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POST-LAUREATE IDYLLS

9

SICUT PATRIBUS

[_]

A Poem read at the annual meeting of Tufts Chapter, Phi Beta Kappa, June 17, 1902

I.

Not mine, not mine the hand to sweep the strings
With note triumphal, on this hallowed day.
I am no prophet to foretell smooth things,
Or choose a nation's glory for my lay.
The time for pæans is not yet, or past;
Rather the shuddering call that strikes us dumb,
When, unto consciences aroused at last,
The mutterings of a grim tomorrow come.
These be no times for lightsome song:
The shadow of a mighty wrong
Darkens the path before,
Clings like a mist behind;
We crouch, who stood of yore;
We grope, who now are blind.
10

Alas for us! the sons of patriot sires,
Breathing the air of freedom from our birth,
Who might have kindled in far lands the fires
Of liberty, transfigurer of earth;
Who might have raised a grateful people up
To drain deep draughts from freedom's brimming cup;
Who might have shown them the sure way to peace—
Alas for us! who did no deeds like these.

II.

Alas for us! who light the fires of hate
Instead; who dash from eager lips the wine
Of freedom, crying: “Ours, the island state!
'Tis we must hold it by the right divine
Of Saxon peoples, whose benignant sway
Inferior races may not once gainsay.”
Ah me! what sounds are these,
Borne o'er Pacific seas?
The wail of a people's dirge,
That swells as the gathering surge,
Filling our ears with shame,
Staining our country's name.
11

How do we brand the sullen Turk who makes
Armenian villages a smoking waste,
A heap of carnage; or his pleasure takes
In torture by his hapless victims faced?
No more may we, our Pharisaic hands
Uplifting, call for vengeance on the Turk,
While in far tropic isles our arméd bands
Engage, relentless, in like curséd work.

III.

In shadowy ranks before me seem to rise
The men of Concord and of Bunker Hill:
Brave souls, who wrung from England that fair prize,
A nation's freedom, that we cherish still.
With questioning, sad eyes,
As in a strange surprise,
They stand
That plain heroic band,
With parted lips, as they who do behold
In deep amaze some undreamed horror wrought,
And pant for action, as in days of old
To Freedom's altar each his offering brought.
12

Ah, might they speak! these shadowy risen sires,
Who doubts what words of theirs would shame our souls?
The fierce rebukings of our mad desires,
The stern contempt for our unworthy goals.
They never learned in diplomatic phrase
To hide the scheming that plain speech would shame.
Their words, straightforward as their clear-eyed gaze,
Revealed their instant purpose, praise or blame.
But we,
Heirs of a land made free
By blood and strife of these,
Have walked in stranger ways:
Unto new gods our knees
Have bent, our lips sung praise.

IV.

“You, sons of ours!” I seem to hear them say:
Drunk with the wine of conquest, you!
What sign of kinship can ye show today
To prove, past cavil, this your lineage true?
We grasped the sword to battle for the right
To stand as freemen forth before the world.
13

'Gainst subject peoples is your armour dight,
For greed of conquest is your flag unfurled.
You, sons of ours, who turn your swords' keen blade
Against the brown man, fighting for his own?
Intent on hearkening the behest of trade
Your human hearts grow cold as any stone.
You, sons of ours, who fling aside the law
And doom the shuddering Negro to the stake
In wild revenge, or cause the halter draw,
Sans judge and jury, as your choice may take—
You, carry into distant tropic lands
The flag of progress, and the Christian cross—
Alas! your house is founded on the sands
Your pride is baseless, and your glory, loss.
Not from unworthy palms
Will men receive the alms
You think to dole.
The freedom-loving soul
Seeks only that, and that denied, he spurns
Your vaunted progress, and your proffered Christ,
Meets all your wiles with wiles of his, and turns
A scornful foeman, whom you deemed enticed.
False to the lessons that ye learned in youth,
How dare ye pray for victory in your strife?
14

You, sons of ours, that with no thought of ruth
Would slay the native, pleading for his life!
Ah, no! and yet,
Who are ye, set
In this same land we died to free?
Ye bear our names, and if it be
Our blood is yours, then did we die in vain;
The pillars that we raised you overturn;
Unholy purpose binds you with its chain,
And all we strove for you would fain unlearn.”

V.

They fade from sight, these builders of our State,
And in their stead appear the youthful shades
Of those, our brothers, whom we sent but late
To wage fierce combat in Philippine glades;
To gather glory, where no glory waits;
To strive for honour, where no honour calls;
To bar with bayonets the opening gates
Whereat the Malay, faint for freedom, falls.
“O Motherland!” they cry:
“It had been bliss to die
Fighting to save the State,
But our ignoble fate
Doomed us to die in vain;
15

Our blood and pain
Spent but for naught;
Our hands, that might have brought
Healing and peace to a long subject race,
Red with their blood, instead; the crowning grace
Of conflict, a just cause, denied our souls,
While o'er our heads the tide of battle rolls.
O Motherland! that you should send us then
To die for conquest, who had died for men!”

VI.

These, too, depart, and in a shadowy cloud
A host of swarthy figures 'round me crowd
Using a stranger speech
As from the lips of each
Escapes the bitter cry of men deceived.
“We trusted you,” the voices seem to urge.
“We in your faith and purpose true believed,
Till, like a blow from Heaven, fell the scourge,
And in sad truth we learned
Our friends to foes had turned,
And Spanish fetters were reforged anew.
Ye might have had our love, who gain a hate
Undying, might have garnered praises through
The years to come from a new island State,
16

But hearkening to greed,
Turned from us in our need,
And, blindly reckoning on our feebleness,
Struck down the hand that had been raised to bless.
How have ye dealt with those who would be free
As ye yourselves? What lessons have ye taught
Of gentleness, and high humanity,
Of Christian purpose and of noble thought?
Our smiling fields are waste
By Red War's fiery haste;
Our smoking villages
Proclaim the flight of Peace,
And on the torturer's ear unheeded falls
His victim's cry. Beside a hundred streams
The unburied brown man lies, nor frenzied calls
Of wife nor child shall rouse him from his dreams.

