The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill

What am I glad will stay when I have passed
From this dear valley of the world, and stand
On yon snow-glimmering peaks, and lingering cast
From that dim land
A backward look, and haply stretch my hand,
Regretful, now the wish comes true at last?

Sweet strains of music I am glad will be
Still wandering down the wind, for men will hear
And think themselves from all their care set free,
And heaven near
When summer stars burn very still and clear,
And waves of sound are swelling like the sea.

And it is good to know that overhead
Blue skies will brighten, and the sun will shine,
And flowers be sweet in many a garden bed,
And all divine
(For are they not, O Father, thoughts of thine?)
Earth's warmth and fragrance shall on men be shed.

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And I am glad that Night will always come,
Hushing all sounds, even the soft-voiced birds,
Putting away all light from her deep dome,
Until are heard
In the wide starlight's stillness, unknown words,
That make the heart ache till it find its home.

And I am glad that neither golden sky,
Nor violet lights that linger on the hill,
Nor ocean's wistful blue shall satisfy,
But they shall fill
With wild unrest and endless longing still
The soul whose hope beyond them all must lie.

And I rejoice that love shall never seem
So perfect as it ever was to be,
But endlessly that inner haunting dream
Each heart shall see
Hinted in every dawn's fresh purity,
Hopelessly shadowed in each sunset's gleam.

And though warm mouths will kiss and hands will cling,
And thought by silent thought be understood,
I do rejoice that the next hour will bring
That far-off mood,
That drives one like a lonely child to God,
Who only sees and measures everything.

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And it is well that when these feet have pressed
The outward path from earth, 't will not seem sad
To them to stay; but they who love me best
Will be most glad
That such a long unquiet now has had,
At last, a gift of perfect peace and rest.

219

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And spread in wider rings above,
To tremble at God's heart of love.
Though it be kingliest one of all
His worlds, 't is but a stony ball:
What are they all, from sun to sun,
But dust and stubble, when all 's done?
Some heavenly grace it only caught,
When, like a hint from home, it brought
To a child's heart one tender thought:
Itself in that great mystery lost,
As some bright pebble, idly tost
Into the darkling sea at night,
Whose widening ripples, running light,
Go out into the infinite.

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REVERIE

Whether't was in that dome of evening sky,
So hollow where the few great stars were bright,
Or something in the cricket's lonely cry,
Or, farther off, where swelled upon the night
The surf-beat of the symphony's delight,
Then died in crumbling cadences away—
A dream of Schubert's soul, too sweet to stay:

Whether from these, or secret spell within,—
It seemed an empty waste of endless sea,
Where the waves mourned for what had never been,
Where the wind sought for what could never be:
Then all was still, in vast expectancy
Of powers that waited but some mystic sign
To touch the dead world to a life divine.

Me, too, it filled—that breathless, blind desire;
And every motion of the oars of thought
Thrilled all the deep in flashes—sparks of fire
In meshes of the darkling ripples caught.
Swiftly rekindled, and then quenched to naught;
And the dark held me; wish and will were none:
A soul unformed and void, silent, alone,
And brooded over by the Infinite One.

222

IS IT SAFE?

Two souls, whose bodies sate them on a hill,
And, beating idly on a stone, one said:

“Yes, light is good, and air; but were it well
To burst the walls that keep the Terror out?
Let faith, my one great pearl, bide deep in the dark,
If love, its lustre, will be dulled in the sun.
See, now: a darkness round us in the world,—
This tossing world that rides upon the waves;
A glimmer overhead; the wrath and roar
Of awful waters rushing thunderously.
Slaves, penned in the pitch-dark hold, shall we go wild
To crush the planks through, mad for light and air,
And drawn in the swirling gulf of that despair?
Better to wait, and guess the end is good,
And hope in some great angel at the helm,
Poring on the mystic words they dropped—
Those dreaming shipmates, that these many nights
Have muttered in their dreams and prophesied.”

The other—grim, with eyes of fathomless trust—
Thus spake:

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“A darkness round the sparrow's egg;
A warm thin wall; within a downy throb—
A fluttering heart. Strange noises swell, or swoon,
Outside that amber glimmer arching round.
The wind rocks bough and nest and mother bird;
The timid heart waits in a dizzy awe;
All things seem rushing like a roaring sea.
It struggles; shall it dare break through the wall—
This safe, smooth wall, so wisely built for it—
And let the unknown Terror in, and die?
With chip on chip of tiny crusted bill
The wall is cleft, and—lo! on perfumed wings
The sun leaps in with a laugh; the dancing leaves
Hang merrily beckoning, and blossom-boughs
Nod gayly to the whispering summer air.”

224

FIVE LIVES

Five mites of monads dwelt in a round drop
That twinkled on a leaf by a pool in the sun.
To the naked eye they lived invisible;
Specks, for a world of whom the empty shell
Of a mustard-seed had been a hollow sky.

One was a meditative monad, called a sage;
And, shrinking all his mind within, he thought:
“Tradition, handed down for hours and hours,
Tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world,
Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence,
When I am very old, yon shimmering dome
Come drawing down and down, till all things end?”
Then with a weazen smirk he proudly felt
No other mote of God had ever gained
Such giant grasp of universal truth.

One was a transcendental monad; thin
And long and slim in the mind; and thus he mused:
“Oh, vast, unfathomable monad-souls!
Made in the image”—a hoarse frog croaks from the pool—
“Hark! 't was some god, voicing his glorious thought
In thunder music! Yea, we hear their voice,

225

And we may guess their minds from ours, their work.
Some taste they have like ours, some tendency
To wriggle about, and munch a trace of scum.”
He floated up on a pin-point bubble of gas
That burst, pricked by the air, and he was gone.

