University of Virginia Library

“NICK'S RATIFICATION

A rat attempting once to peel
A sleeping lad, named Nick O'Neil,
One of his friends suggested that
He should procure a Tabby-cat.

THE DOCTOR'S ADVICE

If the fat-lip
Come from cat-nip,
Then on that lip
Rub some cat-nip.

FOR A YOUNGSTER

If what I have sung—
Stirred the heart of a youngster,
'Twill not be in vain
That I rattled my brain.

REPLY

To Mr. Austin Dobson—

Dear Sir:

It is a cruel stab
With Edgar Poe to measure Tabb:
As well with Tennyson to rate
The present Poet Laureate.

EXPLANATION

'Tis evident that such a name
As mine to Mr. Dobson came,
Like Cinderella's shoe—it fit
The foot; so, on he buckled it.

Always affectionately yours.”

WHY THE JOURNEY IS MADE

'Tis not with gold, I hear,
The Wise Man starts to Frisco!
But, haply, to demur
If matters there amiss go;
And, if incensed, to stir
With direst threats—“obispo.”

KEEP YOUR RYE OPEN

No man, dear doctor, can deny
Your rhymes are worthy of your Rye.
And this to me
Is what in spirits best I find—
Or in a jug, or in mankind—
Viz., Pure-Rye-ty.

IN HELL

“Pere ---'s dead! Ah, it is well;
He'll never worry us in hell!”

IN PURGATORY

“His sins were long ago forgiven;
So let him pass at once to heaven.”

IN HEAVEN

“He did God's will by night and day,
But always in the devil's way.”

ON EARTH

“'Twould lessen joy or deepen woe,
If where he went we'd have to go.”

DOING WELL

I'll be hanged if you haven't done well
To hang up a rebel who likes to rebel;
But whether you send me to heaven or hell,
An unredeemed rebel I'll faithfully dwell.

“VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE”

Contrasts are striking, Teddy knows;
And so, for a variety,
The Black man to the White House goes,
Rough-riding o'er society.
We wonder how “the spice of life”
Impressed the daughter and the wife.

A SECOND-TERM SCENTED

We wonder much how Roose-felt
When Booker Washington he smelt;
And if he lives in expectation
Of a new in-nigger-ation.

A TABB-LOW

(A duet by two who can't do it—D---and B---)

“Tabb's dead! and we who always keep
The Rule of Silence when we sleep,
Agreed, for his detested sake,
To keep it sometimes when awake,
So that his students all might see
What lofty scorn of him had we.”
D.
“Go now, and get your ‘little ting,’
And we shall both Te Deum sing.”

B.
“Te Deum!”

D.
“Hush! The chant you spoil
And mispronounce the second voil.
Tee Dyum you should say, like me.”

B.
“Now den, you don't know “Fa” from ‘Si’.”

D.
“Ah, B--- ---, keep your temper, do,
Or Silence I shall keep with you.
Look there! I'll take my solemn oath
Tabb's body's grinning at us both.”

APPENDIX I.
UNCOLLECTED POEMS

CHORISTERS

OUR FIRST-BORN

MUTATION

THE IMAGE-MAKER

“Thou shalt no graven image make;”
And yet, O sculptor, for the sake
Of such an effigy as I—
The superscription like the face
Disfigured now, and hard to trace—
Didst thou thyself consent to die.

SUNDERED

Thou sleepest sound, and I
Anear thee lie,
Yet worlds apart:
Thou in the light of dreams;
I, where the midnight seems—
An ashen sea—
From this my world and that wherein thou art
To blot out all but me.

ANIMULA VAGA

POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM

Here, where to pinching penury the gloom
Of Death was wedded, came Immortal Love,
And Genius, with all the pomp thereof,
To consecrate a temple and a tomb.

AUGURY

Before the dawn, 'tis light,
If Hope the vigil keep;
Before the noon-tide, night,
Of Woe, despairing, weep:
The Future 'tis that shows
What now the present knows.

UNDERTOW

In boreal calm the spirit feels
A far-off thunder-roll,
And through each tropic passion steals
A current from the pole.

DAWN

Love told a Star the vision that beguiled
His slumber; and the Darkness, hearing, smiled.

A FOOT-RULE

When a poet gives his hand,
Meet it is to greet the greeter.
When his feet in question stand,
It is metre.

SIGNALS

The prophet Star, the Maiden Dawn, the Sun—
So light begins his reign;
Then Sunset, widowed Twilight, and anon
The prophet Star again.

IMPORT

Thou hast the final touch supplied
That till thy coming was denied—
A single letter in a word
Whose absence all the context blurred;
A missing note that, but for thee,
Had marred the perfect harmony.

THE VAMPIRE MOON

SUFFICIT

We are alone!
The night-winds moan
For envy, and the sobbing rain
Protests in vain.
How deep their darkness! But our night,
Than day more bright,
Needs not the glimmering orbs above,
But only Love.

IN TOUCH

TIDES

Like inland streams, O Sea,
Thro' joy and pain
All nature dreams of thee;
Nor more appears
Thy life in mist or rain
Than in our tears.

