University of Virginia Library

SONGS, SONNETS, EPIGRAMS, ETC.

QUICK AND DEAD.

FLOWERS IN A BOOK.

Here, in my poet's book, I see
The flowers your sweet hand plucked for me.
I turn the leaves: each page is fraught
With gentle flowers of fragrant thought;
All loveliest things are there, I deem,
That haunt the poet's waking dream.
I turn the leaves: your flowers' dear faces
Gleam, book-marks of the sweetest places
(Yet ne'er a sweeter thought I read
Than those the mute flowers know, indeed);
And evermore they seem to look,
Whene'er I ope their prisoning book,
And, cheated, take—a moment's space—
Their jailer's for their angel's face;
Then, sere and withering, only miss
That resurrection of your kiss!

DOUBLE WINGS.

Aspiration and Power.

SLEEP AND LIFE.

For Sculpture.

Lo, Sleep bends over the weary Angel, Life,
Whose globe, his care, turns idly from his hand,
With all its continents of toil and strife,
With all its tossing seas and shifting sand.

IN OCTOBER.

GLOW-WORM AND STAR.

A golden twinkle in the wayside grass,
See the lone glow-worm, buried deep in dew,
Brightening and lightening the low darkness through,
Close to my feet that by its covert pass;
And, in the little pool of recent rain,
O'erhung with tremulous grasses, look how bright,
Filling the drops along each blade with light,
Yon great white star, some system's quickening brain,
Whose voyage through that still deep is never done,
Makes its small mirror by this gleam of earth!
O soul, with wonders where thy steps have trod,
Which is most wondrous, worm or mirrored sun?
... The Mighty One shows in everything one birth:
The worm's a star as high from thee in God.

GRACE OVER A GLASS OF CIDER.

Associated with a Barrel, his Gift, in my cellar.

To General A. S. Piatt.

Not only unto you, whose press and vat
Produced your gift directly, friend Piatt,
Are due the thanks which, warm-at-heart, are mine;—
The great Fruit-Giver owns your thanks and mine:
Thanks for the blossoms, April-fragrant, first;
Thanks for the sunshine which those blossoms nursed
And turned the lances of the lingering frost;
Thanks for the rain, so priceless without cost—
The holy water, from Heaven's blessing hands,
Without which all our fields were desert lands;
Thanks for the Summer's long increase of heat,
Bringing the apples, mellow, juiced, and sweet,
In a long shower of gold at Autumn's feet!
After these thanks are given, (put yours with mine,)
I thank you much and drink your apple wine.

VALENTINE.

To her whose heart has made her lovely face
A heaven for its sweet roses: her whose grace
Of thought and word and deed forever seems
The light of some sweet angel in her soul,
Stealing from Heaven in still, half-conscious dreams:
Go, little doves, and bear this gentle scroll
(Bearing my heart) to her—ah, if she smiles,
You need not tell: I'd know it a thousand miles!
Go, little doves, to her for whom I pine,
And softly whisper: “Here's your Valentine.”

SUCCESS.

The noblest goal is never reached, because
Ever withdrawn by the high god who draws,
And he who says, content, “Success is mine,”
Gaining the world has lost the soul divine.

THE CHRYSALIS.

Look! a chrysalis dry and old,
Coffin of a worm, I hold:
'Tis no lovely thing you see—
All of beauty yet must be;
You must wait awhile, till Spring,
For the blossom, for the wing.
Call it by whatever name,
Coffin, cradle—'tis the same.
Deeper down than Science sees
In old wells of mysteries
(With her mirrored face below,
Like a wondering child's aglow),
Farther far than sagest seeks—
Far as stars that shine in creeks—
Lo, in this unlovely shell
Maskéd Miracle doth dwell,
Old as Heaven and young as Earth!
God breathes and all death is birth;
At his breath and touch, in Spring,
Flutter, flower! blossom, wing!

THE ANGEL OF MEMORY.

When first from that Love-tended Garden driven
(Grateful, though sad, for their sweet bond unriven)
Came Eve and Adam, and, to homesick eyes
Turned backward, shone the walls of Paradise:
When their first sighs went fluttering to the Past,
And their first tears in the alien earth were cast:
The gates stood open—a wing'd angel, lo!
Flew thence to them, and, smiling, charmed their woe;—
So, evermore, through our world-wandering years,
The gates of Paradise unclose to tears;
From those high doors, in our lost morning shown,
An angel comes and walks with us alone:—
Blest Memory! with thy smile from day to day,
The Eden blossoms all our desert way!

BIRTHDAY WISHES.

To H. C. G. Completing Her Eighty-Fourth Year.

Take this poor song for one I fain would bring
To grace your birthday, worthier offering.
What shall I wish? New years like those you see,
Whose sunken suns shine soft, in memory?
Yes, these, if Heaven vouchsafe. But with them may
New flowers rise, sweetening, as of old, their way,
Peace be your constant guest, with steadfast Health,
Whose breath is life's best perfume, fortune, wealth;
Hope, too, who brightens all dark paths before—
An angel looking through an open door
Of cloud; and Faith, who in your gentle hand
Puts the sure key-flower of the Lovelier Land.

THE STAGE-CROSSING.

THE FLOWER UNDER FOOT.

THE BUBBLE BLOWERS.

THROUGH A WINDOW PANE.

[A Winter Memory.]

AT MORNING.

USE AND BEAUTY.

Who would have a treadmill measure every golden-sanded hour?
Who would find a purpose busy deep in every fragrant flower?
Yet we sometimes (ay, and often) gladly find the two agree;
Clasped together, Use and Beauty—in the rose the honey bee.
Factory-bells in yonder city, wind-blown music, far away
Waken soft enchanted sleepers in the charméd breast to-day;
See the river's quiet water, lovely mirror, slowly steal,
Dance with sunshine to its task-work;—Beauty overflows the wheel!

THE OUTLOOK.

An engraving, frontispiece in a volume of Western Biographies.

From his wild covert (in the visioned Past?)
The jealous Red-man sees
The settler's cabin, near; on yonder stream,
The boat fire-driven; far-off, over these,
The spire-lit city:—if to him they seem
Shadows of pitiless Doom that travels fast,
They realise our fathers' eager dream!

THE GUERDON.

To the quick brow Fame grudges her best wreath
While the quick heart to enjoy it throbs beneath.
On the dead forehead's sculptured marble shown
Lo, her choice crown—its flowers are also stone.

TO PEARL,

The Daughter of a Ship-master, Born at Sea.

By dangerous adventure braving death,
The precious drops are sought within the sea.
Who would not dare, with his extremest breath,
All perilous deeps to find a Pearl like thee?
Would he, however great the sacrifice,
Not be rewarded with the Pearl of price

BELL-TONES.

The chimes that fall from merriest wedding-bells
Toll oftentimes the saddest funeral knells.

TO A LADY.

On her Art of Growing Old Gracefully.

You ask a verse, to sing (ah, laughing face!)
Your happy art of growing old with grace?
O Muse, begin, and let the truth—but hold!
First let me see that you are growing old.