One was a barren-minded monad, called
A positivist; and he knew positively:
“There is no world beyond this certain drop.
Prove me another! Let the dreamers dream
Of their faint dreams, and noises from without,
And higher and lower; life is life enough.”
Then swaggering half a hair's breadth, hungrily
He seized upon an atom of bug, and fed.

One was a tattered monad, called a poet;
And with shrill voice ecstatic thus he sang:
“Oh, the little female monad's lips!
Oh, the little female monad's eyes:
Ah, the little, little, female, female monad!”

The last was a strong- minded monadess,
Who dashed amid the infusoria,
Danced high and low, and wildly spun and dove
Till the dizzy others held their breath to see.

But while they led their wondrous little lives
Æonian moments had gone wheeling by.
The burning drop had shrunk with fearful speed;

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A glistening film—'t was gone; the leaf was dry.
The little ghost of an inaudible squeak
Was lost to the frog that goggled from his stone;
Who, at the huge, slow tread of a thoughtful ox
Coming to drink, stirred sideways fatly, plunged,
Launched backward twice, and all the pool was still.

227

THE OPEN WINDOW

My tower was grimly builded,
With many a bolt and bar,
“And here,” I thought, “I will keep my life
From the bitter world afar.”

Dark and chill was the stony floor,
Where never a sunbeam lay,
And the mould crept up on the dreary wall,
With its ghost touch, day by day.

One morn, in my sullen musings,
A flutter and cry I heard;
And close at the rusty casement
There clung a frightened bird.

Then back I flung the shutter
That was never before undone,
And I kept till its wings were rested
The little weary one.

But in through the open window,
Which I had forgot to close,
There had burst a gush of sunshine
And a summer scent of rose.

228

For all the while I had burrowed
There in my dingy tower,
Lo! the birds had sung and the leaves had danced
From hour to sunny hour.

And such balm and warmth and beauty
Came drifting in since then,
That window still stands open
And shall never be shut again.

229

GOOD NEWS

T is just the day to hear good news:
The pulses of the world are still;
The eager spring's unfolding hues
Are drowned in floods of sun, that fill
The golden air, and softly bear
Deep sleep and silence everywhere.
No ripple runs along that sea
Of warm, new grass, but all things wear
A hush of calm expectancy:
What is coming to Heart and me?

The idle clouds, that work their wills
In moods of shadow, on the hills;
The dusky hollows in the trees,
Veiled with their sunlit 'broideries;
The gate that has not swung, all day;
The dappled water's drowsy gleam;
The tap of hammers far away,
And distant voices, like a dream,—
All seem but visions, and a tone
Haunts them of tidings they refuse:
So, all the quiet afternoon,
Heart and I we sit alone,
Waiting for some good news.

230

Other days had life to spare,
Tasks to do, and men to meet,
Trifling wishes, bits of care,
A hundred ways for ready feet;
But this bright day is all so sweet,
So sweet, 't is sad in its content;
As if kind Nature, as she went
Her happy way, had paused a space,
Remembered us, and turned her face
As toward some protest of distress;
Waiting till we should find our place
In the wide world's happiness.
Nothing stirs but some vague scent,
A breath of hidden violet—
The lonely last of odors gone—
Still lingering from the morning dews,
As if it were the earth's regret
For other such bright days that went,
While Heart and I we sat alone,
Waiting for our good news.

What would you have for your good news,
Foolish Heart, O foolish Heart?
Some new freedom to abuse,
Some old trouble to depart?
Sudden flash of snowy wing
Out of yonder blue, to bring
Messages so long denied?

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The old greeting at your side,
The old hunger satisfied?

Nay, the distant will not come;
To deaf ears all songs are dumb:
Silly Heart, O silly Heart!
From within joy must begin—
What could help the thing thou art?
Nothing draweth from afar,
The gods can give but what we are.
Heaven makes the mould, but soon and late
Man pours the metal—that is Fate.
We must speak the word we wait,
And give the gift we die to own.
Wake, O Heart! From us alone
Can come our best good news.

232

SUNDAY

Not a dread cavern, hoar with damp and mould,
Where I must creep, and in the dark and cold,
Offer some awful incense at a shrine
That hath no more divine
Than that 't is far from life, and stern, and old;

But a bright hilltop in the breezy air,
Full of the morning freshness high and clear,
Where I may climb and drink the pure, new day,
And see where winds away
The path that God would send me, shining fair.

233

PEACE

'T is not in seeking,
'T is not in endless striving,
Thy quest is found:
Be still and listen;
Be still and drink the quiet
Of all around.

Not for thy crying,
Not for thy loud beseeching,
Will peace draw near:
Rest with palms folded;
Rest with thine eyelids fallen—
Lo! peace is here.

234

DARE YOU?

Doubting Thomas and loving John,
Behind the others walking on:—

“Tell me now, John, dare you be
One of the minority?
To be lonely in your thought,
Never visited nor sought,
Shunned with secret shrug, to go
Through the world esteemed its foe;
To be singled out and hissed,
Pointed at as one unblessed,
Warned against in whispers faint,
Lest the children catch a taint;
To bear off your titles well,—
Heretic and infidel?
If you dare, come now with me,
Fearless, confident, and free.”

“Thomas, do you dare to be
Of the great majority?
To be only, as the rest,
With Heaven's common comforts blessed;
To accept, in humble part,
Truth that shines on every heart,

235

Never to be set on high,
Where the envious curses fly;
Never name or fame to find,
Still outstripped in soul and mind;
To be hid, unless to God,
As one grass-blade in the sod,
Underfoot with millions trod?
If you dare, come with us, be
Lost in love's great unity.”

236

CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA

Can this be Christmas—sweet as May,
With drowsy sun, and dreamy air,
And new grass pointing out the way
For flowers to follow, everywhere?