NIGHT-BORN

ALFRED TENNYSON

The lordliest at Arthur's Table Round
No loftier than thou,
The laureate, with England's glory crowned,
Whom Death has knighted now.

AUTUMN-GLOW

If this the preface be of death
In crimson, green, and gold,
What wondrous art illumineth
The story still untold?

VICTORIA

Now from the throne of England one is borne,
Whom all men mourn,
Nor more as queen, than for the life that stood
The type of Motherhood.

MY SERVANT

Lord, wheresoe'er I am, Thou art,
In love subservient to me,
Still tendering a lowlier port
Than saint or angel unto me.

JACET LEO XIII

“Behold the aged Lion, Lord,
I am,
Now come to lay me down
Beside the Lamb.”

A CARCANET

I give thee, love, a carcanet,
With all the rainbow splendor set,
Of diamonds that drink the sun,
Of emeralds that feed upon
His light as doth the evergreen,
A memory of spring between
This frost of whiter pearls than snow,
And warmth of violets below
A wreath of opalescent mist,
Where blooms the tender amethyst;
Here, too, the captives of the mine—
The sapphire and the ruby—shine,
Rekindling each a hidden spark,
Unquenched by buried ages dark,
Nor dimmed beneath the jeweled skies,
Save by the sunlight of thine eyes.

WAVES

TO THE FREEDMAN

Friend of the dusky visage, whereupon
When all things else have yielded to the light
Abides the cleaving shadow of a night
The darker for the noonday's fiercer sun;
Among earth's kindred nations nearer, none
Than thine and mine. Thou standest in the fight,
A slave beside a master for whose right
Thine arm, with his uplifted, lost or won.
Nay; now the victor vanquished, when the foe
Exulting in a land of bondage free,
Flung out the signal, “Smite the smiter!” lo,
Thou wouldst not; but with new-wed Liberty
Wentest thy way—nor yet as glad to go,
But oft in tears that all the world might see.

THE JEWESS

A mother she in Israel,
With eyes, like Jacob's well,
Untouched by time—their tender grace,
As from the Temple's inmost place,
Telling the twofold mystery
Of Eden and Gethsemane.

REPOSE

I laid me down in solitude, but not alone:
The night was with me, and the stars above me shone;
The Earth, my mother, pillowed me, and to her breast
I nestled as a weary child that yearns for rest.
The drowsy ripple of a stream that murmured near
With lisping leaves made lullaby to soothe mine ear;
But o'er the mystery of calm my brooding mind
Hung as an eagle motionless upon the wind,
Till stirred with energy of thought, on pinions strong,
Through swift-receding centuries it swept along,
Far out of space and period, where yet of time
No wave had drifted to disturb the depth sublime.
Then, lo! from vastness infinite, one lonely ray
Gleamed, trembling in its solitude, upon the way,
And through the region measureless, a whisper came—
A thrill of hidden majesty that breathed my name:
“Yon beam upon immensity that breathed my name:
From all eternity hath been thy dwelling, Man.
There wast thou, ever intimate, a thought of Him—
The One-Intelligence—that spans the ages dim.
The time, the place, all influence prevailing here,
In pregnant lineament conceived, was imaged there;
For in the mystic harmony of Nature kind,
These kindred elements fulfil a chord designed,
The shadows that encompass thee, the soothing sleep,
The swathing dreams elysian, the silence deep,
All speak one calm Original, whose power divine
Hath wrought for them a destiny that measures thine;
For all to man are ministrants of heavenly love,
Out-breathings from the Fountain-head of rest above.”

A TRAVELLER'S GUIDE

SEEMING FAILURE

THE DYING BOY TO THE WIND-FLOWERS

COBWEBS

A net to catch the earliest gleam
Of westward swimming light;
On hammock of the latest dream
That left the shores of night.

THE PRECIPICE

Above the fathomed deep
Of Death, we move in sleep,
And who among us knows
How near the brink he goes?

THE TOUCH-ME-NOT

CHRISTMAS GREETING

Good morning, Lord! For little boys
The Day more generous to joys
Than unto men, they say;
If so, for greater happiness
Teach us Thy holy name to bless
With fuller hearts than they.

MOUNTAIN-BORN

MY SOUL

In my body bides a guest,
Time-born for Eternity—
Ne'er to mortal manifest;
To my very self unknown;
Visible to God alone,
And revealing Him to me.

GOOD FRIDAY

Behold in every crimson glow
Of earth and sky and sea,
The Hand that fashioned them doth show
Love crucified for me.

HEREDITY

TO A DROP OF POISON

As once, the seal of Solomon beneath,
The Genius in bonds, rebellious lay;
So lieth here a mightier captive Death,
Fate-bound his fond deliverer to slay.

IN SHADOW

Heeds yonder star thy song,
O warbler of the night?
“I know not, for the way is long
That leads unto the light.
But as the music of the spheres,
A twinkling silence here appears,
Perchance my warbling from afar
Appears a star.”

