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+Project Gutenberg's Dreams and Days: Poems, by George Parsons Lathrop
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dreams and Days: Poems
+
+Author: George Parsons Lathrop
+
+Posting Date: November 7, 2012 [EBook #7325]
+Release Date: January, 2005
+First Posted: April 14, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS AND DAYS: POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Juliet Sutherland,
+Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreaders
+Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DREAMS AND DAYS
+
+POEMS
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP
+
+
+
+
+To ROSL
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I
+
+
+STRIKE HANDS, YOUNG MEN!
+
+"O JAY!"
+
+THE STAR TO ITS LIGHT
+
+"THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES"
+
+JESSAMINE
+
+THE BOBOLINK
+
+SAILOR'S SONG, RETURNING
+
+FIRST GLANCE
+
+BRIDE BROOK
+
+MAY-ROSE
+
+THE SINGING WIRE
+
+THE HEART OF A SONG
+
+SOUTH-WIND
+
+THE LOVER'S YEAR
+
+NEW WORLDS
+
+NIGHT IN NEW YORK
+
+THE SONG-SPARROW
+
+I LOVED YOU, ONCE----
+
+
+II
+
+
+THE BRIDE OF WAR
+
+A RUNE OF THE RAIN
+
+BREAKERS
+
+BLACKMOUTH, OF COLORADO
+
+THE CHILD-YEAR
+
+CHRISTENING
+
+THANKSGIVING TURKEY
+
+BEFORE THE SNOW
+
+
+III
+
+
+YOUTH TO THE POET
+
+THE SWORD DHAM
+
+"AT THE GOLDEN GATE"
+
+CHARITY
+
+HELEN AT THE LOOM
+
+THE CASKET OF OPALS
+
+LOVE THAT LIVES
+
+
+IV
+
+
+BLUEBIRD'S GREETING
+
+THE VOICE OF THE VOID
+
+"O WHOLESOME DEATH"
+
+INCANTATION
+
+FAMINE AND HARVEST
+
+THE CHILD'S WISH GRANTED
+
+THE FLOWN SOUL
+
+SUNSET AND SHORE
+
+THE PHOEBE-BIRD
+
+A STRONG CITY
+
+THREE DOVES
+
+
+V
+
+
+ARISE, AMERICAN!
+
+THE NAME OF WASHINGTON
+
+GRANT'S DIRGE.
+
+BATTLE DAYS
+
+KEENAN'S CHARGE
+
+MARTHY VIRGINIA'S HAND
+
+GETTYSBURG: A BATTLE ODE
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+
+
+
+  STRIKE HANDS, YOUNG MEN!
+
+
+    Strike hands, young men!
+  We know not when
+  Death or disaster comes,
+  Mightier than battle-drums
+  To summon us away.
+  Death bids us say farewell
+  To all we love, nor stay
+  For tears;--and who can tell
+  How soon misfortune's hand
+  May smite us where we stand,
+  Dragging us down, aloof,
+  Under the swift world's hoof?
+
+    Strike hands for faith, and power
+  To gladden the passing hour;
+  To wield the sword, or raise a song;--
+  To press the grape; or crush out wrong.
+  And strengthen right.
+  Give me the man of sturdy palm
+  And vigorous brain;
+  Hearty, companionable, sane,
+  'Mid all commotions calm,
+  Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire;--
+  Give me the man
+  Whose impulses aspire,
+  And all his features seem to say, "I can!"
+
+  Strike hands, young men!
+  'Tis yours to help rebuild the State,
+  And keep the Nation great.
+  With act and speech and pen
+  'Tis yours to spread
+  The morning-red
+  That ushers in a grander day:
+  To scatter prejudice that blinds,
+  And hail fresh thoughts in noble minds;
+  To overthrow bland tyrannies
+  That cheat the people, and with slow disease
+  Change the Republic to a mockery.
+  Your words can teach that liberty
+  Means more than just to cry "We're free"
+  While bending to some new-found yoke.
+  So shall each unjust bond be broke,
+  Each toiler gain his meet reward,
+  And life sound forth a truer chord.
+
+    Ah, if we so have striven,
+  And mutually the grasp have given
+  Of brotherhood,
+  To work each other and the whole race good;
+  What matter if the dream
+  Come only partly true,
+  And all the things accomplished seem
+  Feeble and few?
+  At least, when summer's flame burns low
+  And on our heads the drifting snow
+  Settles and stays,
+  We shall rejoice that in our earlier days
+  We boldly then
+  Struck hands, young men!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  "O JAY!"
+
+
+  O jay--
+  Blue-jay!
+  What are you trying to say?
+  I remember, in the spring
+  You pretended you could sing;
+  But your voice is now still queerer,
+  And as yet you've come no nearer
+  To a song.
+  In fact, to sum the matter,
+  I never heard a flatter
+  Failure than your doleful clatter.
+  Don't you think it's wrong?
+  It was sweet to hear your note,
+  I'll not deny,
+  When April set pale clouds afloat
+  O'er the blue tides of sky,
+  And 'mid the wind's triumphant drums
+  You, in your white and azure coat,
+  A herald proud, came forth to cry,
+  "The royal summer comes!"
+
+    But now that autumn's here,
+  And the leaves curl up in sheer
+  Disgust,
+  And the cold rains fringe the pine,
+  You really must
+  Stop that supercilious whine---
+  Or you'll be shot, by some mephitic
+  Angry critic.
+
+    You don't fulfill your early promise:
+  You're not the smartest
+  Kind of artist,
+  Any more than poor Blind Tom is.
+  Yet somehow, still,
+  There's meaning in your screaming bill.
+  What _are_ you trying to say?
+
+    Sometimes your piping is delicious,
+  And then again it's simply vicious;
+  Though on the whole the varying jangle
+  Weaves round me an entrancing tangle
+  Of memories grave or joyous:
+  Things to weep or laugh at;
+  Love that lived at a hint, or
+  Days so sweet, they'd cloy us;
+  Nights I have spent with friends;--
+  Glistening groves of winter,
+  And the sound of vanished feet
+  That walked by the ripening wheat;
+  With other things.... Not the half that
+  Your cry familiar blends
+  Can I name, for it is mostly
+  Very ghostly;--
+  Such mixed-up things your voice recalls,
+  With its peculiar quirks and falls.
+
+    Possibly, then, your meaning, plain,
+  Is that your harsh and broken strain
+  Tallies best with a world of pain.
+
+    Well, I'll admit
+  There's merit in a voice that's truthful:
+  Yours is not honey-sweet nor youthful,
+  But querulously fit.
+  And if we cannot sing, we'll say
+  Something to the purpose, jay!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE STAR TO ITS LIGHT
+
+
+  "Go," said the star to its light:
+  "Follow your fathomless flight!
+    Into the dreams of space
+    Carry the joy of my face.
+  Go," said the star to its light:
+  "Tell me the tale of your flight."
+
+  As the mandate rang
+    The heavens through,
+  Quick the ray sprang:
+    Unheard it flew,
+  Sped by the touch of an unseen spur.
+    It crumbled the dusk of the deep
+    That folds the worlds in sleep,
+  And shot through night with noiseless stir.
+
+  Then came the day;
+  And all that swift array
+  Of diamond-sparkles died.
+  And lo! the far star cried:
+  "My light has lost its way!"
+    Ages on ages passed:
+    The light returned, at last.
+
+  "What have you seen,
+    What have you heard--
+  O ray serene,
+    O flame-winged bird
+  I loosed on endless air?
+  Why do you look so faint and white?"--
+  Said the star to its light.
+
+  "O star," said the tremulous ray,
+  "Grief and struggle I found.
+  Horror impeded my way.
+  Many a star and sun
+  I passed and touched, on my round.
+  Many a life undone
+  I lit with a tender gleam:
+  I shone in the lover's eyes,
+  And soothed the maiden's dream.
+  But alas for the stifling mist of lies!
+  Alas, for the wrath of the battle-field
+  Where my glance was mixed with blood!
+  And woe for the hearts by hate congealed,
+  And the crime that rolls like a flood!
+  Too vast is the world for me;
+  Too vast for the sparkling dew
+  Of a force like yours to renew.
+  Hopeless the world's immensity!
+  The suns go on without end:
+  The universe holds no friend:
+  And so I come back to you."
+
+  "Go," said the star to its light:
+  "You have not told me aright.
+  This you have taught: I am one
+  In a million of million others--
+  Stars, or planets, or men;--
+  And all of these are my brothers.
+  Carry that message, and then
+  My guerdon of praise you have won!
+  Say that I serve in my place:
+  Say I will hide my own face
+  Ere the sorrows of others I shun.
+  So, then, my trust you'll requite.
+  Go!"--said the star to its light.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  "THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES"
+
+
+  The sunshine of thine eyes,
+  (O still, celestial beam!)
+  Whatever it touches it fills
+    With the life of its lambent gleam.
+
+  The sunshine of thine eyes,
+  O let it fall on me!
+  Though I be but a mote of the air,
+  I could turn to gold for thee!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  JESSAMINE
+
+
+  Here stands the great tree still, with broad bent head;
+  Its wide arms grown aweary, yet outspread
+  With their old blessing. But wan memory weaves
+  Strange garlands, now, amongst the darkening leaves.
+    _And the moon hangs low in the elm_.
+
+  Beneath these glimmering arches Jessamine
+  Walked with her lover long ago; and in
+  The leaf-dimmed light he questioned, and she spoke;
+  Then on them both, supreme, love's radiance broke.
+    _And the moon hangs low in the elm_.
+
+  Sweet Jessamine we called her; for she shone
+  Like blossoms that in sun and shade have grown,
+  Gathering from each alike a perfect white,
+  Whose rich bloom breaks opaque through darkest night.
+    _And the moon hangs low in the elm_.
+
+  For this her sweetness Walt, her lover, sought
+  To win her; wooed her here, his heart o'er fraught
+  With fragrance of her being; and gained his plea.
+  So "We will wed," they said, "beneath this tree."
+      _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Yet dreams of conquering greater prize for her
+  Roused his wild spirit with a glittering spur.
+  Eager for wealth, far, far from home he sailed;
+  And life paused;--while she watched joy vanish, veiled.
+      _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Ah, better at the elm-tree's sunbrowned feet
+  If he had been content to let life fleet
+  Its wonted way!--lord of his little farm,
+  In zest of joys or cares unmixed with harm.
+      _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  For, as against a snarling sea one steers,
+  He battled vainly with the surging years;
+  While ever Jessamine must watch and pine,
+  Her vision bounded by the bleak sea-line.
+      _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Then silence fell; and all the neighbors said
+  That Walt had married, faithless, or was dead:
+  Unmoved in constancy, her tryst she kept,
+  Each night beneath the tree, ere sorrow slept.
+      _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  So, circling years went by, till in her face
+  Slow melancholy wrought a mingled grace,
+  Of early joy with suffering's hard alloy--
+  Refined and rare, no doom could e'er destroy.
+        _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Sometimes at twilight, when sweet Jessamine
+  Slow-footed, weary-eyed, passed by to win
+  The elm, we smiled for pity of her, and mused
+  On love that so could live, with love refused.
+        _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  And none could hope for her. But she had grown
+  Too high in love, for hope. She bloomed alone,
+  Aloft in proud devotion; and secure
+  Against despair; so sweet her faith, so sure.
+        _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Her wandering lover knew not well her soul.
+  Discouraged, on disaster's changing shoal
+  Stranding, he waited; starved on selfish pride,
+  Long years; nor would obey love's homeward tide.