Has time grown sleepy at his post,
And let the exiled Summer back,
Or is it her regretful ghost,
Or witchcraft of the almanac?

While wandering breaths of mignonette
In at the open window come,
I send my thoughts afar, and let
Them paint your Christmas Day at home.

Glitter of ice, and glint of frost,
And sparkles in the crusted snow;
And hark! the dancing sleigh-bells, tost
The faster as they fainter grow.

The creaking footsteps hurry past;
The quick breath dims the frosty air;
And down the crisp road slipping fast
Their laughing loads the cutters bear.

237

Penciled against the cold white sky,
Above the curling eaves of snow,
The thin blue smoke lifts lingeringly,
As loath to leave the mirth below.

For at the door a merry din
Is heard, with stamp of feathery feet,
And chattering girls come storming in,
To toast them at the roaring grate.

And then from muff and pocket peer,
And many a warm and scented nook,
Mysterious little bundles queer,
That, rustling, tempt the curious look.

Now broad upon the southern walls
The mellowed sun's great smile appears,
And tips the rough-ringed icicles
With sparks, that grow to glittering tears.

Then, as the darkening day goes by,
The wind gets gustier without,
And leaden streaks are on the sky,
And whirls of snow are all about.

Soon firelight shadows, merry crew,
Along the darkling walls will leap
And clap their hands, as if they knew
A thousand things too good to keep.

238

Sweet eyes with home's contentment filled,
As in the smouldering coals they peer,
Haply some wondering pictures build
Of how I keep my Christmas here.

Before me, on the wide, warm bay,
A million azure ripples run;
Round me the sprouting palm-shoots lay
Their shining lances to the sun.

With glossy leaves that poise or swing,
The callas their white cups unfold,
And faintest chimes of odor ring
From silver bells with tongues of gold.

A languor of deliciousness
Fills all the sea-enchanted clime;
And in the blue heavens meet, and kiss,
The loitering clouds of summer-time.

This fragrance of the mountain balm
From spicy Lebanon might be;
Beneath such sunshine's amber calm
Slumbered the waves of Galilee.

O wondrous gift, in goodness given,
Each hour anew our eyes to greet,
An earth so fair—so close to Heaven,
'T was trodden by the Master's feet.

239

And we—what bring we in return?
Only these broken lives, and lift
Them up to meet His pitying scorn,
As some poor child its foolish gift:

As some poor child on Christmas Day
Its broken toy in love might bring;
You could not break its heart and say
You cared not for the worthless thing?

Ah, word of trust, His child! That child
Who brought to earth the life divine,
Tells me the Father's pity mild
Scorns not even such a gift as mine.

I am His creature, and His air
I breathe, where'er my feet may stand;
The angels' song rings everywhere,
And all the earth is Holy Land.

240

BUT FOR HIM

Dumb and still was the heart of man
By the river of Time:
Far it stretched, and wide and free,
This rapid river; on it ran,
Through many a land and many a clime,
On and on, and no tide turned,
Down and down to Eternity.

Dumb and still—but the man's heart yearned
For a voice to break the silence long;
And there by the side of the heart of man
Stood the spirit of Song.

Then the waves laughed
Down the river of Time;
And the west wind and the south wind sang,
And the world was glad,
For now it had
A voice to utter, in jocund chime,
The joy it quaffed
From the river of Time.

But when the song grew low and sad,
The trees drooped,

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The flowers were dim,
And a dark cloud down from heaven stooped;
The wind mourned, and tear-drops fell;
And the world cried, grieving, “But for him
We had not known but all was well!”

242

NATURE AND HER CHILD

As some poor child whose soul is windowless,
Having not hearing, speech, nor sight, sits lone
In her dark, silent life, till cometh one
With a most patient heart, who tries to guess

Some hidden way to help her helplessness,
And, yearning for that spirit shut in stone,
A crystal that has never seen the sun,
Smooths now the hair, and now the hand will press,

Or gives a key to touch, then letters raised,
Its symbol; then an apple, or a ring,
And again letters, so, all blind and dumb,
We wait; the kindly smiles of summer come,
And soft winds touch our cheek, and thrushes sing;
The world-heart yearns, but we stand dull and dazed.

243

THE FOSTER-MOTHER

As some poor Indian woman
A captive child receives,
And warms it in her bosom,
And o'er its weeping grieves;

And comforts it with kisses,
And strives to understand
Its eager, lonely babble,
Fondling the little hand,—

So Earth, our foster-mother,
Yearns for us, with her great
Wild heart, and croons in murmurs
Low, inarticulate.

She knows we are white captives,
Her dusky race above,
But the deep, childless bosom
Throbs with its brooding love.

244

THE LINKS OF CHANCE

Holding apoise in air
My twice-dipped pen,—for some tense thread of thought
Had snapped,—mine ears were half aware
Of passing wheels; eyes saw, but mind saw not,
My sun-shot linden. Suddenly, as I stare,
Two shifting visions grow and fade unsought:—

Noon-blaze: the broken shade
Of ruins strown. Two Tartar lovers sit
She gazing on the ground, face turned, afraid;
And he, at her. Silence is all his wit.
She stoops, picks up a pebble of green jade
To toss; they watch its flight, unheeding it.

Ages have rolled away;
And round the stone, by chance, if chance there be,
Sparse soil has caught; a seed, wind-lodged one day,
Grown grass; shrubs sprung; at last a tufted tree.
Lo! over its snake root yon conquering Bey
Trips backward, fighting—and half Asia free!

245

TWO VIEWS OF IT

“O world, O glorious world, good-by!”
Time but to think it—one wild cry
Unuttered, a heart-wrung farewell
To sky and wood and flashing stream,
All gathered in a last swift gleam,
As the crag crumbled, and he fell.

