
While sounds the camel’s moaning, low.

Then I would be at Nishapur,
To stand in reverent pause and be
One happy hour a worshiper,
Your grave a Mecca made for me.

Oh, my beloved, I shall taste
The grape’s blood, as your songs have said,
And pour it on the desert’s waste,
A tribute to the ghostly dead

Whose spirits hover there, and plan
Strange journeys that can never end,
But, in a ghostly caravan,
For ages through the past extend.

O, Muezzin, from the Tower of Night,
Look you toward the tomb of him
Who yearned in song for greater light
And found it at the goblet’s brim!

Forget him not, because he keeps
Such silence; guard in light and gloom
Until I reach the place he sleeps,
With wine to pour upon his tomb.

A DISCOVERY.

[According to a child.]

I have just discovered what makes bread white,
And why the leaves are so porous and light.

We plant the seed in fall-time in the ground,
And all the winter long they grow and grow,
And when the fields and woods are winter-bound,
The tiny blades are green beneath the snow.

And then in summer-time, when winter’s dead,
The ripened wheat is ground to flour, and so
When that light flour is made up into bread,
We see within the loaves the winter’s snow.

And that is the reason why bread is white,
And why the loaves are so porous and light!

_SONNETS_

A MODERN PURITAN.

As though Priscilla had smoothed out the frown
She had for all things that were worldly-wise--
As though she stood again ’neath softer skies
Than on the bleak New England rocks looked down,
And all the sorrows of that time could drown,--
Thus comes one, unaustere, with kindly eyes,
Stepping from out the past’s dim tapestries,
A Puritan with purity her crown.

Yet, not the shy reserve that marks her ways
Nor lines of strength denoted in her face
O’er which the sweetest light ’neath heaven plays,
Compel our love, but traces of the race
That passes down its grandeur to our days,
Seeking the good and spurning all things base!

THE LAW OF LIFE.

[To Mr. Charles H. Ham, author of “Manual Training”.]

“Labor the law of life,” that is your creed;
Once it was true that art meant only grace,
“A pretty flower this is,” “a glorious face,”
Men said, and so interpreting, did heed
No higher call than came from shepherd’s reed:
The brawny arm was for the warrior’s mace,
The supple limb was for the champion’s race,
But higher, better things were lost indeed!

Now, in this newer day, what change is wrought!
We know the law of life is labor; so
The hand and mind in unison are taught,
With each the other’s ready servant. Lo!
What a grand world will swing beneath the sun
When Heart and Hand and Mind are all in one!

TO EUGENE FIELD IN ENGLAND.

Good poet of the city by the lake,
Critic and satirist I wave a hand
And send this greeting over sea and land--
That kindest spirits round you tend, and make
Your ready feet to walk in Chaucer’s wake,
And in the paths of Keats and Shelley stand;
Or where the master of all singers planned
His songs, may your heart inspiration take.

Where Dobson’s flowers find root in “paven ground,”
And Andrew Lang and Walter Pater bide,
I know that there for you a joy is found.
Cease not your western Pegasus to ride,
And when old book plates and rare volumes bore,
Quit London’s fog and dwell with us once more.

DEPENDENCE.

When a kind parent first his children guides
Into a bit of world they have not seen,
Though often told about its meadows green,
Or of some evil thing that there abides,
Their father’s careful care each one derides;
His guarded pace to them seems slow and mean,
Till sudden, they go hurrying back to lean
Against his surer, stronger heart.

The sides
Of mountains where men’s daring feet would go
Alluring are, because no man has trod;
The restless slopes are tempting from below,
Yet seekers will not in the safe paths plod;
Like the weak children are taught to know
That man must always follow after God.

BY SHERIDAN’S GRAVE.

I stood upon the heights at Arlington,
And saw Potomac’s waters seaward flowing,
While all about me, past our human knowing
The soldiers lay--men who that soil had won
From enemies as brave, who would not shun
The wrath that followed on their whirlwind sowing,
And there among their graves the flowers were growing,
And on Virginia shone the springtime sun.

Here lies the idol of my boyish dreaming,
Beside the storied river that had known
The camp-fires of a mighty army, gleaming
Where peace to-day her snowy scarf has thrown.
Sleep, Sheridan, beyond this world of seeming,
Your spirit guard this valley as its own!