+        _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  But, bitterly repenting of his sin,
+  Deeper at last he learned to look within
+  Sweet Jessamine's true heart--when the past, dead,
+  Mocked him with wasted years forever fled.
+        _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Late, late, oh late, beneath the tree stood two;
+  In trembling joy, and wondering "Is it true?"--
+  Two that were each like some strange, misty wraith:
+  Yet each on each gazed with a living faith.
+        _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Even to the tree-top sang the wedding-bell:
+  Even to the tree-top tolled the passing knell.
+  Beneath it Walt and Jessamine were wed,
+  Beneath it many a year has she lain dead.
+      _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+  Here stands the great tree, still. But age has crept
+  Through every coil, while Walt each night has kept
+  The tryst alone. Hark! with what windy might
+  The boughs chant o'er her grave their burial-rite!
+       _And the moon hangs low in the elm._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE BOBOLINK
+
+
+  How sweetly sang the bobolink,
+    When thou, my love, wast nigh!
+  His liquid music from the brink
+  Of some cloud-fountain seemed to sink,
+    Far in the blue-domed sky.
+
+  How sadly sings the bobolink!
+    No more my love is nigh:
+  Yet rise, my spirit, rise, and drink
+  Once more from that cloud-fountain's brink,--
+    Once more before I die!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  SAILOR'S SONG, RETURNING
+
+
+  The sea goes up; the sky comes down.
+  Oh, can you spy the ancient town,--
+  The granite hills so green and gray,
+  That rib the land behind the bay?
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+     Fair winds, boys: send her home!
+               O ye ho!
+
+  Three years? Is it so long that we
+  Have lived upon the lonely sea?
+  Oh, often I thought we'd see the town,
+  When the sea went up, and the sky came down.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  Even the winter winds would rouse
+  A memory of my father's house;
+  For round his windows and his door
+  They made the same deep, mouthless roar.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  And when the summer's breezes beat,
+  Methought I saw the sunny street
+  Where stood my Kate. Beneath her hand
+  She gazed far out, far out from land.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  Farthest away, I oftenest dreamed
+  That I was with her. Then it seemed
+  A single stride the ocean wide
+  Had bridged, and brought me to her side.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  But though so near we're drawing, now,
+  'T is farther off--I know not how.
+  We sail and sail: we see no home.
+  Would that we into port were come!
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  At night, the same stars o'er the mast:
+  The mast sways round--however fast
+  We fly--still sways and swings around
+  One scanty circle's starry bound.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  Ah, many a month those stars have shone,
+  And many a golden morn has flown,
+  Since that so solemn, happy morn,
+  When, I away, my babe was born.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  And, though so near we're drawing, now,
+  'T is farther off--I know not how:--
+  I would not aught amiss had come
+  To babe or mother there, at home!
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  'T is but a seeming: swiftly rush
+  The seas, beneath. I hear the crush
+  Of foamy ridges 'gainst the prow.
+  Longing outspeeds the breeze, I know.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+
+  Patience, my mates! Though not this eve
+  We cast our anchor, yet believe,
+  If but the wind holds, short the run:
+  We'll sail in with to-morrow's sun.
+     O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
+     Fair winds, boys: send her home!
+          O ye ho!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  FIRST GLANCE
+
+
+  A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
+  A laughing face; and laughing hair,--
+     So ruddy was its rise
+     From off that forehead fair;
+
+  Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
+  And a shy grace when she was still;
+     A bright, elastic tread;
+     Enthusiastic will;
+
+  These wrought the magic of a maid
+  As sweet and sad as the sun in spring;--
+     Joyous, yet half-afraid
+     Her joyousness to sing.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BRIDE BROOK
+
+
+  Wide as the sky Time spreads his hand,
+    And blindly over us there blows
+  A swarm of years that fill the land,
+    Then fade, and are as fallen snows.
+
+  Behold, the flakes rush thick and fast;
+    Or are they years, that come between,--
+  When, peering back into the past,
+    I search the legendary scene?
+
+  Nay. Marshaled down the open coast,
+    Fearless of that low rampart's frown,
+  The winter's white-winged, footless host
+    Beleaguers ancient Saybrook town.
+
+  And when the settlers wake they stare
+    On woods half-buried, white and green,
+  A smothered world, an empty air:
+    Never had such deep drifts been seen!
+
+  But "Snow lies light upon my heart!
+    An thou," said merry Jonathan Rudd,
+  "Wilt wed me, winter shall depart,
+    And love like spring for us shall bud."
+
+  "Nay, how," said Mary, "may that be?
+    No minister nor magistrate
+  Is here, to join us solemnly;
+    And snow-banks bar us, every gate."
+
+  "Winthrop at Pequot Harbor lies,"
+    He laughed. And with the morrow's sun
+  He faced the deputy's dark eyes:
+    "How soon, sir, may the rite be done?"
+
+  "At Saybrook? There the power's not mine,"
+    Said he. "But at the brook we'll meet,
+  That ripples down the boundary line;
+    There you may wed, and Heaven shall see't."
+
+  Forth went, next day, the bridal train
+    Through vistas dreamy with gray light.
+  The waiting woods, the open plain,
+    Arrayed in consecrated white,
+
+  Received and ushered them, along.
+    The very beasts before them fled,
+  Charmed by the spell of inward song
+    These lovers' hearts around them spread.
+
+  Four men with netted foot-gear shod
+    Bore the maid's carrying-chair aloft;
+  She swayed above, as roses nod
+    On the lithe stem their bloom-weight soft.
+
+  At last beside the brook they stood,
+    With Winthrop and his followers;
+  The maid in flake-embroidered hood,
+    The magistrate well cloaked in furs,
+
+  That, parting, showed a glimpse beneath
+    Of ample, throat-encircling ruff
+  As white as some wind-gathered wreath
+    Of snow quilled into plait and puff.
+
+  A few grave words, a question asked;
+    Eyelids that with the answer fell
+  Like falling petals;--form that tasked
+    Brief time;--and so was wrought the spell!
+
+  Then "Brooklet," Winthrop smiled and said,
+    "Frost's finger on thy lip makes dumb
+  The voice wherewith thou shouldst have sped
+    These lovers on their way. But, come,
+
+  "Henceforth forever be thou known
+    By memory of this day's fair bride:
+  So shall thy slender music's moan
+    Sweeter into the ocean glide!"
+
+  Then laughed they all, and sudden beams
+    Of sunshine quivered through the sky.
+  Below the ice, the unheard stream's
+    Clear heart thrilled on in ecstasy;
+
+  And lo, a visionary blush
+    Stole warmly o'er the voiceless wild;
+  And in her rapt and wintry hush
+    The lonely face of Nature smiled.
+
+  Ah, Time, what wilt thou? Vanished quite
+    Is all that tender vision now;
+  And, like lost snow-flakes in the night,
+    Mute are the lovers as their vow.
+
+  And O thou little, careless brook,
+    Hast thou thy tender trust forgot?
+  Her modest memory forsook,
+    Whose name, known once, thou utterest not?
+
+  Spring wakes the rill's blithe minstrelsy;
+    In willow bough or alder bush
+  Birds sing, o'er golden filigree
+    Of pebbles 'neath the flood's clear gush;
+
+  But none can tell us of that name
+    More than the "Mary." Men still say
+  "Bride Brook" in honor of her fame;
+    But all the rest has passed away.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  MAY-ROSE
+
+  [FOR A BIRTHDAY: MAY 20]
+
+
+  On this day to life she came--
+      May-Rose, my May-Rose!
+  With scented breeze, with flowered flame,
+  She touched the earth and took her name
+                  Of May, Rose.
+
+  Here, to-day, she grows and flowers--
+      May-Rose, my May-Rose.
+  All my life with light she dowers,
+  And colors all the coming hours
+                  With May, Rose!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE SINGING WIRE
+
+
+  Ethereal, faint that music rang,
+    As, with the bosom of the breeze,
+      It rose and fell and murmuring sang
+        Aeolian harmonies!
+
+  I turned; again the mournful chords,
+    In random rhythm lightly flung
+      From off the wire, came shaped in words;
+        And thus meseemed, they sung:
+
+  "I, messenger of many fates,
+    Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
+      Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
+        With all men know or feel,--
+
+  "Is it so strange that I should wail?
+    Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
+      When in the pine-top wakes the gale
+        That breathes of coming rain.
+
+  "There is a spirit in the post;
+    It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
+      Its withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
+        Echoes my melody.
+
+  "Come close, and lay your listening ear
+    Against the bare and branchless wood.
+      Can you not hear it crooning clear,
+        As though it understood?"
+
+  I listened to the branchless pole
+    That held aloft the singing wire;
+      I heard its muffled music roll,
+        And stirred with sweet desire:
+
+  "O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
+    Hast thou no sunlit word for me?
+      Though long to me so coyly mute,
+        Her heart may speak through thee!"
+
+  I listened, but it was in vain.
+    At first, the wind's old wayward will
+      Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain.
+        That ceased; and all was still.
+
+  But suddenly some kindling shock
+    Struck flashing through the wire: a bird,
+      Poised on it, screamed and flew; the flock
+        Rose with him; wheeled and whirred.
+
+  Then to my soul there came this sense:
+    "Her heart has answered unto thine;
+      She comes, to-night. Go, speed thee hence:
+        Meet her; no more repine!"
+
+  Perhaps the fancy was far-fetched;
+    And yet, perhaps, it hinted true.
+      Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
+        In mine, that gave me--you!
+
+  And so more dear to me has grown
+    Than rarest tones swept from the lyre,
+      The minor movement of that moan
+        In yonder singing wire.
+
+  Nor care I for the will of states,
+    Or aught beside, that smites that string,
+      Since then so close it knit our fates,
+        What time the bird took wing!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE HEART OF A SONG
+
+
+  Dear love, let this my song fly to you:
+    Perchance forget it came from me.
+  It shall not vex you, shall not woo you;
+    But in your breast lie quietly.
+
+  Only beware, when once it tarries
+    I cannot coax it from you, then.
+  This little song my whole heart carries,
+    And ne'er will bear it back again.
+
+  For if its silent passion grieve you,
+    My heart would then too heavy grow;--
+  And it can never, never leave you,
+    If joy of yours must with it go!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  SOUTH-WIND
+
+
+  Soft-throated South, breathing of summer's ease
+    (Sweet breath, whereof the violet's life is made!)
+    Through lips moist-warm, as thou hadst lately stayed
+  'Mong rosebuds, wooing to the cheeks of these
+  Loth blushes faint and maidenly:--rich breeze,
+    Still doth thy honeyed blowing bring a shade
+    Of sad foreboding. In thy hand is laid
+  The power to build or blight the fruit of trees,
+  The deep, cool grass, and field of thick-combed grain.
+
+  Even so my Love may bring me joy or woe,
+    Both measureless, but either counted gain
+  Since given by her. For pain and pleasure flow
+    Like tides upon us of the self-same sea.
+    Tears are the gems of joy and misery.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE LOVER'S YEAR
+
+
+  Thou art my morning, twilight, noon, and eve,
+    My summer and my winter, spring and fall;
+    For Nature left on thee a touch of all
+  The moods that come to gladden or to grieve
+    The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve
+    From lagging sameness. So do these forestall
+    In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall
+  Too swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave.
+
+  Scenes that I love to me always remain
+    Beautiful, whether under summer sun
+  Beheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain.