But lo! the thing was wonderful!
After the echoing crash, a lull:
The great fir on the slope below
Had spread its mighty mother-arm,
And caught him, springing like a bow
Of steel, and lowered him safe from harm.

'T was but an instant's dark and daze:
Then, as he felt each limb was sound,
And slowly from the swooning haze
The dizzy trees stood still that whirled,
And the familiar sky and ground,
There grew with them across his brain
A dull regret: “So, world, dark world,
You are come back again!”

246

TO A FACE AT A CONCERT

When the low music makes a dusk of sound
About us, and the viol or far-off horn
Swells out above it like a wind forlorn,
That wanders seeking something never found,
What phantom in your brain, on what dim ground,
Traces its shadowy lines? What vision, born
Of unfulfillment, fades in mere self-scorn,
Or grows, from that still twilight stealing round?
When the lids droop and the hands lie unstrung,
Dare one divine your dream, while the chords weave
Their cloudy woof from key to key, and die,—
Is it one fate that, since the world was young,
Has followed man, and makes him half believe
The voice of instruments a human cry?

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THE THRUSH

The thrush sings high on the topmost bough,—
Low, louder, low again; and now
He has changed his tree,—you know not how,
For you saw no flitting wing.

All the notes of the forest-throng,
Flute, reed, and string, are in his song;
Never a fear knows he, nor wrong,
Nor a doubt of anything.

Small room for care in that soft breast;
All weather that comes is to him the best,
While he sees his mate close on her nest,
And the woods are full of spring.

He has lost his last year's love, I know,—
He, too,—but 't is little he keeps of woe;
For a bird forgets in a year, and so
No wonder the thrush can sing.

248

EVERY-DAY LIFE

The marble-smith, at his morning task
Merrily glasses the blue-veined stone,
With stout hands circling smooth. You ask,
“What will it be, when it is done?”

“A shaft for a young girl's grave.” Both hands
Go back with a will to their sinewy play;
And he sings like a bird, as he swaying stands,
A rollicking stave of Love and May.

249

AT LAST

From all the long, bright daytime's restlessness,
Through starlight's broken promise of redress,
From eyes that care not, hands that cannot bless,
Down all the wintry, withered, endless train
Of years that flowered in hope to fruit in pain,
I claim no happiness.

Sweet soul, that art so rich in blessed store,
See all my hungry heart, my need is sore;
Oh, if thou holdest it, withhold no more!
Let not that wandering hope, that blind with tears,
Comes down to me through all the desert years,
Drop dead, even at the door.

What wistful thought thou darest not confess
Shadows thy dawn-lit eyes with tenderness?
What timid stir as of a mute caress
Dares only thrill thy trembling finger-tips—
What word waits, dumb and quivering, at thy lips?
O Love, my happiness!

250

FOREST HOME

O Forest-Mother, I have stayed
Too long away from thee;
Let me come home for these few hours
That from the world are free.

Oh! mother, they have saddened me
With all their foolish din;
Lowly I knock at thy green gate;
Dear mother, let me in.

Down where the tumbled towers of rock
Their perilous stairs have made,
Holding the tough young hemlock boughs
For slender balustrade,

I find my pleasant home, far off
From all men say and do—
Far as the world from which we flash
When some swift dream breaks through.

Again the grave old hemlock trees
Stretch down their feathery palms,
And murmur up against the blue
Their solemn breath of psalms;

251

And here my little brothers are,
The sparrow and the bee,
The wren that almost used to dare
To perch upon my knee;

The dust of sunshine under foot,
The darkness over head,
The sliding gleam that swings along
The unseen spider's thread;

The low arched path beneath the boughs,
And half-way down it laid
A falling fringe of sun-lit leaves
Against the roof of shade;

The sunshine clasping round both sides
A broken cedar old,
Rimming its shaft so dark and wet
In green and massy gold,

In hollows where the evening glooms
Rest drowsily all day,
In the blue shadows of the pines,
Sprinkled with golden spray.

Dimpled red cheeks of berries hid
A wary eye discerns,
And timid little pale-faced flowers
Peep through the latticed ferns.

252

O Mother, they are proud and blind
Who from all these would stay;
Yet do not scorn them unforgiven,
But woo them day by day.

Let all sweet winds from all fair dells,
And whispering breath of pine,
Pursue and lure the wanderer
Back to thy rest divine.

If I must build in Babel still
Till that last summons come,
Oh! call me when the hour is near,
And let me die at home.

'T were sweet, I know, to stay; but so
'T were sweetest to depart,
Thy cool, still hand upon my face,
Thy silence in my heart.

253

THE SINGER'S CONFESSION

Once he cried to all the hills and waters
And the tossing grain and tufted grasses:
“Take my message—tell it to my brothers!
Stricken mute I cannot speak my message.
When the evening wind comes back from ocean,
Singing surf-songs, to Earth's fragrant bosom,
And the beautiful young human creatures
Gather at the mother feet of Nature,
Gazing with their pure and wistful faces,
Tell the old heroic human story.
When they weary of the wheels of science,
Grinding, jangling their harsh dissonances,—
Stones and bones and alkalis and atoms,—
Sing to them of human hope and passion;
And the soul divine, whose incarnation,
Born of love—alas! my message stumbles,
Faints on faltering lips: Oh, speak it for me!”

Then a hush fell; and around about him
Suddenly he felt the mighty shadow
Of the hills, like grave and silent pity;
And, as one who sees without regarding,
The wide wind went over him and left him,
And the brook, repeating low, “His message!”
Babbled, as it fled, a quiet laughter.