SUBMISSION

Since to my smiting enemy
Thou biddest me be meek,
Lo, gladlier, my God, to Thee
I turn the other cheek.

GENEVIEVE

STABAT MATER

THE MESSAGE

Let every South American beware, for lo! the strenuous man, our sovereign lord and master, says:

Unless you quickly mend your ways,
Upon your bended necks you'll feel
The impression of my armed heel,
A thing that every Filipino
Has learned as thoroughly as we know.

SUBWAY THEOLOGY

VOX DEI

DAISIES

Peacemakers ye, the daisies, from the soil
Upbreathing wordless messages of love,
Soothing of earth-born brethren the toil
And lifting e'en the lowliest above.

THE ASTRONOMER

The little dome that holds the brain
Whereby he measures from afar,
The influence of steadfast star
Or moving moon and sun—
Both vaster mysteries contain
Than those he looks upon;
Nay, such the marvel that perchance
The spheres in mute amazement scan,
The while they meet his upward glance,
The deeper mind of man.

ST. CHRISTOPHER

TO SIDNEY LANIER

The same blue-bending dome encanopies
Thine ashes and the spark that kindles mine;
Upon the selfsame bosom we recline,
When with the wind, the wave, land-lessening, dies
And, 'twixt our souls the star-wrought mysteries—
Of Hope the sacred oracles divine—
Steadfast above the vault of darkness shine,
To point the path benighted to the skies.
For there, of dreams unsepulchred, and free
“To face the vast sweet Visage, unafraid,”
That erst thy spirit reverenced to see
In Nature's lowliest lineaments portrayed,
Thou keepest watchful memory of me,
A lingering phantom of the mortal shade.

APPENDIX II.
UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF THE BROWNE-TABB ALBUM

THE MINIATURE

RUIN

THE GHOST CHAMBER

THE BRIDE ELECT

CHOPIN

Soul, that in music, as a flower in light,
Didst gem, and bloom, and vanish, with a breath
That mist-like o'er the sullen tide of death
Keeps fragrant still the memory of thy flight;
Dost thou, immortal, on the topmost height
Of harmony, forget the world beneath,
And all its chords tumultuous? Wandereth
No echo upwards through the sundering night?
Aye; notes of thine own making, now forlorn,
Like fledglings fluttered from the nest of love,
Tell of thy care; while with harmonious wing
They fan the depths of silence, listening
To hear anon thy mandate from above,
Hence to their home, thy bosom, to return.

DISTANCE

Fair sorceress, upon thy calm domain
We gaze in ceaseless wonder, compassed round
By slow-expanding visions interwound
With phantasies of pleasure, hope, and pain.
In thee life's wearied echoes find again
A silent fold: in thee each herald sound,
As in an Ocean's slumberous depth profound,
Awaits the future and her shadowy train.
All hearts the mild enchantment of thy sway
Subdues to subtlest sympathies benign—
To thee the golden Present, day by day,
For some far-glittering idol we resign,
And, like to exiles, homeward journeying, say:
“Our sighs, our dreams, our longings, all are thine.”

THE INDIAN

Still westward with the lessening light ye go,
Dejected people, and the forests tall,
Bewidowed of their dusky children, fall
Behind you with an echoing wail of woe.
Year after year the warrior winds lay low
The leafy tribes, and with prophetic call
Denounce the silent massacre of all
Before the pale usurper's conquering bow.
Heed ye the signs? or look your longing eyes
Beyond the winter, where the selfsame voice,
Warm with the breath of unawakened flowers,
Comes softly singing to the world, “Rejoice!
The snow is gone: and with the April showers
Each buried seed is hastening to arise!”

PREMONITION

As when at Mary's voice Elizabeth
Felt in her womb the restlessness of feet
That would outrun delaying birth, and greet
Alike unseen, the Conqueror of Death:
So, at the hour of midnight, wakes a breath
That in the womb of darkness, moves to meet
The soul of Morning, and a silence sweet
As incense tells of one that worshipeth.
Yea; life forever in expectancy
Stands tip-toe on the utmost brink of time,
Hushing the past, and listening to hear
(As poets the inevitable rhyme)
A dream's fulfilment in the echoes clear
That sing the present in futurity.

THE SCORE

This is the chart that tells of one who went,
Like John, into the wilderness alone—
Into a land of Silence, all unknown
Till thither by the Muses he was sent.
And we upon his wanderings intent
Must mark his perilous footsteps, tone by tone,
Or else be lost in mazes overgrown
With Discord, in a place of banishment.
Alone he went; but from his solitude
Returning, lo, there followed him a train
Of Echoes in an innumerable brood—
By Fancy from their sylvan sleep beguiled,
But ne'er from wedded Harmonies atwain,
Henceforth to slumber in their native wild.