+    So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet one:
+  Doubt not I love thee well in each, who see
+  Thy constant change is changeful constancy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  NEW WORLDS
+
+
+  With my beloved I lingered late one night.
+    At last the hour when I must leave her came:
+    But, as I turned, a fear I could not name
+  Possessed me that the long sweet evening might
+  Prelude some sudden storm, whereby delight
+    Should perish. What if death, ere dawn, should claim
+    One of us? What, though living, not the same
+  Each should appear to each in morning-light?
+
+  Changed did I find her, truly, the next day:
+    Ne'er could I see her as of old again.
+  That strange mood seemed to draw a cloud away,
+    And let her beauty pour through every vein
+  Sunlight and life, part of me. Thus the lover
+  With each new morn a new world may discover.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  NIGHT IN NEW YORK
+
+
+  Haunted by unknown feet--
+  Ways of the midnight hour!
+  Strangely you murmur below me,
+  Strange is your half-silent power.
+  Places of life and of death,
+  Numbered and named as streets,
+  What, through your channels of stone,
+  Is the tide that unweariedly beats?
+  A whisper, a sigh-laden breath,
+  Is all that I hear of its flowing.
+  Footsteps of stranger and foe--
+  Footsteps of friends, could we meet--
+  Alike to me in my sorrow;
+  Alike to a life left alone.
+  Yet swift as my heart they throb,
+  They fall thick as tears on the stone:
+  My spirit perchance may borrow
+  New strength from their eager tone.
+
+    Still ever that slip and slide
+  Of the feet that shuffle or glide,
+  And linger or haste through the populous waste
+  Of the shadowy, dim-lit square!
+  And I know not, from the sound,
+  As I sit and ponder within,
+  The goal to which those steps are bound,--
+  On hest of mercy, or hest of sin,
+  Or joy's short-measured round;
+  Yet a meaning deep they bear
+  In their vaguely muffled din.
+
+  Roar of the multitude,
+  Chafe of the million-crowd,
+  To this you are all subdued
+  In the murmurous, sad night-air!
+  Yet whether you thunder aloud,
+  Or hush your tone to a prayer,
+  You chant amain through the modern maze
+  The only epic of our days.
+
+    Still as death are the places of life;
+  The city seems crumbled and gone,
+  Sunk 'mid invisible deeps--
+  The  city so lately rife
+  With the stir of brain and brawn.
+  Haply it only sleeps;
+  But what if indeed it were dead,
+  And another earth should arise
+  To greet the gray of the dawn?
+  Faint then our epic would wail
+  To those who should come in our stead.
+  But what if that earth were ours?
+  What if, with holier eyes,
+  We should meet the new hope, and not fail?
+
+    Weary, the night grows pale:
+  With a blush as of opening flowers
+  Dimly the east shines red.
+  Can it be that the morn shall fulfil
+  My dream, and refashion our clay
+  As the poet may fashion his rhyme?
+  Hark to that mingled scream
+  Rising from workshop and mill--
+  Hailing some marvelous sight;
+  Mighty breath of the hours,
+  Poured through the trumpets of steam;
+  Awful tornado of time,
+  Blowing us whither it will!
+
+  God has breathed in the nostrils of night,
+  And behold, it is day!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE SONG-SPARROW
+
+
+  Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
+    Close beside my garden gate,
+  Where, so light, from post to picket
+    Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;
+      Who, with meekly folded wing,
+      Comes to sun himself and sing.
+
+  It was there, perhaps, last year,
+    That his little house he built;
+  For he seems to perk and peer,
+    And to twitter, too, and tilt
+      The bare branches in between,
+      With a fond, familiar mien.
+
+  Once, I know, there was a nest,
+    Held there by the sideward thrust
+  Of those twigs that touch his breast;
+    Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust
+      Caught it, over-full of snow,--
+      Bent the bush,--and stole it so.
+
+  Thus our highest holds are lost,
+    In the ruthless winter's wind,
+  When, with swift-dismantling frost,
+    The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd
+      Of their leafage, grow too cold
+      For frail hopes of summer's mold.
+
+  But if we, with spring-days mellow,
+    Wake to woeful wrecks of change,
+  And the sparrow's ritornello
+    Scaling still its old sweet range;
+      Can we do a better thing
+      Than, with him, still build and sing?
+
+  Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed
+    Thought in me beyond all telling;
+  Shootest through me sunlight, seed,
+    And fruitful blessing, with that welling
+      Ripple of ecstatic rest
+      Gurgling ever from thy breast!
+
+  And thy breezy carol spurs
+    Vital motion in my blood,
+  Such as in the sap-wood stirs,
+    Swells and shapes the pointed bud
+      Of the lilac; and besets
+      The hollow thick with violets.
+
+  Yet I know not any charm
+    That can make the fleeting time
+  Of thy sylvan, faint alarm
+    Suit itself to human rhyme:
+      And my yearning rhythmic word
+      Does thee grievous wrong, blithe bird.
+
+  So, however thou hast wrought
+    This wild joy on heart and brain,
+  It is better left untaught.
+    Take thou up the song again:
+      There is nothing sad afloat
+      On the tide that swells thy throat!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  I LOVED YOU, ONCE--
+
+
+  And did you think my heart
+    Could keep its love unchanging,
+  Fresh as the buds that start
+    In spring, nor know estranging?
+  Listen! The buds depart:
+    I loved you once, but now--
+    I love you more than ever.
+
+  'T is not the early love;
+    With day and night it alters,
+  And onward still must move
+    Like earth, that never falters
+  For storm or star above.
+    I loved you once; but now--
+    I love you more than ever.
+
+  With gifts in those glad days
+    How eagerly I sought you!
+  Youth, shining hope, and praise:
+    These were the gifts I brought you.
+  In this world little stays:
+    I loved you once, but now--
+    I love you more than ever.
+
+  A child with glorious eyes
+    Here in our arms half sleeping--
+  So passion wakeful lies;
+    Then grows to manhood, keeping
+  Its wistful, young surprise:
+    I loved you once, but now--
+    I love you more than ever.
+
+  When age's pinching air
+    Strips summer's rich possession,
+  And leaves the branches bare,
+    My secret in confession
+  Still thus with you I'll share:
+    I loved you once, but now--
+    I love you more than ever.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  II
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE BRIDE OF WAR
+
+  (ARNOLD'S MARCH TO CANADA, 1775)
+
+
+  I
+
+  The trumpet, with a giant sound,
+    Its harsh war-summons wildly sings;
+    And, bursting forth like mountain-springs,
+  Poured from the hillside camping-ground,
+    Each swift battalion shouting flings
+  Its force in line; where you may see
+  The men, broad-shouldered, heavily
+  Sway to the swing of the march; their heads
+  Dark like the stones in river-beds.
+
+    Lightly the autumn breezes
+    Play with the shining dust-cloud
+    Rising to the sunset rays
+    From feet of the moving column.
+    Soft, as you listen, comes
+    The echo of iterant drums,
+    Brought by the breezes light
+    From the files that follow the road.
+    A moment their guns have glowed
+    Sun-smitten: then out of sight
+    They suddenly sink,
+    Like men who touch a new grave's brink!
+
+  II
+
+      So it was the march began,
+        The march of Morgan's riflemen,
+      Who like iron held the van
+      In unhappy Arnold's plan
+        To win Wolfe's daring fame again.
+      With them, by her husband's side,
+        Jemima Warner, nobly free,
+      Moved more fair than when, a bride,
+        One year since, she strove to hide
+      The blush it was a joy to see.
+
+  III
+
+  O distant, terrible forests of Maine,
+    With huge trees numberless as the rain
+  That falls on your lonely lakes!
+  (It falls and sings through the years, but wakes
+    No answering echo of joy or pain.)
+
+  Your tangled wilderness was tracked
+    With struggle and sorrow and vengeful act
+  'Gainst Puritan, pagan, and priest.
+  Where wolf and panther and serpent ceased,
+    Man added the horrors your dark maze lacked.
+
+  The land was scarred with deeds not good,
+    Like the fretting of worms on withered wood.
+  What if its venomous spell
+  Breathed into Arnold a prompting of Hell,
+    With slow empoisoning force indued?
+
+  IV
+
+  As through that dreary realm he went,
+    Followed a shape of dark portent:--
+  Pard-like, of furtive eye, with brain
+    To treason narrowing, Aaron Burr,
+  Moved loyal-seeming in the train,
+    Led by the arch-conspirator.
+  And craven Enos closed the rear,
+  Whose honor's flame died out in fear.
+  Not sooner does the dry bough burn
+  And into fruitless ashes turn,
+  Than he with whispered, false command
+  Drew back the hundreds in his hand;
+  Fled like a shade; and all forsook.
+
+  Wherever Arnold bent his look,
+  Danger and doubt around him hung;
+  And pale Disaster, shrouded, flung
+  Black omens in his track, as though
+  The fingers of a future woe
+  Already clutched his life, to wring
+  Some expiation for the thing
+  That he was yet to do. A chill
+  Struck helpless many a steadfast will
+  Within the ranks; the very air
+  Rang with a thunder-toned despair:
+  The hills seemed wandering to and fro,
+  Like lost guides blinded by the snow.
+
+  V
+
+  Yet faithful still 'mid woe and doubt
+    One woman's loyal heart--whose pain
+  Filled it with pure celestial light--
+  Shone starry-constant like the North,
+    Or that still radiance beaming forth
+    From sacred lights in some lone fane.
+  But he whose ring Jemima wore,
+  By want and weariness all unstrung,
+  Though strong and honest of heart and young,
+  Shrank at the blast that pierced so frore--
+  Like a huge, invisible bird of prey
+  Furious launched from Labrador
+  And the granite cliffs of Saguenay!
+
+  Along the bleak Dead River's banks
+  They forced amain their frozen way;
+  But ever from the thinning ranks
+  Shapes of ice would reel and fall,
+  Human shapes, whose dying prayer
+  Floated, a mute white mist, in air;
+  The crowding snow their pall.
+
+  Spectre-like Famine drew near;
+  Her doom-word hummed in his ear:
+  Ah, weak were woman's hands to reach
+  And save him from the hellish charms
+  And wizard motion of those arms!
+  Yet only noble womanhood
+  The wife her dauntless part could teach:
+  She shared with him the last dry food
+  And thronged with hopefulness her speech,
+  As when hard by her home the flood
+  Of rushing Conestoga fills
+  Its depth afresh from springtide rills!
+
+  All, all in vain!
+  For far behind the invading rout
+    These two were left alone;
+  And in the waste their wildest shout
+    Seemed but a smothered groan.
+  Like sheeted wanderers from the grave
+  They moved, and yet seemed not to stir,
+  As icy gorge and sere-leaf'd grove
+  Of withered oak and shrouded fir
+  Were passed, and onward still they strove;
+  While the loud wind's artillery clave
+  The air, and furious sleety rain
+  Swung like a sword above the plain!
+
+  VI
+
+  They crossed the hills; they came to where
+  Through an arid gloom the river Chaudiere
+  Fled like a Maenad with outstreaming hair;
+  And there the soldier sank, and died.
+  Death-dumb he fell; yet ere life sped,
+  Child-like on her knee he laid his head.
+  She strove to pray; but all words fled
+  Save those their love had sanctified.
+
+  And then her voice rose waveringly
+  To the notes of a mother's lullaby;
+  But her song was only "Ah, must thou die?"
+  And to her his eyes death-still replied.