VII.

A nation's honour trembles to its fall
When, at the call
Of angry pride
It swerves aside
From well-worn paths of truth and right
And, conscious of its sad mistake,
Speeds ever on, intent to fight
'Gainst right itself sooner than make
Confession: “We have evil wrought,
17

But, having sinned, will sin no more;
We own our course with peril fraught,
And turn to ways we trod of yore.”
Alas for us! who close resentful ears
Against the urgings of that inner voice,
And council take of our unworthy fears
That press us onward to an evil choice.
The Nemesis that follows swift upon
The man or nation that provokes its wrath.
Hath followed in our track, nor will begone
Though flights of angels hovered o'er our path.
The swift decay
From day to day
Of high ideals, purpose great,
And brave imaginings for the State—
The lust of empire, pushing to the wall
The weaker races—greed of trade that pays
No heed to aught but sordid gain—these all
To our amaze
Our shameful new inheritance are made,
Blinding our eyes to deeds of violence,
Closing our ears against the plea for aid,
Cheating our souls with shallowest pretence.
Alas! that we
Who flamed with anger at the deeds of Spain
18

Done in our Western World, should stoop to be
Her copy in the far Pacific main.
Calling a world to witness that her crimes
Demanded judgement swift and sure, we caught
The sword and smote. And lo! the changeful times
Reveal us to the same tribunal brought.

VIII.

Ill counsel they
Who urge essay
Persistent in a dubious course
Though all the gathering signs, presage
Moral defeat, and cry, perforce,
“'Tis shameful weakness in our age,
Not to press forward what is once begun.”
He is the coward who would seek to shun
The consequence of turning back
Upon his outward track;
Who fears the foolish word of fools pronounced
Upon him, more than good men's honest scorn.
The moral weakling he who hath renounced
His better self, and soulless walks forelorn,
And as the man, the nation that persists
In ways mistaken, knowing its mistake;
Almighty purpose halts not nor desists
Till erring peoples full confession make.
19

IX.

Not all in vain
Ye died, who dauntless laid
With strife and pain
The keelson of our Ship of State
Though we have blindly strayed
From out the narrow path of late,
Somewhere within us there abides
The passion for a righteous cause
We learned from you. The swelling tides
Of misdirected purpose pause
Or ever they o'erwhelm us quite;
The waning light
Ye kindled flames anew
As we review
Our heritage, and looking back
Upon our erring track,
Make high resolve again to be
Worthy that ye
Should own us as true sons and heirs,
Mindful the while the alien shares
With us at Freedom's gracious banquet spread,
Nor e'en the humblest turns from thence unfed.
20

X.

But you, our brothers, whose young lives
Too soon were quenched across the seas—
Are there no balms that ruth contrives?
No words to give your souls release?
Our erring Motherland
Is slow to understand,
But every life ye gave
Shall help at last to save
Her from herself, to bring her to her knees
In penitence, and therefore not for naught,
Ye, wrongly striving, passed. From you she caught
The first misgivings that disturbed her peace
That was not peace, her poor content
That all her ways were Wisdom-sent.

XI.

Nor yet in vain ye died, our foes, whom we,
But for our blinded eyes, had made our friends:
The freedom that ye strove for yet shall be
The guerdon, and the eternal sky that bends
Above both lands may see
With joy the Filipino's flag unfurled
And a new nation born into the world.
21

The memory of those who fell
In combat stern for that high end
Shall sanctify your State, shall tell
A never-wearying tale, shall send
Its inspiration unto those who stay
Behind to welcome in the longed for day,
And fill them with such love for their fair land
They never understand
That have not freely poured their choicest wine
Upon the altar of a cause divine.

XII.

O God of Nations! we have sorely sinned.
Thy wind
Of destiny we may not stand before.
Thy open door
Of pardon close not yet
Upon a people who
Repent. O God! forget
Our sin. Let all we do
But show our penitence. Renew our mind.
Point us the way we should remorseful tread,
That we, remembering with tears, may find
While we have sinned, indeed, Truth is not dead,
Though we, for gain,
Against her turned our arms,
And would have slain
Her with our selfish harms!

CATHEDRAL VERSE

25

THE FRONT OF PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL

He reared the minster portal long ago,
The “Golden Borough's” chiefest architect,
Scooped in its rocky face three caverns deep,
Piled 'gainst their sides aspiring carven reeds,
Banded as those that stand in neighbour fens,
Raised o'er this work of his a soaring mass
Of pediment, and pinnacle, and tower,
And spire—then passed into the darkness whence
He sprang, and no man knoweth of his name.
Within the minster aisles lie abbots old,
Frowning in marble as they frowned in flesh,
And all who will may know them as they were;
But he that wrought the centuries' delight,
The glorious minster's crowning grace, lives not
In stiffly sculptured effigy like these,
Nor on cathedral fabric-rolls are writ
The letters of his name. What matters it?
26