SWINBURNE

How far soe'er thou wanderest from His law,
The gift of God we reverence in thee,
Painting thy thought in gorgeous pageantry,
To thrill the soul with ecstacy and awe—
Now with voluptuous syllables to draw
Remorseful tears; now, like the wintry sea,
All tempest-tongued, in midnight majesty,
Dread as the void primeval darkness saw.
For, since Titanic Milton smote the sky,
And echoes in the depths responsive found
Of chaos and the howling gates of hell,
No messenger of song hath soared so high,
Nor strewn with ranker luxury the ground,
Than thou, that singest of the worst so well.

ADEST

“Heaven is not far,” the Violet saith,
“The fragrance of my censer-breath,
That lures to Love,
Upon the altar whence it came
Commingles with the sacred flame
That burns above.”

MY BIRTH-CHAMBER

When first I wakened from the night,
Within that lonely room,
Methought in exile lived the Light
That left me in the goom—
Its destiny henceforth to be
With memories apart from me.

“BREAK, BREAK, BREAK”

Break, silent Dawn, and flood with light
The fathomless abyss of night;
Break, thunderous Ocean, till the bound
Of utmost silence swim with sound;
Break, troubled heart! No more for thee
Shall light, or sound, or motion be.

A LEPER'S GRAVE

Here, where untainted flesh
Hath dread
Corruption's bride to be,
Her life-long victim finds
A bed
From her embraces free.

LEGEND

The Brook goes babbling to the Sea
In language of the Land,
Of hill, and dale, and leafy tree,
Of song-bird, fragrant flower, and bee,
Beyond the sloping strand.
Alas! 'Tis all a mystery!
She doth not understand.

LIGHTS IN DARKNESS

The Moon, like Mary, bore to be
The partner of His agony.
The Sun, in pity for the race,
Like God, the Father, hid his face,
That, haled as witness, he might say,
“I saw not, for I turned away.”

THE QUEST

O Time, where hast thou laid
My Self of yesterday?
Where at his tomb I prayed
I come again to pray—
'Tis empty! Who hath hither strayed
And taken him away?

THE RIDDLE

Out of the Eater, meat:
Thou dost the streams devour.
Out of the strong, the sweet;
The brine begets the shower.
'Tis thus, O Samson Sea,
I solve thy mystery.

SONG

Nay, thou hast not my heart
Or I such cruel smart
No more could feel;
Nor, with my heart couldst thou
Still heartless prove as now
Its wound to heal.

SURVIVAL

“Each plays his part and goes his way,”
Our hearts at seeming distance say;
But twixt the blossom and the fruit—
The topmost twig and lowest root,
Till seed again to seed shall fall—
There lies no languid interval;
And soul is life-allied to soul
As parts unto the perfect whole.

VALE

God speed thee, setting sun!
Thy beams for me have spun
Of light today
A memory that one
Alone could bring, and none
Can take away.

WHENCE AND WHERE?

Do the blossoms come and go
As the waters ebb and flow?
Or, as stars, the livelong year,
Are they ever blooming here
In a garden of delight,
Clear or clouded to the sight
As the Seasons o'er the land
Lift or lower a wizard wand?

THE WHISTLER

'Tis spring; but laid
In ambuscade
The Snow malignant lingers,
And on the hill
The March wind still
At times must blow his fingers.

THE DOVE

The lone horizon listening seems to thee
As to a soul beloved—
Life's center, by the zone of destiny
Forever far removed.

THE DEATHLESS WIND

IN EXCELSIS

To highest heaven the Lark alone
Of earthly messengers is known;
To Silence all things else above,
He chants the litany of Love.

OLD AND NEW

Ever old and ever new,
Else it never could be true.
Failing leaf and falling snow,
Budding germ and blossom glow,
Tell us of a dream come true—
Ever old and ever new.

“SWEET TO THE SWEET”

What say the flowers above Ophelia's tomb?
“We bloom to fade; she faded but to bloom.”

THE BIOLOGIST

A PRESENCE

As on the lids of slumber lies a dream,
Or fragrance on the petals of a flower,
Or on the bosom of the deep, a beam
At twilight's nuptial hour,
So with me, in the soul of Silence, thou Abidest now.

A SONG OF EXPECTANCY

LOSS AND GAIN

MOUNTAINEERS

They climb with eager feet,
One east, one west,
As if in haste to meet
Upon the crest;
Yet each alone—
A fate unknown—
Nor deeming one, if either fails, how far
Or near they are.

SNOWDROP

The white lips just above the ground
Where sleeps my latest-born, I found;
And, kneeling for the sleeper's sake,
I kissed the blossom just awake.

“PEACE!”

ROOFLESS

THE OMEN

NIAGARA

On Regan and on Goneril—
The rugged rocks below—
He pours as from the mouth of hell
The torrent of his woe;
While o'er him, with protecting hands,
Cordelia—the rainbow—stands.

RUTS

TRANSPLANTED

SHAKESPEARE'S KEY

“Unlocked his heart?” Not he!
Of thine the cunning key
He keeps, to open still
And enter at his will.

BETWEEN

EYES

MY SONG

MY TRUANT

I bade him sleep, and he obeyed;
But when I called him back to pain
Within the slumber-world he stayed
And would not wake again.