+
+  VII
+
+  Dead leaves and stricken boughs
+  She heaped o'er the fallen form--
+  Wolf nor hawk nor lawless storm
+  Him from his rest should rouse;
+  But first, with solemn vows,
+  Took rifle, pouch, and horn,
+  And the belt that he had worn.
+  Then, onward pressing fast
+  Through the forest rude and vast,
+  Hunger-wasted, fever-parch'd,
+  Many bitter days she marched
+  With bleeding feet that spurned the flinty pain;
+  One thought always throbbing through her brain:
+  "They shall never say, 'He was afraid,'--
+  They shall never cry, 'The coward stayed!'"
+
+  VIII
+
+  Now the wilderness is passed;
+  Now the first hut reached, at last.
+
+  Ho, dwellers by the frontier trail,
+  Come forth and greet the bride of war!
+  From cabin and rough settlement
+  They come to speed her on her way--
+  Maidens, whose ruddy cheeks grow pale
+  With pity never felt before;
+  Children that cluster at the door;
+  Mothers, whose toil-worn hands are lent
+  To help, or bid her longer stay.
+  But through them all she passes on,
+  Strangely martial, fair and wan;
+  Nor waits to listen to their cheers
+  That sound so faintly in her ears.
+  For now all scenes around her shift,
+  Like those before a racer's eyes
+  When, foremost sped and madly swift,
+  Quick stretching toward the goal he flies,
+  Yet feels his strength wane with his breath,
+  And purpose fail 'mid fears of death,--
+
+  Till, like the flashing of a lamp,
+  Starts forth the sight of Arnold's camp,--
+  The bivouac flame, and sinuous gleam
+  Of steel,--where, crouched, the army waits,
+  Ere long, beyond the midnight stream,
+  To storm Quebec's ice-mounded gates.
+
+  IX
+
+  Then to the leader she was brought,
+  And spoke her simply loyal thought.
+  If, 'mid the shame of after-days,
+  The man who wronged his country's trust
+  (Yet now in worth outweighed all praise)
+  Remembered what this woman wrought,
+  It should have bowed him to the dust!
+  "Humbly my soldier-husband tried
+  To do his part. He served,--and died.
+  But honor did not die. His name
+  And honor--bringing both, I came;
+  And this his rifle, here, to show,
+  While far away the tired heart sleeps,
+  To-day his faith with you he keeps!"
+
+  Proudly the war bride, ending so,
+  Sank breathless in the dumb white snow.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  A RUNE OF THE RAIN
+
+
+    O many-toned rain!
+  O myriad sweet voices of the rain!
+  How welcome is its delicate overture
+  At evening, when the moist and glowing west
+  Seals all things with cool promise of night's rest.
+
+    At first it would allure
+  The earth to kinder mood,
+  With dainty flattering
+  Of soft, sweet pattering:
+  Faintly now you hear the tramp
+  Of the fine drops, falling damp
+  On the dry, sun-seasoned ground
+  And the thirsty leaves, resound.
+  But anon, imbued
+  With a sudden, bounding access
+  Of passion, it relaxes
+  All timider persuasion.
+  And, with nor pretext nor occasion,
+  Its wooing redoubles;
+  And pounds the ground, and bubbles
+  In sputtering spray,
+  Flinging itself in a fury
+  Of flashing white away;
+  Till the dusty road,
+  Dank-perfumed, is o'erflowed;
+  And the grass, and the wide-hung trees,
+  The vines, the flowers in their beds,--
+  The virid corn that to the breeze
+  Rustles along the garden-rows,--
+  Visibly lift their heads,
+  And, as the quick shower wilder grows,
+  Upleap with answering kisses to the rain.
+
+    Then, the slow and pleasant murmur
+  Of its subsiding,
+  As the pulse of the storm beats firmer,
+  And the steady rain
+  Drops into a cadenced chiding!
+  Deep-breathing rain,
+  The sad and ghostly noise
+  Wherewith thou dost complain---
+  Thy plaintive, spiritual voice,
+  Heard thus at close of day
+  Through vaults of twilight gray--
+  Vexes me with sweet pain;
+  And still my soul is fain
+  To know the secret of that yearning
+  Which in thine utterance I hear returning.
+  Hush, oh hush!
+  Break not the dreamy rush
+  Of the rain:
+  Touch not the marring doubt
+  Words bring to the certainty
+  Of its soft refrain;
+  But let the flying fringes flout
+  Their drops against the pane,
+  And the gurgling throat of the water-spout
+  Groan in the eaves amain.
+
+  The earth is wedded to the shower;
+  Darkness and awe gird round the bridal hour!
+
+  II
+
+  O many-toned rain!
+  It hath caught the strain
+  Of a wilder tune,
+  Ere the same night's noon,
+  When dreams and sleep forsake me,
+  And sudden dread doth wake me,
+  To hear the booming drums of heaven beat
+  The long roll to battle; when the knotted cloud,
+  With an echoing loud,
+  Bursts asunder
+  At the sudden resurrection of the thunder;
+  And the fountains of the air,
+  Unsealed again, sweep, ruining, everywhere,
+  To wrap the world in a watery winding-sheet.
+
+  III
+
+    O myriad sweet voices of the rain!
+  When the airy war doth wane,
+  And the storm to the east hath flown,
+  Cloaked close in the whirling wind,
+  There's a voice still left behind
+  In each heavy-hearted tree,
+  Charged with tearful memory
+  Of the vanished rain:
+  From their leafy lashes wet
+  Drip the dews of fresh regret
+  For the lover that's gone!
+  All else is still;
+  Yet the stars are listening,
+  And low o'er the wooded hill
+  Hangs, upon listless wing
+  Outspread, a shape of damp, blue cloud,
+  Watching, like a bird of evil
+  That knows nor mercy nor reprieval,
+  The slow and silent death of the pallid moon.
+
+  IV
+
+    But soon, returning duly,
+  Dawn whitens the wet hilltops bluely.
+  To her vision pure and cold
+  The night's wild tale is told
+  On the glistening leaf, in the mid-road pool,
+  The garden mold turned dark and cool,
+  And the meadows' trampled acres.
+  But hark, how fresh the song of the winged music-makers!
+  For now the moanings bitter,
+  Left by the rain, make harmony
+  With the swallow's matin-twitter,
+  And the robin's note, like the wind's in a tree.
+  The infant morning breathes sweet breath,
+  And with it is blent
+  The wistful, wild, moist scent
+  Of the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth:
+  And behold!
+  The last reluctant drop of the storm,
+  Wrung from the roof, is smitten warm
+  And turned to gold;
+  For in its veins doth run
+  The very blood of the bold, unsullied sun!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BREAKERS
+
+
+    Far out at sea there has been a storm,
+  And still, as they roll their liquid acres,
+  High-heaped the billows lower and glisten.
+  The air is laden, moist, and warm
+  With the dying tempest's breath;
+  And, as I walk the lonely strand
+  With sea-weed strewn, my forehead fanned
+  By wet salt-winds, I watch the breakers,
+  Furious sporting, tossed and tumbling,
+  Shatter here with a dreadful rumbling--
+  Watch, and muse, and vainly listen
+  To the inarticulate mumbling
+  Of the hoary-headed deep;
+  For who may tell me what it saith,
+  Muttering, moaning as in sleep?
+
+    Slowly and heavily
+  Comes in the sea,
+  With memories of storm o'erfreighted,
+  With heaving heart and breath abated,
+  Pregnant with some mysterious, endless sorrow,
+  And seamed with many a gaping, sighing furrow.
+
+    Slowly and heavily
+  Grows the green water-mound;
+  But drawing ever nigher,
+  Towering ever higher,
+  Swollen with an inward rage
+  Naught but ruin can assuage,
+  Swift, now, without sound,
+  Creeps stealthily
+  Up to the shore--
+  Creeps, creeps and undulates;
+  As one dissimulates
+  Till, swayed by hateful frenzy,
+  Through passion grown immense, he
+  Bursts forth hostilely;
+  And rising, a smooth billow--
+  Its swelling, sunlit dome
+  Thinned to a tumid ledge
+  With keen, curved edge
+  Like the scornful curl
+  Of lips that snarl--
+  O'ertops itself and breaks
+  Into a raving foam;
+  So springs upon the shore
+  With a hungry roar;
+  Its first fierce anger slakes
+  On the stony shallow;
+  And runs up on the land,
+  Licking the smooth, hard sand,
+  Relentless, cold, yet wroth;
+  And dies in savage froth.
+
+    Then with its backward swirl
+  The sands and the stones, how they whirl!
+  O, fiercely doth it draw
+  Them to its chasm'd maw,
+  And against it in vain
+  They linger and strain;
+  And as they slip away
+  Into the seething gray
+  Fill all the thunderous air
+  With the horror of their despair,
+  And their wild terror wreak
+  In one hoarse, wailing shriek.
+
+    But scarce is this done,
+  When another one
+  Falls like the bolt from a bellowing gun,
+  And sucks away the shore
+  As that did before:
+  And another shall smother it o'er.
+
+    Then there's a lull--a half-hush;
+  And forward the little waves rush,
+  Toppling and hurrying,
+  Each other worrying,
+  And in their haste
+  Run to waste.
+
+    Yet again is heard the trample
+  Of the surges high and ample:
+  Their dreadful meeting--
+  The wild and sudden breaking--
+  The dinting, and battering, and beating,
+  And swift forsaking.
+
+    And ever they burst and boom,
+  A numberless host;
+  Like heralds of doom
+  To the trembling coast;
+  And ever the tangled spray
+  Is tossed from the fierce affray,
+  And, as with spectral arms
+  That taunt and beckon and mock,
+  And scatter vague alarms,
+  Clasps and unclasps the rock;
+  Listlessly over it wanders;
+  Moodily, madly maunders,
+  And hissingly falls
+  From the glistening walls.
+
+    So all day along the shore
+  Shout the breakers, green and hoar,
+  Weaving out their weird tune;
+  Till at night the full moon
+  Weds the dark with that ring
+  Of gold that you see her fling
+  On the misty air.
+  Then homeward slow returning
+  To slumbers deep I fare,
+  Filled with an infinite yearning,
+  With thoughts that rise and fall
+  To the sound of the sea's hollow call,
+  Breathed now from white-lit waves that reach
+  Cold fingers o'er the damp, dark beach,
+  To scatter a spray on my dreams;
+  Till the slow and measured rote
+  Brings a drowsy ease
+  To my spirit, and seems
+  To set it soothingly afloat
+  On broad and buoyant seas
+  Of endless rest, lulled by the dirge
+  Of the melancholy surge.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BLACKMOUTH, OF COLORADO
+
+    "Who is Blackmouth?" Well, that's hard to say.
+  Mebbe he might ha' told you, 't other day,
+  If you'd been here. Now,--he's gone away.
+  Come to think on, 't wouldn't ha' been no use
+  If you'd called here earlier. His excuse
+  Always was, whenever folks would ask him
+  Where he hailed from, an' _would_ tease an' task him;--
+  What d' you s'pose? He just said, "I don' know."
+
+    That was truth. He came here long ago;
+  But, before that, he'd been born somewhere:
+  The conundrum started first, right there.
+  Little shaver--afore he knew his name
+  Or the place from whereabouts he came--
+  On a wagon-train the Apaches caught him.
+  Killed the old folks! But this cus'--they brought him
+  Safe away from fire an' knife an' arrows.
+  So'thin' 'bout him must have touched their marrows:
+  They was merciful;--treated him real good;
+  Brought him up to man's age well's they could.