He breathed one song, this singer of the past,
And all the air yet trembles to his tones;
He wrote his verse across the minster front
Where all the world might see, and not one line
The world has lost through centuries' sun and storm.
What matters that he left his verse unsigned?
What boots it how he looked to those who saw?
Ah! Peterborough's poet questionless
Knew well how scant the worth of name beside
Achievement's crowning skill. The little deed
May fitly claim the signature's reward
Scrawled underneath, but not the master's work
Needs blurring with the master's name, and thus
The triple gate of Peterborough gleams
Through all the ages from its maker's times
To these, as fair as only that is fair
Which has no need that men should ask “Who wrought?”
27

AT THE TOMB OF WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM

Builder and prelate, dust five hundred years,
Who lent the Norman's handiwork such grace
The Norman never knew, that Walkelin's nave
Men call the nave of Wykeham, what dost thou
In some far world beyond our ken? Palm pressed
To palm five centuries have seen thee here
Enchantried, and from scholar lips thy praise
At Winton and at Oxford echoes still.
Dost somewhere rest, as this thy marble rests,
Or art thou, builder-bishop, evermore
Striving in other fields, in nobler toils,
Serenely glad the while as one that sees
From some high place, untouched by time, past good
Grow ever vaster as the centuries fall?
28

AT LINCOLN

When I went up the minster tower,
The minster clock rang out the hour;
The restless organ far below
Sent tides of music to and fro,
That rolled through nave and angel choir,
Whose builder knew what lines inspire,
And filled the lantern space profound
With climbing waves of glorious sound,
As I went up the minster tower
What time the chimes gave forth the hour.
When I stood on the minster tower
The lark above me sent a shower
Of happy notes, that filtered through
The clouds that flecked the sky's soft blue,
And mingled with the nearer tones
Of jackdaw calls and stockdove moans,
While every breeze that round me swirled
Brought some sweet murmur from the world,
As I stood on the minster tower
What time the lark forsook her bower.
29

When I came down the minster tower,
Again the chimes proclaimed the hour,
Again the mighty organ rolled
Its thunders through the arches old,
While blended with its note so strong
Soft rose and fell the evensong:
And all the earth, it seemed to me,
Was still by music held in fee,
As I came down the minster tower
What time the clock chimed slow the hour.
30

EVENSONG AT NORWICH CATHEDRAL

Quickly 'midst these arches gray
Dies the short November day;
Through the nave the shadows march,
Muffling column, pier and arch,
Filling huge triforium
With their forces fast they come;
Sweeping through the long clerestory,
Blotting from the sight the hoary
Ribbed and sculptured roof at last
Whence the day more slowly past;
While the great choir windows' glimmer
Grows each moment fainter, dimmer,—
Now the gloom hides everything!
Sudden, then, the tower bells ring,
And along that mighty nave,
Dark before as deepest cave,
Lines of light start forth and burn,
Sharp revealing every turn,
Curve, or line, though far aloof
In the groins of yonder roof,
Carved by chisel mediæval,
Smile of saint or leer of devil.
31

Under these clear lines of fire
Move the purple-cassocked choir,
As through aisles and arcades long
Rolls the tide of evensong,
And the organ's undertone
Trembles through the walls of stone,
While the anthem note is telling,
“Oh, how amiable Thy dwelling.”
Swells and falls the song of praise
In the mellow music maze,
Echoes from each far arcade
Like the songs by seraphs made,
Wanders on from wall to wall,
Fainter seems, then ceases all,
Till the chanter from his seat
Murmurs benedictions sweet.
Then the organ peals once more
While across the footworn floor
Choir and hooded canons go,
Two by two and moving slow,
Till the last white robe is made
Invisible in columned shade,
And a moment after then,
Floats a solemn, sweet “Amen!”
32

Soon the lines of fire die out,
Darkness folds its arms about
All within these mighty walls.
When the last faint echo falls
Night and silence join their files
In the long cathedral aisles.

IN THE GALILEE AT DURHAM

CONFESSION

We have erred and strayed from Thy ways:
We have followed too much our desires,
While we hid from Thy heart-searching gaze.
We have erred and strayed from Thy ways,
And have wandered in sin many days,
Where no breath from Thy presence inspires.
We have erred and strayed from Thy ways:
We have followed too much our desires.
33

IN WALTHAM ABBEY

Here is the temple he builded, he, Harold, the bravest of Saxons.
Somewhere near it he lies, where once rose the canons' high altar.
Altar and rood and choir walls indeed have long crumbled to ruin;
Only the nave abides yet, with its double arcade of huge columns,
Carven eight centuries since with deep groovings of spiral and chevron.
Here when the traitorous Tostig, his brother, had failen at Stamford,
Hard by Northumbrian Derwent, with Harold Hardrada, the Norseman,
Came, with a few in his train, the victor, King Harold, the Saxon.
Afar in the north the foes of his England were broken and flying;
Anear in the south the foes of his England were gathered together.
34

There in the north had he shivered the might of fierce Harold Hardrada;
Now in the south must he scatter the armies of William the Norman,
He that would make England free, he, Harold, the great son of Godwin.
So, as he entered the fane that in happier time he had builded,
Slowly he trod the long nave till he came before the high altar,
There bowed him down to the pavement, and tarried prostrate and silent.
Shadows of morning had shortened to midday and once more had lengthened
Ere he rose up from the stones, that, it may be, had heard his petitions,
God and they only, for no human ear heard aught in that silence.
Who may tell what were the thoughts of the king in those hours of abasement?
35

Better than he knew no one the power of the Norman invader,
Better than he who should know the strength or the weakness of England?
Was it foretold, as he lay there in humble, silent entreaty,
What was to hap on the morrow, who was to win in the conflict?
Was it revealed that the day at Senlac should be William's, not Harold's,
Or was it left in the veil of the future, dark wrapt from foreknowledge?
This only is told us: That when the long vigil was ended and Harold,
Rising, had passed down the nave to the door at the westward, and turning,
Faced yet again the high altar, the great rood before it moved slowly,
Leaned itself forward, then bowed as in pity, to Harold.
36