254

What was he, that he had touched their message—
Theirs, who had been chanting it forever:
With whose organ-tones the human spirit
Had eternally been overflowing!
Then, with shame that stung in cheek and forehead,
Slow he crept away.
And now he listens,
Mute and still, to hear them tell their message—
All the holy hills and sacred waters;
When the sea-wind swings its evening censer,
Till the misty incense hides the altar
And the long-robed shadows, lowly kneeling.

255

A MYTH OF FANTASY AND FIRST LOVE

Hid in the silence of a forest deep
Dwelt a fair soul in flesh that was as fair.
Over her nimble hands her floating hair
Made waving shadows, while her eyes did keep
The winding track of weaving intricate.
Early at morn and at the evening late,
A robe of shimmering silk she wove with care.
Hour after hour, though might she smile or weep,
Still ran the golden or the glooming thread.
Waking she wove that which she dreamed asleep,
Till many a noon had bloomed above her tender head.

Now when the time was full, the robe was done.
Light she would hold it in her loving hand,
And with wide eyes of wonder she would stand
For half the day, and turn it to the sun,
To see its gold lights shift and melt away
And grow again, and flash in myriad play.
Or white it glimmered in each glossy strand,
For half the night she held it to the moon;
Or, sitting with it sleeked across her knee,
She would bend down above it, and would croon
The strangest bits of broken songs that e'er could be.

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Then came the dawn when (so her doom had said)
Out through the shadowy forest she must go,
And follow whatsoever chance might show,
Or whither any sound her footsteps led;
Taking for wayward guides whatever stirred—
The rustling squirrel, or the startled bird,
Their pathless ways pursuing, fast or slow,
Until the forest's border she should tread.
There whosoever met her, she must fling
That woven wonder blindly on his head,
And see in him her only lord and king.

Dim was the morn, and dew-wet was the way:
Aloft the ancient cedars lifted high
Their jagged crosses on the dawn-streaked sky:
Below, the gossamers were glimmering gray
Along her path, and many a silver thread
Caught glancing lights, in floating curves o'erhead;
And little dew-showers pattered far and nigh,
Where wakened thrushes stirred the sprinkled spray.
For hours she wandered where her footsteps led,
Till a long lance of open sunlight lay
As red as gold upon her lifted, eager head.

Ah, woe for her that mortal doom must be!
Just then the prince came spurring, fair and young,
With heart as merry as the song he sung:
But as she started forward, at her knee
A cringing beggar from the weeds close by

257

Holds up his cap for alms, with whining cry.
Swift over him the lifted robe was flung:
Henceforth, his slave, forever she must see
All princely beauty in that brutal face—
Heaven send that by some deeper witchery
His swinish soul through her may gain some touch of grace.

258

THE DEPARTURE OF THE PILOT

Written on the Departure of President Daniel C. Gilman from California

Slender spars and snowy wings,
Arrowy hull that cleaves the foam,—

Ye university is likened by ye poet to a ship.

See! the good ship grandly swings
Forth to seek her ocean home.

Thro' the narrow harbor-gate,
Past the rocks that guard the bay,

She is in peril of legislatures

Towards where friendlier billows wait,
Well she holds her stately way.

Angry now the breakers are;
Gleam their white teeth in the sun,

and of ye public.

Where along the shallow bar,
Fierce and high their ridges run.

But the pilot-captain, lo!
How serene in strength is he!

But D. C. G.

Blithe as winds that dawnward blow,
Fresh and fearless as the sea.

259

Now the shifting breezes fail,
Baffling gusts arise and die,

steereth

Shakes and shudders every sail,
Hark! the rocks are roaring nigh.

But the pilot keeps her keel
Where the current runneth fair,

her

Deftly turns the massive wheel
Light as though 't were hung in air.

Hark! the bar on either side!
Hiss of foam, and crash of crest,

into open water.

Trampling feet, and shouts—they glide
Safely out on ocean's breast.

Then the Pilot gives his hand
To his brother, close beside:

He addresseth J. Le C.

“Now 't is thine to take command,
I must back at turn of tide.”

Then the brother-captains true
Grasp each other by the hand,
Bidding cheerily adieu
But a moment as they stand.

Something in the elder's eye
Glimmers—is it but the spray?

And J. Le C. speaketh to

Something—could it be a sigh,
Or a breeze that died away?

260

And quoth he: “O brother brave,
Wisely thou hast steered and well,

D. C. G. &

Now all fair are wind and wave,—
Come and tarry with us still.”

“Wave and wind at last are fair,
Rosy-bright the new-born day,

inviteth him.

Hope and faith are in the air,—
Come and sail with us for aye!”

But the pilot's shallop-prow
Chafes against the vessel's side:

But the overland locomotive snorteth

“Nay, true heart, thy wisdom now
Shall the good ship's fortunes guide.”

“On the morrow they shall launch
Yonder from the Eastern shore,

and Johns Hopkins must be begun.

Yet another vessel, staunch,
Sound as e'er was built before.

“Hopes and prayers upon her wait:
Her deep bosom, grand and free,
Bears a wealth of mystic freight:
I must guide her to the sea.

“But upon our voyage far
We shall meet in other days,

But since both are voyaging after truth and progress

Since the same pure polar star
Shines to beacon both our ways.

261

“Far away where favoring gales
Blow from many a spicy beach,

the ships shall sail in sight &

We shall see our shining sails
Nodding friendly, each to each.

“Many a morning that shall dawn
With its radiant prophecy,

be of ye same fleet.

Still shall greet us sailing on—
Comrades on the glorious sea.”

Amen.

262

AN ANSWER

TO THE YALE CLASS OF 1861, READ JUNE 28, 1876

Dear friends, ask not from me a song:
The singing days to spring belong,
And in our hearts, as in this clime,
Spring has long turned to summer-time.
The morning dreams have fled afar,
When every dew-drop held a star:
The broad, full noon is here—till even
The stars have drawn away to heaven.