VIKING.

[Written In Du Chaillu’s Viking Age.]

What has been stolen from time’s jealous hand,--
A newer Greece washed by the Baltic’s tide
Where fire of Northern genius burned and died;
Where long-dethronèd gods ruled o’er the land
And warriors fought with sword and threatening brand?
Was it these rugged shores that once defied
The world as it was known to them and tried
Adventurous keels on many an unknown strand?

Parents of mighty nations, kings of the sea!
Fair-haired, strong-limbed path-blazers of the deep!
How full a life was theirs, how broad and free,--
Passing one day Gibraltar’s tropic steep,
Seeking a while some Northern coast and drear,
Or sailing far to find the Western hemisphere!

VIOLIN.

Gently, beneath her perfect rounded chin,
The instrument is clasped, as mothers hold
Across their hearts a much-loved child, to fold
It from the world of misery and sin.
She draws the bow across the strings to win
To life the tones now soft, now strong and bold,
(But ever breathing some grand truth untold)
That dormant lie within the violin.

O, mystery of music, wondrous art!
The sympathetic violin but steals
The loves and hates that dwell within her heart--
The very hopes, the vague desires she feels--
And at the bow’s quick touch they rise and start
In melody that inmost soul reveals.

WHAT THE BABIES SAY.

What things the babies say are listened to
As if the little heads were brimming o’er
With pretty fancies, such as ne’er before
Took form in human mind--as if they knew
The glories of the world, or false or true.
And with their careless-clutching fingers tore
From Miss Pandora’s box the bitter store
(If pleased) and handed out the sweets to you.

O baby lips, whose lispings we repeat,
O baby tongue, so eager in attaining
The power through which your wishes may be heard;
May you remain forever pure and sweet,
And ne’er in anger move, but uncomplaining,
And ever by the noblest promptings stirred.

SECRETS.

How well her many secrets nature keeps
And never tells to us by word or sign,--
The hidden source whence comes life-giving wine
Which through the trees in springtime tingling creeps;
The dwelling-place from which the wind low sweeps,
His stalwart forest legions to align
With leadership of giant oak or pine--
She tells us not but, brooding silent, sleeps.

So, safely locked within the human heart,
Are joys and sorrows of the long ago,
As hidden springs from which the sad tears start
When we scarce know the power that movers their flow;
And we from all the world are set apart
By precious secrets none may ever know.

BLIND.

As one who in a cavern underground
Can hear the jars and murmurings which tell
That far away a busy people dwell,
Not hearing, only knowing by the sound,
So dwells he in a world by darkness bound;
He hears and feels, but no dawn can dispell
The night for him on whom no light e’er fell
With power to drive away the night profound.

But not for aye he walks the realm of night,
For one day there will break upon his eyes
A flood of rarer, dark o’ercoming light
Than ever flushed the arch of earthly skies,
And for him dawn a morning wondrous bright
Within the garden lands of Paradise.

A FANCY.

’Neath sullen skies the marshalled clouds parade;
The Autumn wind sighs a weird monotone
In which I hear, in fancy, softly blown,
The stirring bugle notes that once were played
To mocking echoes in a Southern glade;
I hear the sentinel’s quick challenge tone--
The noise and stir of war, all backward thrown
Across the gulf that peaceful years have made.

But long ago the clouds of war had spent
Their fury; sounds of strife no longer fill
The field whereon sweet peace has spread her tent--
But those same bugle tones are sounding still,
And ringing through the starry firmament,
Whilst Memory’s camp-fires blaze upon the hill.

THOREAU.

A prince he was, yet scorning princely ways,
A priest of nature, simple and sincere,
To whom the wild free things were far more dear
Than trammeling honors gathered of the days
That only served to show him some new phase
In life of flower and tree; whose greatest cheer
Came when the seasons changed and he would hear
The blue bird’s note or see the woods ablaze.

Though joining not in endless race with men,
And caring not to lift life’s heavy load;--
Of quiet life, of solitude though fond,
I love to read the thoughts traced by his pen,
And fancy that I walk Marlborough road
Or rest with him by peaceful Walden pond.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.