So runs the legend of Waltham concerning that day ere the battle.
Forth from the abbey he went on that evening in early October,
Mustered his legions together at London and marched to the southward,
On to the hill of Senlac, where he pitched his camp on the morrow,
On to the gloom of defeat and of death at the hands of the Norman,
On to the glory of death for the earldom of Wessex and England!
This is the shrine of his building: Here his footsteps awakened the echoes
(Echoes reverberate still through eight centuries lost in the darkness)
On that far distant day when he moved 'mid these arches in anguish of spirit.
37

IN THE CRYPT AT WINCHESTER

DE PROFUNDIS

Out of the deep I cry to Thee
Who notest e'en the sparrow's fall:
O Lord, be merciful to me!
I may not rise unless set free
From burdens that my soul enthrall:
Out of the deep I cry to Thee.
I strive, yet fail, and seem to be
The sport of fate, while doubts appall:
O Lord, be merciful to me!
Dark is my path; I may not see
How good is yet the fruit of all:
Out of the deep I cry to Thee.
O let my way with Thine agree;
(My way, o'erhung as with a pall:)
O Lord, be merciful to me!
Incline Thine ear unto my plea;
Break not the reed, but hear my call:
Out of the deep I cry to Thee,
O Lord, be merciful to me!
38

ON A GRAVE IN CHRISTCHURCH, HANTS

Turning from Shelley's sculptured face aside,
And pacing thoughtfully the silent aisles
Of the grey church that overlooks the smiles
Of the glad Avon hastening its tide
To join the seaward-winding Stour, I spied
Close at my feet a slab among the tiles
That paved the minster, where the sculptor's files
Had graven only “Died of Grief,” beside
The name of her who slept below. Sad Soul!
A century has fled since kindly death
Cut short that life which nothing knew but grief,
And still your fate stirs pity. Yet the whole
Wide world is full of graves like yours, for breath
Of sorrow kills as oft as frost the leaf.
39

MISERRIMUS

[_]

This is the sole inscription on the stone which covers the remains of the Reverend Thomas Morris, in the north walk of the cloisters at Worcester Cathedral. He was a Minor Canon of Worcester who refused to take the oath of allegiance to William III., and was consequently reduced to great poverty. He died at the age of eighty-eight, and at his request this single word was placed upon his tombstone.

“Most wretched one!” No, not to him belongs
Misery's preeminence in this sad world's sight
Who suffereth for conscience and the right,
As he deems right. To him the scourging thongs
Of adverse fortune and the countless wrongs
His fellows cast upon him are too light
Afflictions to endure forever. Spite
Has never hushed one note of heavenly songs.
But he that gains the plaudits of the crowd
For deeds unworthy, hears men name his sins
As virtues, and thereof wax emulous,—
He only that such shameful honour wins,
(Not this non-juring priest), should cry aloud
Past hope, “Miserrimus! Miserrimus!”
40

AT THE GRAVE OF JANE CARLYLE

HADDINGTON ABBEY

Here on your grave as evening falls,
Sunk 'mid the turf and daisies,
Within these roofless abbey walls,
I read a husband's praises,
Of you to whom in life he showed
So little love and kindness,
But on your gravestone overflowed
In vain remorse for blindness.
Not for his pain my eyes are wet,
But for your lot so bitter.
What is to me his weak regret?
His silence had been fitter.
41

THE BURNING OF CONRAD'S CHOIR, A. D. 1174

Gervase, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, speaks:

Ninety long years have I dwelt here, and much have I seen in that space.
I was the least of the monks when first I came to this place.
Now is there none in the convent that numbers more years than I;
An' God wills I may call them a hundred before my time comes to die.
I can remember the building of Conrad's great, glorious choir;
Conrad, the wonderful mason, and, after Ernulphus, our prior.
Month after month wrought the workmen, and year after year rang the blows
Of hammer and trowel on stonework till all that fair building arose.
When they had end King Henry, and David king of the Scots,
Came hither with bishops in train each bringing from holiest spots
Some priceless relic to lay in that mighty cathedral of ours.
42

Never since Solomon hallowed the Temple to Heavenly Powers
Did mortal behold such a sight as I saw on that far distant day
As twice round the walls with loud chanting passed the gorgeous and endless array.
Forty years after I watched all one night with the rest in this place,
While beside us tall candles threw flickers of light on a murdered man's face.
Becket, our bishop, it was, by those knights so wickedly slain
Just as the bell rang for vespers and we had assembled again.
From behind Saint Benedict's altar I saw the foul murder begun,
And there, with his half-severed arm, fled Grim when the murder was done.
Never thought I a far woefuller sight than this to behold
Only a few years after, ere the summer had quite waxen old.
Feeble indeed is our wisdom and we know not what shall betide.
While above and beneath and around us the hosts of Almighty abide.
43

Midnight had come and the prior had bidden me watch till the day,
After our habit at Christ Church, where the bones of the great Dunstan lay.
So through the cloister I went at the hour my watch should begin
Till I came to where Becket was slain by those terrible minions of sin.
There, as I stayed for a moment, to say a short prayer for the dead,
I saw a red glow 'mid the arches, and on through the transept I sped
And up the long steps to the choir: ah, woe for the terrible sight!
From the steps to the shrine of Saint Dunstan the choir was ruddy with light,
For flames had curled round the stalls and stretched themselves up to the roof,
And, e'en as I gazed, caught the rafters and roared as the sea up aloof.
44