With you 't is June; and rosebuds blush,
And golden sunsets glow and flush:
While every breeze, with Psyche wings,
Wafts promise of immortal things;
And every shower of perfumed rain
Brightens to rainbow hope again.
'T is meet that in that fragrant air
Your songs defy old Time and care,
While overhead the elms shall swing,
And hand to hand old friendships cling:
Ah, sweet and strong your voices ring!

263

But here, upon the planet's verge,
The grassy velvet turns to serge:
No shower has wet the hillocks sere
Since April shed her parting tear.
The poppies on the hill are dead,
And the wild oat is harvested:
The canyon's flowers are brown with seed,
And only blooms some wayside weed.
No leafy elms their shadows throw,
No moist and odorous breezes blow;
But all the bare, brown hills along
The ocean wind sweeps sad and strong.
Then ask not, friends, from me a song!

Yet think not that this sombre strain
Would, dear old friends, of fate complain.
Though spring has gone, and singing days,
The sunshine, and the starshine, stays.
If no more bloom the hillsides yield,
The tented sheaves are in the field:
The tawny slopes are sending down
Their harvest loads to farm and town.
If early spring-time fled with tears,
Yet earlier harvest-time appears.
And if far off, as in a dream,
I see your merry faces beam,
And if far off, as through the deep,
I hear your songs their cadence keep,
I know 't were childishness to weep.

264

For all the time is grand indeed!
And whether June bring flower or seed—
And whether softest breezes blow,
Or ocean's organ-music flow,
Not backward only turn our eyes,
But forward, where along the skies
The brighter dawn-lights break and rise.
For all the love these years have stored
Wells up to manlier deed and word.
The nerveless grasp of girlish youth
Grips now the banner staff of truth;
The careless song, half sung, rings out
Changed to a mighty battle-shout;
And we that kept our holiday
With wine and fragrant mists and play,
Shall yet, perchance, even such as we,
Fulfill our half-heard prophecy.
The vision we but half divined,
Wrought out with steadier heart and mind,
Shall bless the world of humankind.

265

IN MEMORY OF A MUSICIAN

Died San Francisco, October, 1878

Dead! And the echoes dumb,
That thrilled our very inmost soul to hear:
And now through all the rich autumnal air,
His city's hum
Murmurs in fitful throbs, like dying beat
Of funeral drum!

Hark! 't is the voice of song—
No dirge, no requiem chant of hopeless woe,
With tramp of dull, unwilling footsteps slow:
Nay, that would wrong
The cheery life that ever was so sweet,
Tender and strong:

But waves along the shore,
That plash and sing like little children's mirth,
Whose faces he loved best of all the earth,
And winds that o'er
This lonely world still blow, never to greet
His music more—

Those waves and winds I hear,
And whispering trees, and note of happy bird,

266

And Nature's every mellow tone is heard,
Singing full clear
The old immortal harmonies his feet
Followed so near.

Still, Nature, still repeat
Thy purest symphonies for his pure sake,
Whose heart love's grandest victory could take
From love's defeat;
Whose life was bruised, like some sweet herb, to make
All others sweet.

267

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM

Yale Club, San Francisco, December 12, 1878

The green was all with shadows blent;
The night-wind, surf-like, here and there
Broke softly on the elms and sent
Its spray of whispers down the air.

The empty streets, long silent, hid
Beneath their leafy arches lay:
Only a sleepy cricket chid,
Or distant footfall died away.

Our college feast had broken up;
No banquet rich, no spices rare,
No gleam of wine from jeweled cup,
But youth, immortal youth was there.

'T was boyish talk,—the race crew's fate,
The jovial tutor's joke and grin,
And who would conquer in debate,
And who would wear the mystic pin.

No clutching Past our spirits held:
Our eyes looked forward; it was spring:
The fresh sap stirred, the new buds swelled—
No wonder we could feast and sing.

268

The small puns crackled, and ere long
The deeper thoughts would come and go;
And evermore some burst of song
Startled the slumbering rooms below.

And when we parted—not too soon—
With shouted calls from mate to mate,
We laughed to see the tipsy moon
Rise staring, crooked-faced, so late.

We strolled, my friend and I, to where
The street becomes a wooded lane:
Talking of many a fancy fair,
And all the blossoms of the brain.

Our life should break, we said, its bars
And we would sail the seas, and there
Beneath that western crown of stars
The golden future we would share.

The sleepy elms were breathing low,
Phantoms their hollow arches filled;
The withered moon lay faint and low;
Fantastic shadows stirred and stilled.

But on I wandered, now alone,
And where the wooded lane grew steep
Sat drowsing: the weird dark had grown
A part of me; I seemed to sleep.

269

And all the present years were dead—
Their stormy joys, their passions sweet;
And youth and wingèd hope were fled
Adown the dark with silent feet.

The night wind seemed more chill to be;
The hills rose strangely bare and round:
A great bay narrowed to the sea
Beyond the city's glimmering mound.

My brain was numb, my heart was lead;
Dear faces faded far and cold;
Some were forgotten, some were dead,
And all were scattered, chill, and old.

That feast night 'mid the floating trees
Seemed ages in the silent past;
Those friendships, darling memories,—
Too pure, too warm, too sweet to last.

Among the hillslopes, wan and sad,
The marbles of a graveyard gleamed,
And ghosts were near, and I was glad
Even in my dream to think I dreamed.

But still I thought I dreamed: the west
Grew gray, and troops of fog came in,
Stalking across the city's crest
Like ghastly shapes of joy and sin.