LOVE'S USURY

I love you; and because you do not love,
I am the poorer and the richer, too;
The poorer, for you've taken all whereof
I gave; the richer, for enriching you.

“WRIT IN WATER”

E'en so; and where the fountain flows along,
Unsatisfied, the burning lips of Love
(Each passion growing with the taste thereof)
Drink, as of wine, the torrent of thy song.

SEPARATION

TO SLEEP

O tender Mother, blind and dumb,
Who dost to all thy children come
When others flee—
Like Mary at the cross to stay
E'en when our Father turns away,
Come now to me!

WILTED

Little blossom, thou and I
Both were born alike to die.
Less of time allowed to thee;
Haply, more Eternity.

VAPORS

In silence from the earth we rise
To learn the language of the skies;
Then, brimmed with music, melt again,
In soft soliloquies of rain,
To wake the seed-land slumbering deep,
And soothe the laborer to sleep.

ASPIRATION

Make me, O Cloud, thy comrade! Let me be
As thou, the silent Sister of the Wind;
The nursling of the Sun and of the Sea;
A shade of Earth in light celestial shrined.

IN BANISHMENT

Though from the waking world withdrawn,
Night's boundary to keep,
Thou floodest with a softer dawn
The hemisphere of Sleep.

BEETHOVEN (DEAF)

So, he who Samson-like of sound
Hath wrought our captive chains
In everlasting silence bound
A prisoner remains.

CONTACT

The universe is but the lordly hem
Of God's out-flowing garment; and to them
That touch in faith, its mysteries reveal
A sacrament each mortal wound to heal.

THE FIRST DREAMER

He woke to clasp the vision of his dream.
A self from self divided, that apart—
Twin banks begotten of the selfsame stream—
Each might in God behold the other's heart.

ENSHRINED

Each soul a sunbeam in a shroud
Of folding mist appears;
Now touched with rainbows, like a cloud,
And now dissolved in tears.

EXPECTANCY

An eagle on the summit—Hope and Fear,
Alternate pinions, moving restlessly.
O Distance, doth the better part appear
Doubt, or fulfilment of the thing to be?

LEAR'S FOOL

“I'll go to bed at noon.”
Ah, Fool, 'twas wisely said;
For Sorrow ne'er too soon
The requiem-call to bed.

FULFILMENT

Since that the unfulfilled desire of Shame
Meets the full-measured blame,
So must the prayer that missed the deed of Love
Find recompense above.

PRESENTIMENT

In boreal calm thy spirit feels
A far-off thunder roll;
And through each tropic passion steals
A current from the pole.

“THROUGH THE SHARP HAWTHORNE BLOWS THE COLD WIND”

O Wind, like raging Lear forlorn,
Against the sharp opposing thorne
Thou barest thy bosom, as in scorn
Of hearts with lesser anguish torn.

SCIENCE

Like Martha, she, with question manifold,
Pursues her daily round;
Nor sees that Faith her sister, as of old,
The better part has found.

SLEEP

A house of hands not builded like the sky,
O'erbending, but unsullied by the sod—
Where Guilt alike oblivious may lie
With Innocence, beside the lamb of God.

APRIL

“How is it you are laughing, dear,
With both your eyes a-twinkle?
Alas, 'tis all too soon, I fear
To let my little buds appear.
But now each restless prisoner
Attempts my foot to tickle,
And once to laugh if I begin,
They know I cannot keep them in.”

“CROSSING THE BAR”

No need, O weary traveller,
To seek the ocean far;
For here, whene'er the coast is clear,
The schooners cross the bar.

ABDUL'S CHANCES

With 'leven, it were not surprising
Should Abdul get another rising,
Or with the bakers over there
Or brewers, he should get a bier.

IN THE CONFESSIONAL

“Well, Pat, have you no more to say?”
“That's all, yer Riverence, today;
But with the help of Hiven, be sure
Anither toime I'll tell ye more.”

EUREKA

I love, as when a boy,
That note exultant of domestic joy,
When, triumph won,
The Hen, like Archimedes, proclaims,
“I've found it! If ye doubt me,
Dons and Dames,
Come see what I have done.”

AN INCONGRUITY

As they have safely reached the Church,
It seems a thing to smile at
That, to direct them in the search,
We had a Pounch-as Pilot.

INCOME FROM GO-OUT

A fellow with a gouty foot
Was on a restless donkey put,
At which he swore in vain;
But soon he hired the donkey out,
And what he got relieved the gout,
For it ass-waged his pain.

THE TIDES AT PANAMA

“An effort gigantic,”
Exclaims the Atlantic,
“Is making, to wed us by force.”
“Indeed, 'tis terrific,”
Replies the Pacific,
“But cannot we get a divorce?
For Teddy
Is ready
To sanction an ocean
Whose aim
Is a claim
To prevent Trust-promotion.”

MY TROUBLE

A FINE PENALTY

MAID OF ALGERIA

There was an old maid of Algeria
Whose lungs were but cells of bacteria;
So she cut them both out,
Exclaiming, no doubt,
“It will be said that I died of Hysteria.”