They leaped from one beam to another, and the carven work melted like snow;
They surged up around the shrine pillars that bent like a tightly stretched bow;
And onward they rolled in vast billows; the place was a horror of fire:
The holiest spot in all England, our Conrad's glorious choir.
Anon came the prior and the brothers: the people streamed in through the nave
And they looked at the fiery tempest, and a horrible cry they gave
That rang through the great nave arches, and rose o'er the dull roar of flame,
As they called on the Lord in their madness and cursed his most reverend name.
Still the surges of fire whirled upward till the choir roof crashed to the floor,
And the flames mounted up to the heavens while the people blasphemed yet the more.
45

They tore out their hair in their frenzy; they beat at the walls with their hands,
And they caught at the stones in the pavement as the wild waves clutch at the sands;
They dashed their heads 'gainst the pillars till blood was sprent over the space;
And they burst into terrible singing, as demons had stood in their place.
“Now a curse on Saint Wilfred of Ripon, and a curse on Saint Blasius of Rome!
And curse upon curse light on Dunstan; the deep pit of hell be his home.
May Saint Ouen lie with him in torment; Saint Swithun be doomed to despair;
And the rest who are snugly enshrined here be torn by the fiends of the air.
For they sleep, and the glory of Conrad is past in a moment of time:
They sleep, and the enemy cometh and despoileth the altar sublime.
46

“And a curse upon God in His heaven, who suffers such evils to be;
And curses, too, on His Son, who refuseth our anguish to see;
And a curse on the Holy Spirit, that to save lifts never an arm;
And a thrice bitter curse upon Mary, who will not defend from such harm
The temple that Conrad hath builded in honour of Jesus, her Son;
And curses, too, on the angels; away with them, every one!
For the glory of Conrad is passing; our God is as stubble or stone;
Let us turn from His worship forever, and bow us to Satan alone!”
And now through the open choir roof a wind from the seaward there drave
That lashed the flames into fury and swept them forth to the nave;
47

And the people fled before them as chaff when a whirlwind is blown,
Or as leaves in the front of a tempest hurried on betwixt high cliffs of stone.
And hushed was the voice of blaspheming while high rose the roar of the flames
Where the people had stood in their madness reviling the thrice holy names.
When the fearsome night past and the morning shone down on our convent once more,
“Ichabod,” murmured our prior, “the glory of Conrad is o'er;
He smiteth, and we are sore humbled; He scourgeth our pride with His fire;
He sendeth His wrath out amongst us and abaseth our glorious choir.
O, who can fathom His purpose, or who can read straightway His plan?
The Lord's ways are never as our ways, and foolish before Him is man!”
 

In the year 1174, the choir of Canterbury Cathedral was destroyed by fire, and according to Gervase, the monkish chronicler of these events, and himself a witness of what he describes, “The people were astonished that the Almighty should suffer such things, and maddened with excess of grief and perplexity, they tore their hair, and beat the walls and pavement of the church with their hands and heads, blaspheming the Lord and His saints, the patrons of His church.”

49

MISCELLANEOUS VERSE

50

A WITHERED ROSE

These brown, curled leaves were once a rose
All fair and fresh, and sweet as fair.
Now summer's past, and winter snows
Have buried Hope slain by Despair!

INEVITABLE

The fairest rose that blooms hides yet a thorn;
The dearest friend shall one day bring you grief;
In August twilight is the winter born,
And waving wheat precedes the falling leaf.

BLACK ROCK, NANTASKET

A huge black sea-shape left at turn of tide,
It drags, afar from shore, its low gaunt length.
In dateless æons in lone waters wide
Was this some slimy saurian's league-long strength?
51

DECEMBER'S WOOING

I.
DECEMBER TO MAY

Though I look old, love,
I'm young and bold, love,
When I see you.
Fain would I ask, love,
From you some task, love,
To prove this true.
That done, I'd take, love,
In payment's sake, love,
This maid I woo.

II.
MAY TO DECEMBER

Would you, indeed, sir?
Pray take good heed, sir,
To what I say.
This my behest, sir:
Cease to protest, sir,
Your love today.
Ne'er will I wed, sir,
Where youth is sped, sir,
So go your way!
52

REALITY

Of Love the minstrel sang, and drew
An easy finger o'er the strings,
Then laughed and sang of other things,—
Of grass and flowers and azure blue.
Of Love the poet wrote, and soft
And sweet the liquid measures flowed,
Then gave his moments to an ode,
And crooks and shepherds mentioned oft.
One day the singer met with Love,
And mighty music shook his strings,
While dreams and light imaginings
His new-roused spirit soared above.
Love met the poet on his way,
And kindled all his soul to fire,
Filled all his measures with desire,
And left no room for fancies gay.
The minstrel sang to Love one song,
And died for joy, yet lives in this.
The poet, touched by Love's warm kiss,
With echoes fills the ages long.
53

DEAR HEART, BELIEVE

Dear heart, believe I think of you
When evening grey shuts out the blue;
In the slow hours of middle night,
And when the lances of the light
First thrust the mists of darkness through.
Nought can the days of absence do,
When faith is strong and hearts are true,
To blur with change affection's might,
Dear heart, believe.
If sullen death between us drew
The veil that bars from earthly view
The much loved face, the clearer sight
Would still discern in death's despite.
Beyond the veil can love pursue,
Dear heart, believe.
54

CAMBRIDGE

[_]