+  Now, d' you b'lieve me, that there likely lad,
+  For all they used him so, went to the bad:
+  Leastways left the red men, that he knew,
+  'N' come to look for folks like me an' you;--
+  Goldarned white folks that he never saw.
+  Queerest thing was--though he loved a squaw,
+  'T was on her account he planned escape;
+  Shook the Apaches, an' took up red tape
+  With the U. S. gov'ment arter a while;
+  Tho' they do say gov'ment may be vile,
+  Mean an' treacherous an' deceivin'. Well,
+  _I_ ain't sayin' our gov'ment is a sell.
+
+    Bocanegra--Spanish term--I've heard
+  Stands for "Blackmouth." Now this curious bird,
+  Known as Bocanegra, gave his life
+  Most for others. First, he saved his wife;
+  Her I spoke of;--nothin' but a squaw.
+  You might wonder by what sort of law
+  He, a white man born, should come to love her.
+  But 't was somehow so: he _did_ discover
+  Beauty in her, of the holding kind.
+  Some men love the light, an' some the shade.
+  Round that little Indian girl there played
+  Soft an' shadowy tremblings, like the dark
+  Under trees; yet now an' then a spark,
+  Quick 's a firefly, flashing from her eyes,
+  Made you think of summer-midnight skies.
+  She was faithful, too, like midnight stars.
+  As for Blackmouth, if you'd seen the scars
+  Made by wounds he suffered for her sake,
+  You'd have called _him_ true, and no mistake.
+
+    Growin' up a man, he scarcely met
+  Other white folks; an' his heart was set
+  On this red girl. Yet he said: "We'll wait.
+  You must never be my wedded mate
+  Till we reach the white man's country. There,
+  Everything that's done is fair and square."
+  Patiently they stayed, thro' trust or doubt,
+  Till tow'rds Colorado he could scout
+  Some safe track. He told her: "You go first.
+  All my joy goes with you:--that's the worst!
+  But _I_ wait, to guard or hide the trail."
+
+    Indians caught him; an' they gave him--hail;
+  Cut an' tortured him, till he was bleeding;
+  Yet they found that still they weren't succeeding.
+  "Where's that squaw?" they asked. "We'll have her blood!
+  Either that, or grind you into mud;
+  Pick your eyes out, too, if you can't see
+  Where she's gone to. Which, now, shall it be?
+  Tell us where she's hid."
+
+                        "I'll show the way,"
+  Blackmouth says; an' leads toward dawn of day,
+  Till they come straight out beside the brink
+  Of a precipice that seems to sink
+  Into everlasting gulfs below.
+  "Loose me!" Blackmouth tells 'em. "But go slow."
+  Then they loosed him; and, with one swift leap,
+  Blackmouth swooped right down into the deep;--
+  Jumped out into space beyond the edge,
+  While the Apaches cowered along the ledge.
+  Seven hundred feet, they say. That's guff!
+  Seventy foot, I tell you, 's 'bout enough.
+  Indians called him a dead antelope;
+  But they couldn't touch the bramble-slope
+  Where he, bruised and stabbed, crawled under brush.
+  _Their_ hand was beat hollow: _he_ held a flush.
+
+    Day and night he limped or crawled along:
+  Winds blew hot, yet sang to him a song
+  (So he told me, once) that gave him hope.
+  Every time he saw a shadow grope
+  Down the hillsides, from a flying cloud,
+  Something touched his heart that made him proud:
+  Seemed to him he saw her dusky face
+  Watching over him, from place to place.
+  Every time the dry leaves rustled near,
+  Seemed to him she whispered, "Have no fear!"
+
+    So at last he found her:--they were married.
+  But, from those days on, he always carried
+  Marks of madness; actually--yes!--
+  Trusted the good faith of these U. S.
+
+    Indian hate an' deviltry he braved;
+  'N' scores an' scores of white men's lives he saved.
+  Just for that, his name should be engraved.
+  But it won't be! U. S. gov'ment dreads
+  Men who're taller 'n politicians' heads.
+
+    All the while, his wife--tho' half despised
+  By the frontier folks that civilized
+  An' converted her--served by his side,
+  Helping faithfully, until she died.
+  Left alone, he lay awake o' nights,
+  Thinkin' what they'd both done for the whites.
+  Then he thought of her, and Indian people;
+  Tryin' to measure, by the church's steeple,
+  Just how Christian our great nation's been
+  Toward those native tribes so full of sin.
+  When he counted all the wrongs we've done
+  To the wild men of the setting sun,
+  Seem'd to him the gov'ment wa'n't quite fair.
+  When its notes came due, it wa'n't right there.
+  U. S. gov'ment promised Indians lots,
+  But at last it closed accounts with shots.
+  Mouth was black, perhaps;--but _he_ was white.
+  Calling gov'ment black don't seem polite:
+  Yet I'll swear, its actions wouldn't show
+  'Longside Blackmouth's better 'n soot with snow.
+
+    Yes, sir! Blackmouth took the other side:
+  Honestly for years an' years he tried
+  Getting justice for the Indians. He,
+  Risking life an' limb for you an' me;--
+  He, the man who proved his good intent
+  By his deeds, an' plainly showed he meant
+  He would die for us,--turned round an' said:
+  "White men have been saved. Now, save the red!"
+  But it didn't pan out. No one would hark.
+  "Let the prairie-dogs an' Blackmouth bark,"
+  Said our folks. And--no, he wa'n't resigned,
+  But concluded he had missed his find.
+
+    "_Where_ is Blackmouth?" That I can't decide.
+  Red an' white men, both, he tried to serve;
+  But I guess, at last, he lost his nerve.
+  Kind o' tired out. See? He had his pride:
+  Gave his life for others, far 's he could,
+  Hoping it would do 'em some small good.
+  Didn't seem to be much use. An' so--
+  Well; you see that man, dropped in the snow,
+  Where the crowd is? Suicide, they say.
+  Looks as though he had quit work, to stay.
+  Bullet in the breast.--His _body_ 's there;
+  But poor Blackmouth's gone--I don't know where!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE CHILD YEAR
+
+  I
+
+  "Dying of hunger and sorrow:
+    I die for my youth I fear!"
+  Murmured the midnight-haunting
+    Voice of the stricken Year.
+
+  There like a child it perished
+    In the stormy thoroughfare:
+  The snow with cruel whiteness
+    Had aged its flowing hair.
+
+  Ah, little Year so fruitful,
+    Ah, child that brought us bliss,
+  Must we so early lose you--
+    Our dear hopes end in this?
+
+  II
+
+  "Too young am I, too tender,
+    To bear earth's avalanche
+  Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope,
+    And makes my heart's-blood blanch.
+
+  "Tell him who soon shall follow
+    Where my tired feet have bled,
+  He must be older, shrewder,
+    Hard, cold, and selfish-bred--
+
+  "Or else like me be trampled
+    Under the harsh world's heel.
+   'Tis weakness to be youthful;
+    'Tis death to love and feel."
+
+  III
+
+  Then saw I how the New Year
+    Came like a scheming man,
+  With icy eyes, his forehead
+    Wrinkled by care and plan
+
+  For trade and rule and profit.
+    To him the fading child
+  Looked up and cried, "Oh, brother!"
+    But died even while it smiled.
+
+  Down bent the harsh new-comer
+    To lift with loving arm
+  The wanderer mute and fallen;
+    And lo! his eyes were warm;
+
+  All changed he grew; the wrinkles
+    Vanished: he, too, looked young--
+  As if that lost child's spirit
+    Into his breast had sprung.
+
+  So are those lives not wasted,
+    Too frail to bear the fray.
+  So Years may die, yet leave us
+    Young hearts in a world grown gray.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  CHRISTENING
+
+
+  To-day I saw a little, calm-eyed child,--
+    Where soft lights rippled and the shadows tarried
+  Within a church's shelter arched and aisled,--
+    Peacefully wondering, to the altar carried;
+
+  White-robed and sweet, in semblance of a flower;
+    White as the daisies that adorned the chancel;
+  Borne like a gift, the young wife's natural dower,
+    Offered to God as her most precious hansel.
+
+  Then ceased the music, and the little one
+    Was silent, with the multitude assembled
+  Hearkening; and when of Father and of Son
+    He spoke, the pastor's deep voice broke and trembled.
+
+  But she, the child, knew not the solemn words,
+    And suddenly yielded to a troublous wailing,
+  As helpless as the cry of frightened birds
+    Whose untried wings for flight are unavailing.
+
+  How much the same, I thought, with older folk!
+    The blessing falls: we call it tribulation,
+  And fancy that we wear a sorrow's yoke,
+    Even at the moment of our consecration.
+
+  Pure daisy-child! Whatever be the form
+    Of dream or doctrine,--or of unbelieving,--
+  A hand may touch our heads, amid the storm
+    Of grief and doubt, to bless beyond bereaving;
+
+  A voice may sound, in measured, holy rite
+    Of speech we know not, tho' its earnest meaning
+  Be clear as dew, and sure as starry light
+    Gathered from some far-off celestial gleaning.
+
+  Wise is the ancient sacrament that blends
+    This weakling cry of children in our churches
+  With strength of prayer or anthem that ascends
+    To Him who hearts of men and children searches;
+
+  Since we are like the babe, who, soothed again,
+    Within her mother's cradling arm lay nested,
+  Bright as a new bud, now, refreshed by rain:
+    And on her hair, it seemed, heaven's radiance rested.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THANKSGIVING TURKEY
+
+
+  Valleys lay in sunny vapor,
+    And a radiance mild was shed
+  From each tree that like a taper
+    At a feast stood. Then we said,
+   "Our feast, too, shall soon be spread,
+          Of good Thanksgiving turkey."
+
+  And already still November
+    Drapes her snowy table here.
+  Fetch a log, then; coax the ember;
+    Fill your hearts with old-time cheer;
+    Heaven be thanked for one more year,
+          And our Thanksgiving turkey!
+
+  Welcome, brothers--all our party
+    Gathered in the homestead old!
+  Shake the snow off and with hearty
+    Hand-shakes drive away the cold;
+    Else your plate you'll hardly hold
+          Of good Thanksgiving turkey.
+
+  When the skies are sad and murky,
+    'Tis a cheerful thing to meet
+  Round this homely roast of turkey--
+    Pilgrims, pausing just to greet,
+    Then, with earnest grace, to eat
+          A new Thanksgiving turkey.
+
+  And the merry feast is freighted
+    With its meanings true and deep.
+  Those we've loved and those we've hated,
+    All, to-day, the rite will keep,
+    All, to-day, their dishes heap
+          With plump Thanksgiving turkey.
+
+  But how many hearts must tingle
+    Now with mournful memories!
+  In the festal wine shall mingle
+    Unseen tears, perhaps from eyes
+    That look beyond the board where lies
+          Our plain Thanksgiving turkey.
+
+  See around us, drawing nearer,
+    Those faint yearning shapes of air--
+  Friends than whom earth holds none dearer!
+    No--alas! they are not there:
+    Have they, then, forgot to share
+          Our good Thanksgiving turkey?
+
+  Some have gone away and tarried
+    Strangely long by some strange wave;
+  Some have turned to foes; we carried
+    Some unto the pine-girt grave:
+    They 'll come no more so joyous-brave
+          To take Thanksgiving turkey.
+
+  Nay, repine not. Let our laughter
+    Leap like firelight up again.