270

The white dawn seemed to grow more cold;
Its bitter breath was freezing me:
I shivered, and awoke—behold!
The bare, round hills, the muffled sea.

The mountain peak beyond the bay,
Stern, silent, as the vanquished are;
Round him the folded shadows lay,
And on his forehead was a scar.

The vision I had found so drear
Waked with me, and is with me still;
The future of my dream was here,
And I had slept on Berkeley hill.

I had arisen before unclosed
The sleeping orient's earliest gleam,
And climbed, and sat, or mused and dozed,
And dreamed this dream within a dream.

But now the full dawn comes: the sun
Breaks through the canyon with his gold,
The jocund lark-songs have begun,
The mountain's brow is clear and bold.

The good salt sea wind blows; the mist
Unveils the city shining fair;
Its floating shreds the sun has kissed
To pearls that fleck the upper air.

271

So drift away the moods of night,
So shines the manlier purpose free;
The breezy Present wakes in light,
And plans the richer world to be.

272

A RESTING-PLACE

A sea of shade; with hollow heights above,
Where floats the redwood's airy roof away,
Whose feathery lace the drowsy breezes move,
And softly through the azure windows play:
No nearer stir than yon white cloud astray,
No closer sound than sob of distant dove.

I only live as the deep forest's swoon
Dreams me amid its dream; for all things fade
Nor pulse of mine disturbs the unconscious noon.
Even love and hope are still—albeit they made
My heart beat yesterday—in slumber laid,
Like yon dim ghost that last night was the moon.

Only the bending grass, grown gray and sere,
Nods now and then, where at my feet it swings,
Pleased that another like itself is here,
Unseen among the mighty forest things—
Another fruitless life, that fading clings
To earth and autumn days in doubt and fear.

Dream on, O wood! O wind, stay in thy west,
Nor wake the shadowy spirit of the fern,

273

Asleep along the fallen pine-tree's breast!
That, till the sun go down, and night-stars burn,
And the chill dawn-breath from the sea return,
Tired earth may taste heaven's honey-dew of rest.

274

THE MYSTERY

I never know why 'tis I love thee so:
I do not think 't is that thine eyes for me
Grow bright as sudden sunshine on the sea;
Nor for thy rose-leaf lips, or breast of snow,
Or voice like quiet waters where they flow.

So why I love thee well I cannot tell:
Only it is that when thou speak'st to me
'T is thy voice speaks, and when thy face I see
It is thy face I see; and it befell
Thou wert, and I was, and I love thee well.

275

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: “Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!”

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

“No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

“'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.

276

“These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

“The ill-timed truth we might have kept—
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say—
Who knows how grandly it had rung?

“Our faults no tenderness should ask,
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders—oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

“Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!”

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
“Be merciful to me, a fool!”

277

OPPORTUNITY

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
A craven hung along the battle's edge,
And thought, “Had I a sword of keener steel—
That blue blade that the king's son bears,—but this
Blunt thing—!” he snapt and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.

278

AN ASPIRATION

Yale Club, San Francisco, December 11, 1879

Let us return once more, we said,
And greet the saintly mother Yale;
That gray and venerable head,
That wrinkled brow, time-worn and pale.

So from afar we fared, and found
Her children thronging round her feet:
The summer all her elms had crowned,
The dappled grass was cool and sweet.

But lo! no ancient dame was there,
With tottering step and waning powers:
Our maiden mother, fresh and fair,
Stood queenlike 'mid her trees and towers.

Men may grow old: Time's tremulous hands
Still hasten the spent glass; but she—
“Mewing her mighty youth” she stands,
And wears her laurels royally.

From olden fountain-wells that flow
Down every sacred height of truth,
As pure as fire, as cold as snow,
Her lips have quaffed immortal youth.

279

Her feet in fields of amaranth tread,
Lilies of every golden clime
Are in her hand, and round her head
The aureole of the coming time.

Ah, maiden-mother, might there rise
On these far shores a power like thine,
With Learning's sceptre, mild and wise,
And all the sister Arts benign!

It matters little that it bear
The name that Cloyne's great bishop bore,
If only it might bring the fair
Fulfillment of his thought of yore;

If somewhere, on the hill or plain,
By forest's calm, or quickening sea,
Or where the town's electric brain
With silent lightnings flashes free,—

If one like Yale among us stood,
To nourish at her ample breast
And feed with her ambrosial food
The infant vigor of the West.

The smitten rocks pour forth in vain
Their Midas-streams: when shall be wrought
From out our store some classic fane,
Some cloistered home of finer thought?

280

Ofttimes a troubled mood will bring
The vision of a land forlorn,
Where gold is prophet, priest, and king,
And wisdom is a name of scorn;

Whose treasures build the gambler's halls,
Whose tinsel follies flaunt the skies,
Whose horses feed in marble stalls,
While Learning begs for crumbs, and dies.

The waves that throb from Asia's breast
Prophetic murmur on our shore:
Barbarian throngs from East, from West—
Who knows what fortunes are in store?

Nay, thou foreboding mood, be still!
And let a farther-sighted pen
Point out the better fate that Will
And Hope make possible to men.

What man has done, still man can do:
Of slumbering force there is no dearth;
And beckoning hands and hearts may woo
The banished Muses back to earth.

We, too, those fountain-wells have known,
And quaffed the life no years destroy;
And under every snowiest crown
Still dreams and yearns the immortal Boy.

281

Nor shall that yearning be in vain:
With boyish hope but manlier will
We dream our rosy dreams again,
And build our airy castles still.

But not of passion's luring wraith,
Nor selfish fancy's empty foam;
Of steadfast brother-love, in faith,
We build the better time to come.