Read at the Annual Meeting of the Boston Authors Club, January 30, 1905

Dear city, round whose marshy rim the Charles
Passes his steel-blue sickle in slow glee,
And, circling ever, slips at last through snarls
Of piers and bridges to the expectant sea.
To thee is turned the “soft Venetian side”
Of Boston. On thy myriad roofs the slopes
Of Arlington look down; between, a tide
Scholastic ebbs and flows, sun-smit with hopes.
Needs must they love thee who may call thee home,
Whose centuried past their grateful reverence claims;
Thy sister city of the golden dome
Points to no fairer scroll of noble names.
Here roamed “the Scholar Gypsy” long ago;
Here gently ruled our “New World Philhellene;”
Here came the wanderer from the Pays de Vaud;
And here New England's Sibyl passed between
The gates of birth. Here, where the lilacs hedge
The winding road, the Gentle Singer told
The Legend Golden; and the murmuring sedge
Of his loved Charles still with his name makes bold.
55

Here, where the Elmwood thickets lift their pyres
Of green, a later summons came, and he,
Our best and noblest, whose each word inspires,
Slipped from life's moorings on a shoreless sea.
Ah me! the men that were and are not now.
The seasons come and pass and bear away
One after other, as from autumn bough
Is swept at whiles the fruitage of its May.
O City of the Scholar! Wider spread
Each year thy green elm shades, but ever keep
In quick remembrance these thy children, sped
To some far country through strange fields of sleep.
56

NABOTH

Great honour hath Boston, the city, won of late in a glorious fray
With a handful of Portuguese fishers on that island just down in the bay.
The fishers were poor and defenceless, the city was wealthy and strong,
Hath it not been ever from old time that the poor to the spoiler belong?
It is twice twenty years since their fathers in the lap of a favouring breeze
Put out from the far Western Islands and hitherward sailed over seas.
The islands of summer to rearward sank slowly from sight in the wave,
As they spread out their sails to the sunshine and swift through the water they drave.
And they came, after many days' sailing, to a sea-fronting, sand-girted town,
With a fringe of white sand dunes to northward and southward the fishing smacks brown,
That lies at the end of a sea-daring, sea-cleaving spear of the land,
And after long tossing on billows it was good in that fair town to stand.
57

And some of them said, “We will dwell here, nor seek otherwhere for a home,”
But the rest were not of this liking, and once again sped o'er the foam
Till they came to the harbour of Boston, and arrived there in sight of the town,
They brought their staunch vessel to anchor in the lee of a yellow cliff's frown.
A long, narrow isle was before them, and on it they landed that day,
And built them rude huts by the sea beach, where the women and children might stay.
And the busy years past and they prospered, these fishers from over the main,
Till the elder men died and were buried, and over their labour and pain,
But their children remained on Long Island, and followed a sea-faring life,
As their fathers before them, in peace, with never the murmurs of strife,
Till Boston, the city, grew jealous, like Ahab, the the ruler, of old,
When he longed for the vineyard of Naboth, which he from his gates could behold.
No vineyard was this on Long Island, but a few scanty acres of beach,
58

Yet even there did the city her covetous fingers outreach.
Though the fishermen begged for their homesteads, the strong city answered them “Nay,”
For she wanted, in spite of her riches, those few acres just down in the bay.
So she gathered together her servants and sent them to Long Island strand,
And they tore down the fisher-folk homes and strewed the wreck over the land,
While the Portuguese women bewailed them, but their husbands stood sullen aside
And wondered that God in the heavens could the wrongs of His servants abide.
Thus the work of destruction went onward, while a cloud of dust covered the place
Where the men from the distant Azores had nourished a peace-loving race,
Till the grey of the long August twilight came down on that isle in the sea
And covered the work of the spoilers, and the morrow was yet to be.
Then the masterful foemen of Boston shame-facedly hurried away,
While the curses of those they had plundered rang after them over the bay
59

As they ring in the ears of Almighty who bringeth the strongest to shame,
Who heedeth the griefs of the humble and divideth the praise from the blame.
But His ways are still hid in the future and the city is great in her pride,
And the men in her fair council chambers the Portuguese fishers deride;
And still in the streets of the city the deed of those foemen they praise,
Who drave from Long Island the fishers on those sunshiny midsummer days.
Thus honour abundant did Boston achieve in a glorious fray
With a handful of Portuguese fishers on that island just down in the bay.
And so long as the church-bells of Boston ring out from her myriad towers,
So long will the praises be chanted of these valorous foemen of ours
Who divided in sunder the roof-trees that sheltered a peace-loving folk,
Who shattered in fragments their hearth-stones and quenched forever their smoke.
1887
60

ON TRURO MOORS

O friend of mine, so dear to me,
Forget not yet those summer hours
On Truro moors beside the sea.
O'er rolling downs we roamed in glee
To where the tall white lighthouse towers,
O friend of mine, so dear to me.
On those high cliffs I sat with thee,
When clinging sea-fog split slow showers,
On Truro moors beside the sea.
Fair hopes we had for days to be,
We said high purpose should be ours,
O friend of mine, so dear to me.
In sun or cloud we paced that lea
Elate with all that friendship dowers,
On Truro moors beside the sea.
Ah! far-off week from care so free
(Time from its span no charm deflowers,
O friend of mine, so dear to me)
On Truro moors beside the sea.
61

AT PARTING

With eyes in which there gleamed a tear,
And voice whose syllables were broken,
She stood aghast in sudden fear.
With eyes in which there gleamed a tear,
She gazed at him who loved her dear,
And left the farewell half unspoken,
With eyes in which there gleamed a tear,
And voice whose syllables were broken.
For soon would seas between them roll,
And half the world its distance sever.
How should content possess her soul
When seas would soon between them roll?
Then round her waist his strong arm stole—
“Dear heart,” he said, “my love dies never,
Though seas will soon between us roll
And half the world its distance sever.”
62

UT QUID DOMINE

PSALM X.