THE FRISKING LAMB

Tho' gay its life, in fact and fable,
In death its fate is lamb-on-table.

A BRIEF PEDIGREE

My mother was a Mare;
My father was, alas,
(It pains me to declare),
A veritable Ass.
With rare exceptions, as a rule,
There're no descendants from a Mule—
The simple reason why, no doubt,
Some other families die out.

A PIECE OF PRESUMPTION

Asked a possum of a canner
In his most seductive manner,
“Can you take me in, old man?”
He replied, “Possum, I can.”

SEA-SICKNESS

Her doctor advising, a victim of grippe
Set out on a journey to Rome;
But ere she reached Naples, she threw up her trip
And returned by the next steamer home.

D---D

D. D. O. sioux, appeal to you?
And D. D. favor win?
In D. D. D. appeal; and we
Politely took him in.

SONG OF THE SIOUX

“Dr. O'Gorman, of the Catholic University, has just been appointed Bishop of Sioux Falls; hence this letter.”

DEFIANCE

JOB-PRINTING

“Job-Printing!” I suspected so,
For none was ever half so slow
But Job, who by the gift he had
Of patience drove the devil mad.

APPENDIX III.
UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF THE CONNOR MANUSCRIPT

THE TREE

Thou art the blessed Tree
Whose fruit proclaimeth thee,
O Mother mine!
For never laden bough
Such burden bore as thou,
O Love Divine.

MY STEWARDSHIP

Lord, what Thou lendest me is Thine;
Nor less beneath Thy care,
For that Thy bounty makes it mine
Love's heritage to share.

DREAMS

Our dreams but tell the thoughts of those
Around us; e'en as water shows
The images upon it thrown
In lights and shadows not its own.

THE ACORN

Of myriads, but one hath found
The sesame that opes the ground,
And shows the hidden treasury
Of all the wealth that makes a tree.

(THE MESSAGE OF THE GRASS)

Give me Thyself to see
In what is least to me:
That as I pass
Each blade of grass
That points above
May cry aloud, “O Love,
The light is Thine alone,
The shadows all my own.”

THE TREE

To me the trembling Adam fled in shame
From God's avenging eye;
To me the Christ, a sinless victim, came
For Adam's guilt to die.

TO THE NEW MOON

Thou lookest on the lonely place,
To find no more the sleeping face,
Nor kiss again the crescent brow—
Thy fairer counterpart till now.

SEPARATION

To leave what most we love, in loneliness,
To know our absence in some heart will make
E'en love itself a sorrow for our sake—
Ah, whose the weight of heavier distress?

LINES

As the petals fall away
Briefer grows the autumn day;
When the blossoms come again,
Longer will the light remain.

EGLANTINE

SECOND CHILDHOOD

Since such alone can of Thy kingdom be,
A little child Thou comest unto me;
Then whatsoe'er of second birth the pain,
Make me, O Lord, a little child again.

MATURITY

Talk not of childhood's thoughtless joy!
I would not be again a boy
For all that boyhood brings;
The callow fledgling in the nest
Is not of birds supremely blest
As he that soars and sings.

DOMUS AUREA

Behold the living “House of Prayer”
Above the waves uplifted; where
The Bird of heaven, no more to roam,
Henceforth forever hath His home
Within the maiden heart that heard
And mothered God's Eternal Word.

AN ALIEN

I saw in heaven, the hovering wings beneath,
A Shade unbanished by the Light above:
What is thy name? “The messenger of Love—
The friend of all who passed yon portal—Death.”

WHEAT

Christlike falls the golden grain;
Christlike doth it rise again;
Christlike, as our daily food,
One with us in flesh and blood.

THE SWORD OF SIMEON

Blest be the sword that cleft her heart in twain!
Else had the “pondered word” forever lain
Within the temple of her soul concealed,
Whose wound the thoughts of many a heart revealed:
Yea, to the source from whence the waters flow
The spear that smites the fountain-Rock must go.

BONDAGE

Cries Death, “O Man, thy liberty,
What boots it! Low thou bowest the knee
Subservient to masters three—
Thy conquerors—Pain, Age, and Me.

COBWEB

A fairy canopy it seems,
By magic fingers spread;
Whence, suddenly, our vanished dreams
At flush of morning, fled.

“OMNIPOTENCE IN BONDS”

Thou that couldst ne'er be bound
Canst nevermore be free:
So close about Thee wound
Is our humanity.
As well desert Thy Father's throne
As Mary's Motherhood disown.

THE ORIGIN OF TEARS

When Eve, the twilight heavens to view,
Her eyes, like twin-born violets blue,
Upraised—the angel of the Dew
Bestowed his blessing, ere he knew.

TO A SON IN CHRIST

Ye Angels, lo, an angel unto you,
His Guardians, I commend.
Behold him, white in baptismal dew,
Nor blush to call him friend.

LEAR'S FOOL

A bird that twitters where storm-treachery
Hath fanged the oak, whose nest-supporting limb,
Death-smitten, droops compassionate for him
As for its own unsceptered majesty.