282

THE NORTH WIND

All night, beneath the flashing hosts of stars,
The North poured forth the passion of its soul
In mighty longings for the tawny South,
Sleeping afar among her orange-blooms.
All night, through the deep cañon's organ-pipes,
Swept down the grand orchestral harmonies
Tumultuous, till the hills' rock buttresses
Trembled in unison.

The sun has risen,
But still the storming sea of air beats on,
And o'er the broad green slopes a flood of light
Comes streaming through the heavens like a wind,
Till every leaf and twig becomes a lyre
And thrills with vibrant splendor.

Down the bay
The furrowed blue, save that 't is starred with foam,
Is bare and empty as the sky of clouds;
For all the little sails, that yesterday
Flocked past the islands, now have furled their wings,
And huddled frightened at the wharves—just as,
A moment since, a flock of twittering birds
Whirled through the almond-trees like scattered leaves,
And hid beyond the hedge.

283

How the old oaks
Stand stiffly to it, and wrestle with the storm!
While the tall eucalyptus' plumy tops
Tumble and toss and stream with quivering light.
Hark! when it lulls a moment at the ear,
The fir-trees sing their sea-song:—now again
The roar is all about us like a flood;
And like a flood the fierce light shines, and burns
Away all distance, till the far blue ridge,
That rims the ocean, rises close at hand,
And high, Prometheus-like, great Tamalpais
Lifts proudly his grand front, and bears his scar,
Heaven's scath of wrath, defiant like a god.

I thank thee, glorious wind! Thou bringest me
Something that breathes of mountain crags and pines,
Yea, more—from the unsullied, farthest North,
Where crashing icebergs jar like thunder shocks,
And midnight splendors wave and fade and flame,
Thou bring'st a keen, fierce joy. So wilt thou help
The soul to rise in strength, as some great wave
Leaps forth, and shouts, and lifts the ocean-foam,
And rides exultant round the shining world.

284

THE TREE OF MY LIFE

When I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a tree,
A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to me.
What a wonderful thing it seemed! with its lace-edge leaves uncurled,
And its span-long stem, that should grow to the grandest tree in the world!
So I searched all the garden round, and out over field and hill,
But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward will.
I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and quiet vale;
I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the gale.

Then I said, “I will cover its roots with a little earth by the door,
And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a place once more.”
But still I could never find it, the place for my wondrous tree,
And it waited and grew by the door, while years passed over me;

285

Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too tall,
And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved at all.

So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door;
Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of yore,
But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled shade,
The children's pattering feet round its knotty knees have played,
Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge there,
And the stars through its silent boughs shine gloriously fair.

286

THE DESERTER

Blindest and most frantic prayer,
Clutching at a senseless boon,
His that begs, in mad despair,
Death to come;—he comes so soon!

Like a reveler that strains
Lip and throat to drink it up—
The last ruby that remains,
One red droplet in the cup,

Like a child that, sullen, mute,
Sulking spurns, with chin on breast,
Of the Tree of Life a fruit,
His gift of whom he is the guest,

Outcast on the thither shore,
Open scorn to him shall give
Souls that heavier burdens bore:
“See the wretch that dared not live!”

287

A CALIFORNIAN'S DREAMS

A thunder-storm of the olden days!
The red sun sinks in a sleepy haze;
The sultry twilight, close and still,
Muffles the cricket's drowsy trill.
Then a round-topped cloud rolls up the west,
Black to its smouldering, ashy crest,
And the chariot of the storm you hear,
With its jarring axle rumbling near;
Till the blue is hid, and here and there
The sudden, blinding lightnings glare.
Scattering now the big drops fall,
Till the rushing rain in a silver wall
Blurs the line of the bending elms,
Then blots them out and the landscape whelms.
A flash—a clap, and a rumbling peal:
The broken clouds the blue reveal;
The last bright drops fall far away,
And the wind, that had slept for heat all day,
With a long-drawn sigh awakes again
And drinks the cool of the blessed rain.

November! night, and a sleety storm:
Close are the ruddy curtains, warm
And rich in the glow of the roaring grate,

288

It may howl outside like a baffled fate,
And rage on the roof, and lash the pane
With its fierce and impotent wrath in vain.
Sitting within at our royal ease
We sing to the chime of the ivory keys,
And feast our hearts from script and score
With the wealth of the mellow hearts of yore.

A winter's night on a world of snow!
Not a sound above, not a stir below:
The moon hangs white in the icy air,
And the shadows are motionless everywhere.
Is this the planet that we know—
This silent floor of the ghostly snow?
Or is this the moon, so still and dead,
And yonder orb far overhead,
With its silver map of plain and sea,
Is that the earth where we used to be?
Shall we float away in the frosty blue
To that living, summer world we knew,
With its full, hot heart-beats as of old,
Or be frozen phantoms of the cold?

A river of ice, all blue and glare,
Under a star-shine dim and rare.
The sheeny sheet in the sparkling light
Is ribbed with slender wisps of white—
Crinkles of snow, that the flying steel
Lightly crunches with ringing heel.

289

Swinging swift as the swallows skim,
You round the shadowy river's rim:
Falling somewhere out of the sky
Hollow and weird is the owlet's cry;
The gloaming woods seem phantom hosts,
And the bushes cower in the snow like ghosts.
Till the tinkling feet that with you glide
Skate closer and closer to your side,
And something steals from a furry muff,
And you clasp it and cannot wonder enough
That a little palm so soft and fair
Could keep so warm in the frosty air.

'T is thus we dream in our tranquil clime,
Rooted still in the olden time;
Longing for all those glooms and gleams
Of passionate Nature's mad extremes.
Or was it only our hearts, that swelled
With the youth and life and love they held?

University of Virginia Library

POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1872 AND 1880

THE THINGS THAT WILL NOT DIE

A CHILD AND A STAR