Why standest Thou from us afar,
O Lord? Why hidest Thy face?
In need and sore trouble we are.
Why standest Thou from us afar,
When the wicked the poor doth debar
From his right, and debase?
Why standest Thou from us afar,
O Lord? Why hidest Thy face?
The wicked hath said in his heart
That his glory shall never be less.
“With defeat I shall never have part,”
The wicked hath said in his heart;
So the poor he maketh to smart,
And seeketh his goods to possess.
The wicked hath said in his heart
That his glory shall never be less.
“For God hath forgotten,” he cries;
“The Lord hath forgotten the poor!”
With his tongue he uttereth lies:
“For God hath forgotten,” he cries.
63

He lieth in wait in disguise
That his deeds may be secret and sure.
“For God hath forgotten,” he cries;
“The Lord hath forgotten the poor!”
Most surely, O Lord, hast Thou known;
For Thou seest all sorrow and wrong;
The friendless Thou helpest alone.
Most surely, O Lord, hast Thou known
That the wicked so mighty are grown;
And to Thee we lift up our song.
Most surely, O Lord, hast Thou known;
For Thou seest all sorrow and wrong.
O Lord, Thou hast heard our desire,—
Incline Thou Thine ear to our prayer:
Let the wicked no longer conspire.
O Lord, Thou hast heard our desire,—
Lift us up from the clay and the mire,
And our hearts in Thy mercy prepare.
O Lord, Thou hast heard our desire,—
Incline Thou Thine ear to our prayer.
64

O FRIEND ESTRANGED

O friend estranged, whose love, now cold,
Once warmed my heart with bliss untold,
How near we were, now sundered far!
What fate perverse did forge the bar
That holds apart the friends of old?
Do you forget how o'er us rolled
The tides of feeling uncontrolled,
Before your love knew wound or scar,
O friend estranged?
When first your hand-clasp loosed its hold,
And dark mistrust, grown over-bold,
Crept in, your faith to blur and mar,
Did not your spirit feel the jar
Preluding friendship's death-knell knolled,
O friend estranged?
65

THE ARTIST'S LAST PICTURE

Upon the painter's easel stands
The latest picture from his hands.
The canvas shows a sunset glow
Reflected in the lake below,
While mountains farther from the sight
Have caught the day's departing light,
And autumn's tints upon the leaves
Are paled by these the sunset weaves.
Oh, nevermore that rosy sky
Will darken as the moments fly;
Or colour fade from off the lake,
Or mount a duller tint will take.
The glories of the lingering day
Are on that canvas fixed for aye!
The hand that laid those colours fair,
The brain that schemed to set them there,
Have no more work, meseems, to do,
For both are still; the palette, too,
Hangs idly from its peg; and o'er
The box of pigments on the floor
The spider throws her web. The sun
That glittered while the work was done,
Has set in night for him who made
This canvas fair with light and shade;
66

For ere these glowing hues were dry
He turned him from his task to die.
Ah! not in night his day declined;
Not thus the spirit saith. The mind
That thought, the brain that willed,
Are with diviner cunning skilled,
And somewhere out of earthly sight
The artist is, and morning light
Illumes his canvas: through his soul
The harmonies of heaven roll,
And mortal sunsets to him seem
But as some faintly-outlined dream
Recalled in brightest mid-day gleam.
67

“IN PEACE AND QUIETNESS”

A silver tide,
The waters glide,
And round the feet of mountains slide,
O'er whose high steep
The moonbeams peep,
And on through winding valleys keep.
'Mid craggy walls,
Where alway calls
The voice of many waterfalls,
A castle stands,
Whence robber bands
Once ravaged all the neighbour lands.
Their fierce alarms,
Their clang of arms,
Rang o'er the peasants' wasted farms;
And city streets
Heard their hoof beats,
Beheld the keeping of their leets.
68

Their riot fills
No more the hills,
And stirs a myriad mortal ills.
Their day is done,
Their course long run,
And memory fain their names would shun.
Along these slopes
With nature copes
The peasant, scattering seed in hopes.
The fig and vine
Their boughs entwine;
The valleys sing with corn and wine.
In summer days
A golden haze
Hides mount and river in its maze;
In summer eves
The moonlight weaves
A shimmering splendour of the leaves,
Or silver lights,
On autumn nights,
It scatters where no foe affrights;
While softly there
The call of prayer
Floats forth upon the peaceful air.
69

IN THE LIBRARY AT ELMWOOD

These are the friends whom he loved: these books that reveal on their pages
Pencilled marks of approval, as one claps a friend on the shoulder
Who has uttered a witty or wise thing. These are the friends he loved best,
And he knew them as one knows a brother. Now they look down from their places,
At evening and morning and mid-day, and mourn his untimely departure.
Many a time on their leaves has his white hand lovingly rested;
Many a time has he gone to these friends for their generous counsel;
Often and often have they and the poet made merry together.
70

Now the sweet converse has past, and the glow of the fire on the hearthstone
Flashes across the dark faces that leaned from the shelves to speak to him
In accents that he understood whatever the tongue that was spoken;
Gleams on the papers that lie on the stand where he carelessly tossed them;
Glitters on ceiling and walls but no longer discovers the presence,
Gracious and courteous ever, that once made the scholar's apartment
Seem like the throne of a king when he sat there by such friends surrounded.
1891
71