+  Soon we touch the wide Hereafter,
+    Snow-field yet untrod of men:
+    Shall we meet once more--and when?--
+          To eat Thanksgiving turkey.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BEFORE THE SNOW
+
+
+  Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
+    Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
+  Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
+    Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
+
+  Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
+    Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
+  My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
+    By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.
+
+  Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
+    The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
+  How soon death settles on us, and the snow
+    Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!
+
+  Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
+    Of that which makes moods dear,--some shoot of spring
+  Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
+    We walked in,--memory's rare environing.
+
+  And, though they die, the seasons only take
+    A ruined substance. All that's best remains
+  In the essential vision that can make
+    One light for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  III
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  YOUTH TO THE POET
+
+  (TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)
+
+
+  Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
+  Affinity between two forms of truth!--
+  As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
+  Like and unlike as children of one mother
+  And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
+  Of young men see the prophecy arise
+  Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
+  And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
+  Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
+  Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
+  But here in our dear poet both are blended--
+  Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended;--
+  Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
+  Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
+  And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
+  In strains that ever delicately run;
+  So musical and wise, page after page,
+  The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage.
+  The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers,
+  And day-break glory haunts his evening hours.
+  Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral:
+  That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel,
+  Which--smiling not, but trembling at the touch--
+  Youth gives back to the hand that gave so much.
+
+  EVENING OF DECEMBER 3, 1879.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE SWORD DHAM
+
+
+  "How shall we honor the man who creates?"
+    Asked the Bedouin chief, the poet Antar;--
+  "Who unto the truth flings open our gates,
+    Or fashions new thoughts from the light of a star;
+  Or forges with craft of his finger and brain
+    Some marvelous weapon we copy in vain;
+  Or chants to the winds a wild song that shall
+      wander forever undying?
+
+  "See! His reward is in envies and hates;
+    In lips that deny, or in stabs that may kill."
+  "Nay," said the smith; "for there's one here who waits
+    Humbly to serve you with unmeasured skill,
+  Sure that no utmost devotion can fail,
+    Offered to _you_, nor unfriended assail
+  The heart of the hero and poet Antar, whose
+      fame is undying!"
+
+  "Speak," said the chief. Then the smith: "O Antar,
+    It is I who would serve you! I know, by the soul
+  Of the poet within you, no envy can bar
+    The stream of your gratitude,--once let it roll.
+  Listen. The lightning, your camel that slew,
+    _I_ caught, and wrought in this sword-blade for you;--
+  Sword that no foe shall encounter unhurt, or
+      depart from undying."
+
+  Burst from the eyes of Antar a swift rain,--Gratitude's
+    glittering drops,--as he threw
+  One shining arm round the smith, like a chain.
+    Closer the man to his bosom he drew;
+  Thankful, caressing, with "Great is my debt."
+   "Yea," said the smith, and his eyelids were wet:
+  "I knew the sword Dham would unite me with
+      you in an honor undying."
+
+  "So?" asked the chief, as his thumb-point at will
+    Silently over the sword's edge played.
+  --"Ay!" said the smith, "but there's one thing, still:
+    Who is the smiter, shall smite with this blade?"
+  Jealous, their eyes met; and fury awoke.
+    "_I_ am the smiter!" Antar cried. One stroke
+  Rolled the smith's head from his neck, and gave
+      him remembrance undying.
+
+  "Seek now who may, no search will avail:
+    No man the mate of this weapon shall own!"
+  Yet, in his triumph, the chieftain made wail:
+    "Slain is the craftsman, the one friend alone
+  Able to honor the man who creates.
+    I slew him--_I_, who am poet! O fates,
+  Grant that the envious blade slaying artists shall
+      make them undying!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  "AT THE GOLDEN GATE"
+
+  Before the golden gate she stands,
+  With drooping head, with idle hands
+  Loose-clasped, and bent beneath the weight
+  Of unseen woe. Too late, too late!
+      Those carved and fretted,
+      Starred, resetted
+  Panels shall not open ever
+  To her who seeks the perfect mate.
+
+  Only the tearless enter there:
+  Only the soul that, like a prayer,
+  No bolt can stay, no wall may bar,
+  Shall dream the dreams grief cannot mar.
+      No door of cedar,
+      Alas, shall lead her
+  Unto the stream that shows forever
+  Love's face like some reflected star!
+
+  They say that golden barrier hides
+  A realm where deathless spring abides;
+  Where flowers shall fade not, and there floats
+  Thro' moon-rays mild or sunlit motes--
+      'Mid dewy alleys
+      That gird the palace,
+  And fountain'd spray's unceasing quiver--
+  A dulcet rain of song-birds' notes.
+
+  The sultan lord knew not her name;
+  But to the door that fair shape came:
+  The hour had struck, the way was right,
+  Traced by her lamp's pale, flickering light.
+      But ah, whose error
+      Has brought this terror?
+  Whose fault has foiled her fond endeavor?
+  The gate swings to: her hope takes flight.
+
+  The harp, the song, the nightingales
+  She hears, beyond. The night-wind wails
+  Without, to sound of feast within,
+  While here she stands, shut out by sin.
+      And be that revel
+      Of angel or devil,
+  She longs to sit beside the giver,
+  That she at last her prize may win.
+
+  Her lamp has fallen; her eyes are wet;
+  Frozen she stands, she lingers yet;
+  But through the garden's gladness steals
+  A whisper that each heart congeals--
+      A moan of grieving
+      Beyond relieving,
+  Which makes the proudest of them shiver.
+  And suddenly the sultan kneels!
+
+  The lamp was quenched; he found her dead,
+  When dawn had turned the threshold red.
+    Her face was calm and sad as fate:
+    His sin, not hers, made her too late.
+           Some think, unbidden
+           She brought him, hidden,
+    A truer bliss that came back never
+    To him, unblest, who closed the gate.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  CHARITY
+
+
+  I
+
+    Unarmed she goeth; yet her hands
+  Strike deeper awe than steel-caparison'd bands.
+    No fatal hurt of foe she fears,--
+  Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears.
+
+
+  II
+
+    'Gainst her thou canst not bar the door:
+  Like air she enters, where none dared before.
+    Even to the rich she can forgive
+  Their regal selfishness,--and let them live!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  HELEN AT THE LOOM
+
+
+    Helen, in her silent room,
+  Weaves upon the upright loom;
+  Weaves a mantle rich and dark,
+  Purpled over, deep. But mark
+  How she scatters o'er the wool
+  Woven shapes, till it is full
+  Of men that struggle close, complex;
+  Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks
+  Arching high; spear, shield, and all
+  The panoply that doth recall
+  Mighty war; such war as e'en
+  For Helen's sake is waged, I ween.
+  Purple is the groundwork: good!
+  All the field is stained with blood--
+  Blood poured out for Helen's sake;
+  (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!)
+  But the shapes of men that pass
+  Are as ghosts within a glass,
+  Woven with whiteness of the swan,
+  Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan
+  From the garment's purple fold
+  Where Troy's tale is twined and told.
+  Well may Helen, as with tender
+  Touch of rosy fingers slender
+  She doth knit the story in
+  Of Troy's sorrow and her sin,
+  Feel sharp filaments of pain
+  Reeled off with the well-spun skein,
+  And faint blood-stains on her hands
+  From the shifting, sanguine strands.
+
+    Gently, sweetly she doth sorrow:
+  What has been must be to-morrow;
+  Meekly to her fate she bows.
+  Heavenly beauties still will rouse
+  Strife and savagery in men:
+  Shall the lucid heavens, then,
+  Lose their high serenity,
+  Sorrowing over what must be?
+  If she taketh to her shame,
+  Lo, they give her not the blame,--
+  Priam's wisest counselors,
+  Aged men, not loving wars.
+  When she goes forth, clad in white,
+  Day-cloud touched by first moonlight,
+  With her fair hair, amber-hued
+  As vapor by the moon imbued
+  With burning brown, that round her clings,
+  See, she sudden silence brings
+  On the gloomy whisperers
+  Who would make the wrong all hers.
+  So, Helen, in thy silent room,
+  Labor at the storied loom;
+  (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!)
+  Let thy aching sorrow make
+  Something strangely beautiful
+  Of this fabric; since the wool
+  Comes so tinted from the Fates,
+  Dyed with loves, hopes, fears, and hates.
+  Thou shalt work with subtle force
+  All thy deep shade of remorse
+  In the texture of the weft,
+  That no stain on thee be left;--
+  Ay, false queen, shalt fashion grief,
+  Grief and wrong, to soft relief.
+  Speed the garment! It may chance,
+  Long hereafter, meet the glance,
+  Of Oenone; when her lord,
+  Now thy Paris, shall go tow'rd
+  Ida, at his last sad end,
+  Seeking her, his early friend,
+  Who alone can cure his ill,
+  Of all who love him, if she will.
+  It were fitting she should see
+  In that hour thine artistry,
+  And her husband's speechless corse
+  In the garment of remorse!
+
+    But take heed that in thy work
+  Naught unbeautiful may lurk.
+  Ah, how little signifies
+  Unto thee what fortunes rise,
+  What others fall! Thou still shall rule,
+  Still shalt twirl the colored spool.
+  Though thy yearning woman's eyes
+  Burn with glorious agonies,
+  Pitying the waste and woe,
+  And the heroes falling low
+  In the war around thee, here,
+  Yet the least, quick-trembling tear
+  'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be
+  Than life, to friend or enemy.
+
+    There are people on the earth
+  Doomed with doom of too great worth.
+  Look on Helen not with hate,
+  Therefore, but compassionate.
+  If she suffer not too much,
+  Seldom does she feel the touch
+  Of that fresh, auroral joy
+  Lighter spirits may decoy
+  To their pure and sunny lives.
+  Heavy honey 'tis she hives.
+  To her sweet but burdened soul
+  All that here she may control--
+  What of bitter memories,
+  What of coming fate's surmise,
+  Paris' passion, distant din
+  Of the war now drifting in
+  To her quiet--idle seems;
+  Idle as the lazy gleams
+  Of some stilly water's reach,
+  Seen from where broad vine-leaves pleach
+  A heavy arch; and, looking through,
+  Far away the doubtful blue
+  Glimmers, on a drowsy day,
+  Crowded with the sun's rich gray;--
+  As she stands within her room,
+  Weaving, weaving at the loom.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE CASKET OF OPALS
+
+
+  I
+
+  Deep, smoldering colors of the land and sea
+  Burn in these stones, that, by some mystery,
+  Wrap fire in sleep and never are consumed.
+  Scarlet of daybreak, sunset gleams half spent
+  In thick white cloud; pale moons that may have lent
+  Light to love's grieving; rose-illumined snows,
+  And veins of gold no mine depth ever gloomed;
+  All these, and green of thin-edged waves, are there.
+  I think a tide of feeling through them flows
+  With blush and pallor, as if some being of air,--
+  Some soul once human,--wandering, in the snare
+  Of passion had been caught, and henceforth doomed
+  In misty crystal here to lie entombed.
+
+  And so it is, indeed. Here prisoned sleep
+  The ardors and the moods and all the pain
+  That once within a man's heart throbbed. He gave
+  These opals to the woman whom he loved;
+  And now, like glinting sunbeams through the rain,
+  The rays of thought that through his spirit moved
+  Leap out from these mysterious forms again.
+
+  The colors of the jewels laugh and weep
+  As with his very voice. In them the wave
+  Of sorrow and joy that, with a changing sweep,
+  Bore him to misery or else made him blest
+  Still surges in melodious, wild unrest.
+  So when each gem in place I touch and take,
+  It murmurs what he thought or what he spake.