MORNING-GLORIES

ALFRED TENNYSON

The voice that late with music thrilled
The world, in silence now is stilled.
Or is our loss the larger gain
Of worlds new-wakened to his strain?

TENNYSON

'Twas fit that with the falling year
He too should fall;
That he, when Nature heeds, should hear
The homeward call;
That leaves autumnal o'er his bier
Bespread the pall,
For in their funeral train appear
The thoughts of all.

TOO LATE

Sighed a poet when his fame
After fifty winters came
And the Editors were asking for his rhyme:
Alas, I've lost my chance
As a hero of romance,
For I've lived just thirty years beyond the time!

SIGNIFICANCE

Nothing is vain: a stifled sigh
Life's passion pang betrays:
One glance of Love's prophetic eye
Eternity surveys.

SOLICITUDE

No mother minds so tenderly
Her babe, to mirror back its smiles,
As moves the never-resting sea
About a slumbering isle.

BEYOND

TOMORROW

Upon thy face alone no trace
Of Time, no touch of sorrow;
No shade of night upon the light
That floods thy soul, sweet Morrow.

GARNERED

The tints that fly the autumn leaves,
The leaves that fly the tree,
Anon the Wizard Winter weaves
In blossoms yet to be.

EXTORTION

Amid the stores of Opulence,
If Courtesy is scant,
'Twere cruel to exact from thence
What would increase the want.

LONELINESS

Dead in the desert! with the great white moon
Above him and around him wastes of sand,
The seed of endless centuries, so soon
Escaped the struggles of a nerveless hand.

TO A DEAD THRUSH

Though Silence shuts the gate of Song,
I keep thereof the key,
And hear thee warbling still among
The groves of Memory.

THE PHANTOM WRAITH

ATTAR OF ROSES

SELF-SACRIFICE

Lo, all I have is Thine—
My wealth, my poverty.
Ne'er canst thou, Lord, resign
Of Self so much to me:
For, giving Thou hast more;
But I, henceforth, am poor.

THE MORNING STAR

The latest beacon spark
Upon the western way
To guide thro' shallowing dark
The silver sails of Day.

DESMOS

I am Thy captive; break Thou not my chain;
Beyond my dungeon all is death to me.
Here must my soul, Love's prisoner, remain;
Bondage alone is life and liberty.

BLIND

THE WRAITH

WHERE ARMIES MET

I heard the distant summons loud
To battle, from the crested Cloud,
The vaunting trumpet of the Gale,
The rattling musketry of Hail,
The sobbing of the Rain, and lo!
The silence of the shrouding Snow.

CHRIST THE MENDICANT

TRANSMISSION

'Tis one by one we come and go;
'Tis one by one we stand or fall;
'Tis one by one the All we know,
And one by one He comes to all.

THE GLEANER

Lo, silence, like a roving bee
Upon her daily round,
To fill the hive of memory
Despoils each blossom-sound,
And winters, as the past devours
Whate'er the present yields,
The promise of immortal flowers
For time's unfallowed fields.

MY SERVANT

If what unto the least I do,
I do it unto thee,
Then in the least, O Lord, I view
Thy service unto me.

DIVORCE

Time was when Faith and Reason trod
With wedded hands the ways of God,
But now, Love's sacrament denied,
What God hath joined doth Man divide.

SNOWDROPS

As a blossom of the light
Drifted downward through the night,
From the darkness far below
Came her counterpart of snow.

SACRIFICE

The dusky mother of the rosy morn
Dies at its birth, contented to depart;
As sorrow from the precincts of the heart
When, flushed with tears, the man-child joy is born.

SUCCESSORS

UNFETTERED

The winds are wailing, and I cannot sleep;
What would ye, wandering sisters? Free to go
Where'er ye list, and yet no happier so
Than in the limits of Life's dungeon-keep?

MOLOKAI

The heaven's clean space above it and around
The one expanse whereon no stain can be;
Soothing all else within an Eden bound
Of tropic life but snow-clad leprosy.

RESTORATION

The light may cleave our kindred shades
And banish us apart,
But distance in the darkness fades
And we are heart to heart.

THE MATERNITY

One through Mother Mary, we
With Thy warm humanity;
And through Thee, her only Son,
With our heavenly Father one;
Motherless the world above,
Earth had closer claims of love.

LIFE-SONG

Breathe it must for ecstacy,
Or a stifled blossom die:
Aching silence overgrown
Brings to birth the living tone
Sap-like, evermore to be
One with full-blown memory.

THE RIVER

How calm the silent sister of the sea!
No ripple on her ever-moving breast;
The glass of Time and of Eternity—
Unending motion in unending rest.

THE PASSION

O Night, thou never canst forget
The agony and the bloody sweat
Whereof the mere remembrance yet
Again makes all thy garments wet.

AN ECHO

“Keats! Keats!”
From yonder bush
The startled thrush
This name repeats;
As if he heard
My thought, and fain
Would greet again
His brother-bird.