HULL

Low leagues of coast dunes bending to the west
Are tremulous with waving beach grass green,
Or all aglare with shifting sands that, seen
At midday, show their arid whiteness best.
At farthest end start up, as if to breast
The ocean's might, low rounded hills that lean
Their turfed slopes to the sun, and in between
These swelling downs a road winds, all unguessed
Till near, and fringed with homely farmsteads like
Some country lane with honest country bloom.
The murmurs of the sea seem faint and far
Though close beside. All summer sounds that strike
The ear bring peace. All winds waft blent perfume
Of sea and meadow through the village quaint.
72

WHICH

O which were best, and who would dare to choose
Between the friend who holds you as his life,
Counting all effort useless if his strife
Win from you no fond word—content to lose
All else but you—or him you know no ruse
Of time can part your soul from, and no knife
Of fate dissever, though all tongues were rife
With tales of slander his fair fame to bruise?
O which were best? To give or to receive?
To love, or to be loved? To take alway,
Or stand with gifts of love before the gate
Of one beloved? Oh! curious heart, believe
All love wins love, and choice were foolish play
In this. The twain are one, or soon or late.
73

WHAT CAN DREAR DECEMBER SAY?

What can drear December say
That should make our souls rejoice?
Fields are white and skies are grey;
Winter speaks with sternest voice.
Summer's gone far over seas;
Scent and sweetness all are fled;
Every southward sweeping breeze
Wails a dirge for summer dead.
Hearts are numb with nameless pain,
For the year is near its death:
“Joy once past comes not again,”
To itself the sad soul saith.
This is what December says,
Heard through snows and flying sleet:
“Even in my shortening days
Still abide presagings sweet
Of the pleasant time to be.
In my woods the hazel swells;
Under snows who looks may see
Epigæa's rose tinged bells.
All the blasts in fury reeling
Cannot quench my Christmas light.
Heart, look up! One came with healing
On a dark December night.”
74

HORATIO NELSON POWERS

1826–1890
Death hath no power o'er such as he;
The fulness of the life to be
Shone round him in the life he spent
Within this mortal prison pent.
Texts might we gather from his looks
Such as men read in holy books,
And in his speech could hear at will
The Master's gracious accents still.

A MEMORY AT CHRISTMASTIDE

Again the snows, the Christmas carols sweet;
Again the days so full of Christmas cheer.
Ah me! the friend who spoke with me last year,
And warmed my very heart with love's glad heat
Lies now where fall the winter snow and sleet,
And I, who held him past all others dear
And counted every hour without him drear,
No more shall list the coming of his feet.
75

LOVE IS SO SWEET

Love is so sweet, but he seldom stays long:
(Roses of June are gone ere July.)
Love is so sweet, but brief ia his song:
(Roses of June on the first winds fly.)
Love is so sweet, but he leaves a pain:
(Roses of June have a thorn 'neath them all.)
Love is so sweet, but he comes not again:
(Roses of June must wither and fall.)
Love was so sweet, but his day is past:
(Roses lie deep 'neath December snows.)
Love was so sweet, but he fled so fast;
(Roses are done when the summer-time goes.)
76

BEFORE THE GATE OF STORMS

Before the gate of storms two dim shapes met:
(Cold are the winds when December flies;)
The one was robed in weeds of sad regret,
But saw the shining of the other's eyes.
Then he who wore the seal of sorrows great:
(Dark are the nights when December goes;)
“Alas! who art thou, that with face elate
Peerest so eagerly through whirling snows?”
Clear rang the other's answer in his ear:
(Crisp are the snows when December speeds;)
“I am the spirit of the coming year;
My name is Hope, and always hope succeeds.”
Slow turned the sad one from before the gate:
(Shadows are black when December parts;)
“O eager one, within the future wait
Thy coming, pain and woe and broken hearts.
I am the spirit of the going year;
(Sad are the hours when December flies;)
My name is Loss, and me all men do fear,
For in my bosom twelve months' anguish lies!”
77

AT BAY

This the end, then, of striving; this is what comes of it all;
Darkness and foes just behind one; before, an impassable wall.
What does it matter how staunchly one may have battled for truth,
When with his weapons all broken he sits by the grave of his youth?
What did it profit in past years that one did the best that one knew,
When in the gloom of the present, virtue herself seems untrue?
Why should one fight any longer when nothing remains but defeat?
Surely such labour were useless, and idle the stirring of feet.
Ah! but the soul that is faithful knows it is well to have fought;
Knows it is good to have acted, whatever the doing has brought.
This is the crown of the conflict, this the reward of all strife,—
Faith in one's self and one's motives, no matter how darkened the life.
78

Flesh may be bruised and defeated, but spirit is never disgraced;
Spirit is always triumphant, whatever sharp pain it it has faced.
Here, at the end of my conflict, I counsel not yet with dispair,
Though to all seeming my struggles are his who but beateth the air.
Darkness and foes are about me, yet I stand with my back to the wall,
Facing whatever Fate sends me, and facing Fate thus I shall fall!
79

A LAGGARD SPRING

The winter tarried and the spring was late,
And still from wild waste lands to northward blew
The gale that stiffened nightly all the brooks
Which fed the rivers flowing past the cliffs
Of lonely cloud-swept mountains to the sea;
And all the people wearied of the cold,
And all the fields were crying for the sun.
But when the mid-March weeks were past there came
A wind from southern lands that vanquished quite
The hosts of winter. All its snows rushed down
In stormful spates, to spread themselves upon
The level meads that lay beside the streams
That in the summer shrank to silver threads
Or lost themselves amid the green, but now
Were one wide water, for the spring had come!
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