University of Virginia Library

UNDERGRADUATE AND EARLY POEMS

THE POLAR SEA

MORNING

I entered once, at break of day,
A chapel, lichen-stained and gray,
Where a congregation dozed and heard
An old monk read from a written Word.
No light through the window-panes could pass,
For shutters were closed on the rich stained-glass;
And in a gloom like the nether night
The monk read on by a taper's light.
Ghostly with shadows, that shrank and grew
As the dim light flared, were aisle and pew;
And the congregation that dozed around
Listened without a stir or sound—
Save one, who rose with wistful face,
And shifted a shutter from its place.
Then light flashed in like a flashing gem—
For dawn had come unknown to them—
And a slender beam, like a lance of gold,
Shot to the crimson curtain-fold,
Over the bended head of him
Who pored and pored by the taper dim;
And it kindled over his wrinkled brow
Such words: “The law which was till now;”
And I wondered that, under that morning ray,
When night and shadow were scattered away,
The monk should bow his locks of white
By a taper's feebly flickering light—
Should pore, and pore, and never seem
To notice the golden morning- beam.

MIDNIGHT

Under the stars, across whose patient eyes
The wind is brushing flecks of filmy cloud,
I wait for kindly night to hush and calm
The wrangling throng of cares and discontents,
The tangled troubles of a feverish brain.
From far-off church-towers, distance-muffled bells
Are slowly tolling dying midnight's age.
A surging wind sighs through the shadowy trees,
Like surf that breaks on an invisible beach,
And sends a spray of whispers on the air.
I hear the rushing of the wings of Time
Sweep by me. Voices of the murmuring Past
Chant a low dirge above my kneeling heart.
I hear—or is it only the wild wind
Telling its ghostly dreams to the dark trees?—
Amid its pauses, as irresolute
And purposeless it gropes in fitful gusts
Throughout the darkness, sounds of years ago.
Sometimes it seems the rustle of a step,
Which made my heart beat in those years ago—
Which makes me weep to listen for it now;
Sometimes a little foolish whispered phrase,
That you would smile at, if one uttered it—
At which I smiled even as I treasured it;
A warm breath brushing lightly by my cheek—
A low-toned fragment of a sad old song—
I almost think them real, so crazed am I,
Till the shrill wind whirls them in scorn away,
And shrieks its laughter far into the gloom.
Oh, brooding night! thou mockest so bitterly
With thy wild visions and thy weird-winged wind,
That I could well believe thee all unreal,
And our whole world only a phantasy,
And we far-slanted shadows of some life
That walks between our planet and its God.
Oh, stars of Heaven! will ye not comfort me?
Voices of brother-men from long ago,
Come up to me, clasped in the leaves of books,
That tell how they too dreamed the dream of life,
And how, over Earth's flitting phantom forms
Ye shone serene and steadfast as to-night.
Unseal, unseal the secret, for whose hour
Ye wait in hushed and breathless watchfulness
Till God reveal the mystery of His will.
Is it not time to tell us why we live?
So many years we sleep, and wake, and sleep,
While—like some Magian through the mysteries
Leading in fear the blindfold neophyte—
Time leads us dimly on, till angrily
Tired life would turn and throttle its stern guide,
Till he should tell us whither and how long.
But Time gives back no answer, and the stars
Burn on, cold, hushed, and changeless as before,
And we go back baffled and stolidly
To the old, weary, hollow-hearted world;
To the old, endless search for life in death—
The restless, hopeless roaming after rest.

FAITH

MUSIC

DREAM-DOOMED

DESPAIR AND HOPE

COMMENCEMENT POEM

I.

II.

O hours of Yale—vanished hours!
Memory, sorrowfully singing,
Makes a far-off sound, like ringing
Of a chime of silver bells,
Whose soft music sinks and swells,
Breathed upon by a breath of flowers;
Fainter, sweeter fragrance bringing
Than from odorous island-dells,
Kissed all night by summer showers.

III

IV

V
RETROSPECT

Not all which we have been
Do we remain,
Nor on the dial-hearts of men
Do the years mark themselves in vain;
But every cloud that in our sky hath passed,
Some gloom or glory hath upon us cast;
And there have fallen from us, as we traveled,
Many a burden of an ancient pain—
Many a tangled cord hath been unraveled,
Never to bind our foolish hearts again.
Old loves have left us, lingeringly and slow,
As melts away the distant strain of low
Sweet music—waking us from troubled dreams,
Lulling to holier ones—that dies afar
On the deep night, as if by silver beams
Claspt to the trembling breast of some charmed star.
And we have stood and watched, all wistfully,
While fluttering hopes have died out of our lives,
As one who follows with a straining eye
A bird that far, far-off fades in the sky,
A little rocking speck—now lost—and still he strives
A moment to recover it—in vain,
Then slowly turns back to his work again.
But loves and hopes have left us in their place,
Thank God! a gentle grace,
A patience, a belief in His good time,
Worth more than all earth's joys to which we climb.

VI

The pleasant path of youth that we have ranged
Ends here; as children we lie down this even,
But while we sleep there is a stir in heaven—
A hundred guardian angels have been changed.
Those of our childhood gently have departed
With its pure record, writ on lilies, sealed;
And in their place stand spirits sterner-hearted,
To grave our manhood on a brazen shield.

VII

VIII
THE FOUNTAIN

Were it not horrible?
After all the dreams we dream,
Our yearnings and our prayers,
If this “I” were but a stream
Of thoughts, sensations, joys, and pains,
Which being clogged, no soul remains;
Even as the fountain seems to be
A shape of one identity,
But only is a stream of drops,
And when the swift succession stops,
The fountain melts and disappears,
Leaving no trace but scattered tears.
Yet even here, O foolish heart,
Thou wert not cheated of thy part;
Were it not better, even here,
To keep thy current pure and clear,
With pearly drops of dew to wet
The amaranth and violet,
And round thy crystal feet to shower
Blessings and beauty every hour—
Better than in a sullen flow
To creep along the ground, and go
Wasting and sinking through the sand,
To make no single spot of land
Happier or holier for thy being—
Refresh no flower, no grass-blade, seeing
Thou wert not always thus to stand?

IX
SOLITUDE

All alone—alone,
Calm, as on a kingly throne,
Take thy place in the crowded land,
Self-centred in free self-command.
Let thy manhood leave behind
The narrow ways of the lesser mind:
What to thee are its little cares,
The feeble love or the spite it bears?
Let the noisy crowd go by—
In thy lonely watch on high,
Far from the chattering tongues of men,
Sitting above their call or ken,
Free from links of manner and form
Thou shalt learn of the winged storm—
God shall speak to thee out of the sky.

X

Well—well,
Why need the hurrying brain to trouble itself?
Threescore years is swiftly worn away—
In some summer when our heads are gray,
We perhaps shall wander back from our power or pelf,
To muse on the days when all these things befell.
Nothing will then be changed:
Calm as of yore through the slumberous summer noon
Will the Old Rock rest in its majesty;
All the paths that we have ranged
Still will wear the glory of their June,—
Nothing changed but we.
The years will bring us, hastening to their goal,
A little more of calmness, and of trust,
With still the old, old doubt of death and dust,
And still the expectancy within the soul.
O Father, as we go to meet the years,
We ask not joy that fame or pleasure brings,
But some calm knowledge of the sum of things—
A hint of glory glimmering over tears;
That he, who walks with sanction from Thy hand,
Some token of its presence may have seen,
Beneath which we may tread the path serene
Into the stillness of the unknown land.

THE FOUR PICTURES