+
+
+  FIRST OPAL
+
+    My heart is like an opal
+    Made to lie upon your breast
+    In dreams of ardor, clouded o'er
+    By endless joy's unrest.
+
+    And forever it shall haunt you
+    With its mystic, changing ray:
+    Its light shall live when we lie dead,
+    With hearts at the heart of day!
+
+
+  SECOND OPAL
+
+    If, from a careless hold,
+      One gem of these should fall,
+    No power of art or gold
+      Its wholeness could recall:
+    The lustrous wonder dies
+      In gleams of irised rain,
+    As light fades out from the eyes
+      When a soul is crushed by pain.
+    Take heed that from your hold
+      My love you do not cast:
+    Dim, shattered, vapor-cold--
+      That day would be its last.
+
+
+  II
+
+
+  THIRD OPAL
+
+  _He won her love; and so this opal sings
+  With all its tints in maze, that seem to quake
+  And leap in light, as if its heart would break:_
+
+  Gleam of the sea,
+  Translucent air,
+  Where every leaf alive with glee
+  Glows in the sun without shadow of grief--
+  You speak of spring,
+  When earth takes wing
+  And sunlight, sunlight is everywhere!
+  Radiant life,
+  Face so fair--
+  Crowned with the gracious glory of wife--
+  Your glance lights all this happy day,
+  Your tender glow
+  And murmurs low
+  Make miracle, miracle, everywhere.
+
+  Earth takes wing
+  With birds--do I care
+  Whether of sorrow or joy they sing?
+  No; for they make not my life nor destroy!
+  My soul awakes
+  At a smile that breaks
+  In sun; and sunlight is everywhere!
+
+
+  III
+
+  _Then dawned a mood of musing thoughtfulness;
+  As if he doubted whether he could bless
+  Her wayward spirit, through each fickle hour,
+  With love's serenity of flawless power,
+  Or she remain a vision, as when first
+  She came to soothe his fancy all athirst._
+
+
+  FOURTH OPAL
+
+  We were alone: the perfumed night,
+    Moonlighted, like a flower
+  Grew round us and exhaled delight
+    To bless that one sweet hour.
+
+  You stood where, 'mid the white and gold,
+    The rose-fire through the gloom
+  Touched hair and cheek and garment's fold
+    With soft, ethereal bloom.
+
+  And when the vision seemed to swerve,
+    'T was but the flickering shine
+  That gave new grace, a lovelier curve,
+    To every dream-like line.
+
+  O perfect vision! Form and face
+    Of womanhood complete!
+  O rare ideal to embrace
+    And hold, from head to feet!
+
+  Could I so hold you ever--could
+    Your eye still catch the glow
+  Of mine--it were an endless good:
+    Together we should grow
+
+  One perfect picture of our love!...
+    Alas, the embers old
+  Fell, and the moonlight fell, above--
+    Dim, shattered, vapor-cold.
+
+
+  IV
+
+  _What ill befell these lovers? Shall I say?
+    What tragedy of petty care and sorrow?
+  Ye all know, who have lived and loved: if nay,
+    Then those will know who live and love tomorrow.
+  But here at least is what this opal said,
+    The fifth in number: and the next two bore
+  My fancy toward that dim world of the dead,
+    Where waiting spirits muse the past life o'er_:
+
+
+  FIFTH OPAL
+
+  I dreamed my kisses on your hair
+  Turned into roses. Circling bloom
+  Crowned the loose-lifted tresses there.
+  "O Love," I cried, "forever
+  Dwell wreathed, and perfume-haunted
+  By my heart's deep honey-breath!"
+  But even as I bending looked, I saw
+  The roses were not; and, instead, there lay
+  Pale, feathered flakes and scentless
+  Ashes upon your hair!
+
+
+  SIXTH OPAL
+
+  The love I gave, the love I gave,
+    Wherewith I sought to win you--
+  Ah, long and close to you it clave
+    With life and soul and sinew!
+  My gentleness with scorn you cursed:
+    You knew not what I gave.
+  The strongest man may die of thirst:
+    My love is in its grave!
+
+
+  SEVENTH OPAL
+
+  You say these jewels were accurst--
+    With evil omen fraught.
+  You should have known it from the first!
+    This was the truth they taught:
+
+  No treasured thing in heaven or earth
+    Holds potency more weird
+  Than our hearts hold, that throb from birth
+    With wavering flames insphered.
+
+  And when from me the gems you took,
+    On that strange April day,
+  My nature, too, I gave, that shook
+    With passion's fateful play.
+
+  The mingled fate my love should give
+    In these mute emblems shone,
+  That more intensely burn and live--
+    While I am turned to stone.
+
+
+  V
+
+  _Listen now to what is said
+  By the eighth opal, flashing red
+  And pale, by turns, with every breath--
+  The voice of the lover after death._
+
+
+  EIGHTH OPAL
+
+  I did not know before
+    That we dead could rise and walk;
+  That our voices, as of yore,
+    Would blend in gentle talk.
+
+  I did not know her eyes
+    Would so haunt mine after death,
+  Or that she could hear my sighs,
+    Low as the harp-string's breath.
+
+  But, ah, last night we met!
+    From our stilly trance we rose,
+  Thrilled with all the old regret--
+    The grieving that God knows.
+
+  She asked: "Am I forgiven?"--
+    "And dost thou forgive?" I said,
+  Ah! how long for joy we'd striven!
+    But now our hearts were dead.
+
+  Alas, for the lips I kissed
+    And the sweet hope, long ago!
+  On her grave chill hangs the mist;
+    On mine, white lies the snow.
+
+
+  VI
+
+  _Hearkening still, I hear this strain
+  From the ninth opal's varied vein:_
+
+
+  NINTH OPAL
+
+  In the mountains of Mexico,
+  Where the barren volcanoes throw
+  Their fierce peaks high to the sky,
+  With the strength of a tawny brute
+  That sees heaven but to defy,
+  And the soft, white hand of the snow
+  Touches and makes them mute,--
+
+  Firm in the clasp of the ground
+  The opal is found.
+  By the struggle of frost and fire
+  Created, yet caught in a spell
+  From which only human desire
+  Can free it, what passion profound
+  In its dim, sweet bosom may dwell!
+
+  So was it with us, I think,
+  Whose souls were formed on the brink
+  Of a crater, where rain and flame
+  Had mingled and crystallized.
+  One venturous day Love came;
+  Found us; and bound with a link
+  Of gold the jewels he prized.
+
+  The agonies old of the earth,
+  Its plenitude and its dearth,
+  The torrents of flame and of tears,
+  All these in our souls were inborn.
+  And we must endure through the years
+  The glory and burden of birth
+  That filled us with fire of the morn.
+
+  Let the diamond lie in its mine;
+  Let ruby and topaz shine;
+  The beryl sleep, and the emerald keep
+  Its sunned-leaf green! We know
+  The joy of sufferings deep
+  That blend with a love divine,
+  And the hidden warmth of the snow!
+
+
+  TENTH OPAL
+
+  Colors that tremble and perish,
+    Atoms that follow the law,
+  You mirror the truth which we cherish,
+    You mirror the spirit we saw.
+  Glow of the daybreak tender,
+    Flushed with an opaline gleam,
+  And passionate sunset-splendor--
+    Ye both but embody a dream.
+  Visions of cloud-hidden glory
+    Breaking from sources of light
+  Mimic the mist of life's story.
+    Mingled of scarlet and white.
+  Sunset-clouds iridescent,
+    Opals, and mists of the day,
+  Are thrilled alike with the crescent
+    Delight of a deathless ray
+  Shot through the hesitant trouble
+    Of particles floating in space,
+  And touching each wandering bubble
+    With tints of a rainbowed grace.
+  So through the veil of emotion
+    Trembles the light of the truth;
+  And so may the light of devotion
+    Glorify life--age and youth.
+  Sufferings,--pangs that seem cruel,--
+    These are but atoms adrift:
+  The light streams through, and a jewel
+    Is formed for us, Heaven's own gift!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  LOVE THAT LIVES
+
+
+  Dear face--bright, glinting hair;
+    Dear life, whose heart is mine--
+  The thought of you is prayer,
+    The love of you divine.
+
+  In starlight, or in rain;
+    In the sunset's shrouded glow;
+  Ever, with joy or pain,
+    To you my quick thoughts go
+
+  Like winds or clouds, that fleet
+    Across the hungry space
+  Between, and find you, sweet,
+    Where life again wins grace.
+
+  Now, as in that once young
+    Year that so softly drew
+  My heart to where it clung,
+    I long for, gladden in you.
+
+  And when in the silent hours
+    I whisper your sacred name,
+  Like an altar-fire it showers
+    My blood with fragrant flame!
+
+  Perished is all that grieves;
+    And lo, our old-new joys
+  Are gathered as in sheaves,
+    Held in love's equipoise.
+
+  Ours is the love that lives;
+    Its springtime blossoms blow
+  'Mid the fruit that autumn gives,
+    And its life outlasts the snow.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  IV
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BLUEBIRD'S GREETING
+
+
+  Over the mossy walls,
+  Above the slumbering fields
+  Where yet the ground no fruitage yields,
+  Save as the sunlight falls
+  In dreams of harvest-yellow,
+  What voice remembered calls,--
+  So bubbling fresh, so soft and mellow?
+
+  A darting, azure-feathered arrow
+  From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet
+  The bluebird, springing light and narrow,
+  Sings in flight, with gurglings sweet:
+
+  "Out of the South I wing,
+  Blown on the breath of Spring:
+  The little faltering song
+  That in my beak I bring
+  Some maiden shall catch and sing,
+  Filling it with the longing
+  And the blithe, unfettered thronging
+  Of her spirit's blossoming.
+
+  "Warbling along
+  In the sunny weather,
+  Float, my notes,
+  Through the sunny motes,
+  Falling light as a feather!
+  Flit, flit, o'er the fertile land
+  'Mid hovering insects' hums;
+  Fall into the sower's hand:
+  Then, when his harvest comes,
+  The seed and the song shall have flowered together.
+
+  "From the Coosa and Altamaha,
+  With a thought of the dim blue Gulf;
+  From the Roanoke and Kanawha;
+  From the musical Southern rivers,
+  O'er the land where the fierce war-wolf
+  Lies slain and buried in flowers;
+  I come to your chill, sad hours
+  And the woods where the sunlight shivers.
+  I come like an echo: 'Awake!'
+  I answer the sky and the lake
+  And the clear, cool color that quivers
+  In all your azure rills.
+  I come to your wan, bleak hills
+  For a greeting that rises dearer,
+  To homely hearts draws me nearer
+  Than the warmth of the rice-fields or wealth of the ranches.
+
+  "I will charm away your sorrow,
+  For I sing of the dewy morrow:
+  My melody sways like the branches
+  My light feet set astir:
+  I bring to the old, as I hover,
+  The days and the joys that were,
+  And hope to the waiting lover!
+  Then, take my note and sing,
+  Filling it with the longing
+  And the blithe, unfettered thronging
+  Of your spirit's blossoming!"
+
+  Not long that music lingers:
+  Like the breath of forgotten singers
+  It flies,--or like the March-cloud's shadow
+  That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow
+  Not long! And yet thy fleeting,
+  Thy tender, flute-toned greeting,
+  O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains
+  The purest chord in all the year's refrains.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE VOICE OF THE VOID
+
+
+  I warn, like the one drop of rain
+  On your face, ere the storm;
+  Or tremble in whispered refrain
+    With your blood, beating warm.