APRIL

For many a flower that sleeps
The zephyrs sigh in vain,
Till April, Christ-like, weeps
And Lazarus lives again.

THE WIZARD

Spring-like Prospero through all the land
Now waves again his magic wand,
From Winter's long captivity
To set the April-blossoms free.

ON THE HEIGHTS

THE WAY-SIDE TREE

The loiterers in my shade of old
Themselves are shadows now;
Their bodies, mingled with the mold,
Upbreathe to many a bough
The leaves o'ershadowing today
Some fellow-pilgrim on the way
That leads him to the vision blest,
The Holy Sepulchre of Rest.

WORSHIPPERS

The gift of utterance is ours,
Love's service to proclaim;
But in the fragrance of the flowers
There breathes a purer flame.
Abiding in their place of birth,
They cleave unto the sod,
In reverence, nearer unto earth;
In lowliness, to God.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS

I saw thee once in waking light—
A darkness now to me,
Since 'tis alone in dreams of night
That I may gaze on thee.

TWO EPITAPHS

“Love lingers here where Life has fled.”
Where, Death, thy victory?
“Life lingers here where Love is dead.”
Then hail, O Death, to thee!

HARVEST

The powers of heaven plant the weed
That man uproots to set his seed:
So doth the God Incarnate plan
Through Man to feed his fellow-man.

NUNC ET SEMPER

DEFLOWERED

A MEDITATION

'Tis Nothingness that sunders me,
O God, from thine Eternity,
Wherein, a being yet to be,
I dwelt forever one with Thee,
Till twixt Thee and thy living Thought
This veil of Nothingness was wrought—
A gulf thy Love alone could span—
The mystery that made me Man.

FAREWELL!

“Farewell!” The fading day
Still whispers, “Fare thee well.
I go the darkened way
Whence none returns to tell
Of those that thither stray
What fate befell.”

THE WRECK

DELUSION

Thy presence woke me to the pain
Of sympathies apart:
Thy absence bids me dream again
That we are one in heart.

THE HOUR

“Why weepest thou, O twilight gray,
In unavailing sorrow?”
“Alas, I've lost a yesterday
And ne'er shall find a morrow.

UNDER THE TREES

As oft in wandering distress,
Today in solemn thankfulness,
Unto your God and mine
I come with winnowings of prayer,
O sinless suppliants, to share
Your mysteries divine.

TIME'S MEZZOTINT

'Tis in the shadows that we trace
The light of Love's remembered face:
'Tis in the register of Pain
That Life's immortal deeds remain.

THE LARK'S FIAT

How vast the ocean of the dark!
How small the compass of the lark
Whose “Fiat” from the void of night
Awakes the new-created light.

MATER DEI

As Faith, a pilgrim, seeks the tomb
Where once in Death's eclipsing gloom
Her Hope o'erclouded lay;
So Love unto the blessed womb
Where slept her Life's unbudded bloom
Would lowly reverence pay.

THE CHRIST-LIKE SPRING

Wherever thou dost come,
The birds and fountains dumb
Break forth in song;
While groping blossoms blind
Their sight and fragrance find
To hail the throng,
Exulting everywhere,
Of palsied limbs and bare,
Reclothed and strong.

AN EASTER LILY

In vain to seal the sepulchre
The Pilate Death commands;
For, lo, again his prisoner
Within the garden stands.

SLEEP

Another Mary seemest thou to me—
A rainbow span,
Twixt life and death a miracle, as she
Twixt God and Man.

AFTER BEDTIME

BLESSED VIRGIN

Why is the B. V. clad in Blue?

Because when comes no cloud between
My heart and Heaven above
Then wears the firmament serene
The livery of Love.

A MIRACLE

For each hen-turkey slain today
To celebrate Thanksgiving,
Full many a gobbler, strange to say,
Is made among the living.

RESTITUTION

“Did you restore that mangy sow
You stole from Pat McCarthy?”
“Indade I did, and have her now;
And she is fat and hearty.”

POST MORTEM

“When I am dead,” the poet said,
“The world shall read my verses.”
“Then better pray on earth to stay,”
Said one, “and curb the curses.”

SUI GENERIS

He: “I'm not of Adam's lineage bred,
And pedigree will show it.”
She: “Ah, pity 'tis the old man's dead.
'Twould please him so to know it.”

THE EPITAPH

Not dead, but sleeping. So it read.
Said Pat, when he was shown it,
“I would, bedad, if I was dead,
Be man enough to own it.”

ODE TO A PASSION

He slandered me; and I “with eyes of fire,”
Like Collins' Anger, rose and struck the liar.
“You do me wrong,” he muttered with surprise.
“Then,” said I, “thus do I Apollo-gize.”

APPENDIX IV.
UNPUBLISHED POEMS FROM THE DONAHOE CLASS-BOOK

CHRIST'S LITTLE SISTER

THE BELLMAN

THE OUTCAST

A VISIT TO THE BLESSED SACRAMENT ON THE EVE OF THE EPIPHANY

ADIEU