+  I am the presence that ever
+  Baffles your touch's endeavor,--
+  Gone like the glimmer of dust
+    Dispersed by a gust.
+  I am the absence that taunts you,
+  The fancy that haunts you;
+  The ever unsatisfied guess
+  That, questioning emptiness,
+  Wins a sigh for reply.
+    Nay; nothing am I,
+    But the flight of a breath--
+      For I am Death!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  "O WHOLESOME DEATH"
+
+
+  O wholesome Death, thy sombre funeral-car
+    Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way
+    Of life; while, lengthening still, in sad array,
+  My deeds in long procession go, that are
+  As mourners of the man they helped to mar.
+    I see it all in dreams, such as waylay
+    The wandering fancy when the solid day
+  Has fallen in smoldering ruins, and night's star,
+  Aloft there, with its steady point of light
+    Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.
+  Ah, when I die, and planets hold their flight
+    Above my grave, still let my spirit keep
+  Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse,
+  'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  INCANTATION
+
+
+    When the leaves, by thousands thinned,
+  A thousand times have whirled in the wind,
+  And the moon, with hollow cheek,
+  Staring from her hollow height,
+  Consolation seems to seek
+  From the dim, reechoing night;
+  And the fog-streaks dead and white
+  Lie like ghosts of lost delight
+  O'er highest earth and lowest sky;
+  Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!
+
+    Strew the ground with poppy-seeds,
+  And let my bed be hung with weeds,
+  Growing gaunt and rank and tall,
+  Drooping o'er me like a pall.
+  Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist
+  Across my brow to turn and twist
+  Fold on fold, and leave me blind
+  To all save visions in the mind.
+  Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams
+  I shall slumber, and in dreams
+  Slide through some long glen that burns
+  With a crust of blood-red ferns
+  And brown-withered wings of brake
+  Like a burning lava-lake;--
+  So, urged to fearful, faster flow
+  By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk!" of the crow,
+  Shall pass by many a haunted rood
+  Of the nutty, odorous wood;
+  Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom,
+  Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom;
+  Till, lured by light, reflected cloud,
+  I burst aloft my watery shroud,
+  And upward through the ether sail
+  Far above the shrill wind's wail;--
+  But, falling thence, my soul involve
+  With the dust dead flowers dissolve;
+  And, gliding out at last to sea,
+  Lulled to a long tranquillity,
+  The perfect poise of seasons keep
+  With the tides that rest at neap.
+  So must be fulfilled the rite
+  That giveth me the dead year's might;
+  And at dawn I shall arise
+  A spirit, though with human eyes,
+  A human form and human face;
+  And where'er I go or stay,
+  There the summer's perished grace
+  Shall be with me, night and day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  FAMINE AND HARVEST
+
+  [PLYMOUTH PLANTATION: 1622]
+
+
+  The strong and the tender,
+    The young and the old,
+  Unto Death we must render;--
+    Our silver, our gold.
+
+  To break their long sleeping
+    No voice may avail:
+  They hear not our weeping--
+    Our famished love's wail.
+
+  Yea, those whom we cherish
+    Depart, day by day.
+  Soon we, too, shall perish
+    And crumble to clay.
+
+  And the vine and the berry
+    Above us will bloom;
+  The wind shall make merry
+    While we lie in gloom.
+
+  Fear not! Though thou starvest,
+    Provision is made:
+  God gathers His harvest
+    When our hopes fade!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE CHILD'S WISH GRANTED
+
+
+  Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,
+  How in the soft June days forever done
+  You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;
+  And when I lifted you, soft came your cry,--
+  "Put me 'way up--'way, 'way up in blue sky"?
+
+  I laughed and said I could not;--set you down,
+  Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown
+  Of bright hair gladdening me as you raced by.
+  Another Father now, more strong than I,
+  Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE FLOWN SOUL
+
+  (FRANCIS HAWTHORNE LATHROP)
+
+  FEBRUARY 6, 1881
+
+
+  Come not again! I dwell with you
+  Above the realm of frost and dew,
+  Of pain and fire, and growth to death.
+  I dwell with you where never breath
+  Is drawn, but fragrance vital flows
+  From life to life, even as a rose
+  Unseen pours sweetness through each vein
+  And from the air distills again.
+  You are my rose unseen; we live
+  Where each to other joy may give
+  In ways untold, by means unknown
+  And secret as the magnet-stone.
+
+  For which of us, indeed, is dead?
+  No more I lean to kiss your head--
+  The gold-red hair so thick upon it;
+  Joy feels no more the touch that won it
+  When o'er my brow your pearl-cool palm
+  In tenderness so childish, calm,
+  Crept softly, once. Yet, see, my arm
+  Is strong, and still my blood runs warm.
+  I still can work, and think and weep.
+  But all this show of life I keep
+  Is but the shadow of your shine,
+  Flicker of your fire, husk of your vine;
+  Therefore, you are not dead, nor I
+  Who hear your laughter's minstrelsy.
+  Among the stars your feet are set;
+  Your little feet are dancing yet
+  Their rhythmic beat, as when on earth.
+  So swift, so slight are death and birth!
+
+  Come not again, dear child. If thou
+  By any chance couldst break that vow
+  Of silence at thy last hour made;
+  If to this grim life unafraid
+  Thou couldst return, and melt the frost
+  Wherein thy bright limbs' power was lost;
+  Still would I whisper--since so fair
+  This silent comradeship we share--
+  Yes, whisper 'mid the unbidden rain
+  Of tears: "Come not, come not again!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  SUNSET AND SHORE
+
+
+  Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
+    White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
+  Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
+    Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!
+
+  Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowing
+    Soon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;
+  Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing;--
+    Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.
+
+  Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;
+    Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;
+  Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest:--
+    Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE PHOEBE-BIRD
+
+  (A REPLY)
+
+
+  Yes, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird.
+  Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:
+  I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
+  Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow
+  Strength from the other, making one more brave
+  And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.
+
+  But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
+  One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.
+  Our voices vary with the changing seasons
+  Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.
+  Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered,
+  If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
+  We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
+  Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
+  With love and hate, or good and evil--all,
+  At separate times, in separate accents call;
+  Yet 't is the same heart-throb within the breast
+  That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
+  I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
+  The Listener finds them in one music blended.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  A STRONG CITY
+
+
+    For them that hope in Thee.... Thou shalt hide
+  them in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men.
+
+    Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the
+  contradiction of tongues.
+
+    Blessed be the Lord, for He hath shewn His wonderful
+  mercy to me in a fortified city.--_Psalm xxx._
+
+
+    Beauty and splendor were on every hand:
+  Yet strangely crawled dark shadows down the lanes,
+  Twisting across the fields, like dragon-shapes
+  That smote the air with blackness, and devoured
+  The life of light, and choked the smiling world
+  Till it grew livid with a sudden age--
+  The death of hope.
+
+                    O squandered happiness;
+  Vain dust of misery powdering life's fresh flower!
+  The sky was holy, but the earth was not.
+
+    Men ruled, but ruled in vain; since wretchedness
+  Of soul and body, for the mass of men,
+  Made them like dead leaves in an idle drift
+  Around the plough of progress as it drove
+  Sharp through the glebe of modern days, to plant
+  A civilized world. Ay; civilized--but not Christian!
+
+    Civilization is a clarion voice
+  Crying in the wilderness; a prophet-word
+  Still unfulfilled. And lo, along the ways
+  Crowded with nations, there arose a strife;
+  Disturbance of men; tongues contradicting tongues;
+  Madness of noise, that scattered multitudes;
+  A trample of blind feet, beneath whose tread
+  Truth's bloom shrank withered; while incessant mouths
+  Howled "Progress! Change!"--as though all moods of change
+  Were fiats of truth eternal.
+
+                               'Mid the din
+  Two pilgrims, faring forward, saw the light
+  In a strong city, fortified, and moved
+  Patiently thither. "All your steps are vain,"
+  Cried scoffers. "There is mercy in the world;
+  But chiefly mercy of man to man. For we
+  Are good. We help our fellows, when we can.
+  Our charity is enormous. Look at these
+  Long rolls of rich subscriptions. We are good.
+  'T is true, God's mercy plays a part in things;
+  But most is left to us; and we judge well.
+  Stay with us in the field of endless war!
+  Here only is health. Yon city fortified
+  You dream of--why, its ramparts are as dust.
+  It gives no safety. One assaulting sweep
+  Of our huge cohorts would annul its power--
+  Crush it in atoms; make it meaningless."
+
+  The pilgrims listened; but onward still they moved.
+  They passed the gates; they stood upon a hill
+  Enclosed, but in that strong enclosure free!
+  Though earth opposed, they held the key to heaven.
+  On came the turbulent multitude in war,
+  Dashing against the city's walls; and swept
+  Through all the streets, and robbed and burned and killed.
+  The walls were strong; the gates were always open.
+  And so the invader rioted, and was proud.
+  But sudden, in seeming triumph, the enemy host
+  Was stricken with death; and still the city stayed.
+  Skyward the souls of its defenders rose,
+  Returning soon in mist intangible
+  That flashed with radiance of half-hidden swords;
+  And those who still assaulted--though they crept
+  Into the inmost vantage-points, with craft--
+  Fell, blasted namelessly by this veiled flash,
+  Even as they shouted out, "The place is ours!"
+
+    So those two pilgrims dwelt there, fortified
+  In that strong city men had thought so frail.
+  They died, and lived again. Fiercest attack
+  Was as a perfumed breeze to them, which drew
+  Their souls still closer unto God. And there
+  Beauty and splendor bloomed untouched. The stars
+  Spoke to them, bidding them be of good cheer,
+  Though hostile hordes rushed over them in blood.
+  And still the prayers of all that people rose
+  As incense mingled with music of their hearts.
+  For Christ was with them: angels were their aid.
+  What though the enemy used their open gates?
+  The children of the citadel conquered all
+  Their conquerors, smiting them with the pure light
+  That shone in that strong city fortified.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THREE DOVES
+
+
+  Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
+  At eve they circled back to me.
+  The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
+  The third--the whitest--Charity.
+
+  Above the plunging surge's play
+  Dream-like they hovered, day by day.
+  At last they turned, and bore to me
+  Green signs of peace thro' nightfall gray.
+
+  No shore forlorn, no loveliest land
+  Their gentle eyes had left unscanned,
+  'Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope
+  Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned.
+
+  Quick visions of celestial grace,--
+  Hither they waft, from earth's broad space,
+  Kind thoughts for all humanity.
+  They shine with radiance from God's face.
+
+  Ah, since my heart they choose for home,
+  Why loose them,--forth again to roam?
+  Yet look: they rise! with loftier scope
+  They wheel in flight toward heaven's pure dome.
+
+  Fly, messengers that find no rest
+  Save in such toil as makes man blest!
+  Your home is God's immensity:
+  We hold you but at his behest.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  V
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  ARISE, AMERICAN!
+
+
+  The soul of a nation awaking,--
+    High visions of daybreak,--I saw;
+      A people renewed; the forsaking
+        Of sin, and the worship of law.
+
+  Sing, pine-tree; shout, to the hoarser
+    Response of the jubilant sea!
+      Rush, river, foam-flecked like a courser;
+        Warn all who are honest and free!
+
+  Our birth-star beckons to trial
+    The faith of the far-fled years,
+      Ere scorn was our share, and denial,
+        Or laughter for patriots' tears.
+
+  And Faith shall come forth the finer,
+    From trampled thickets of fire,
+      And the orient open diviner
+        Before her, the heaven rise higher.
+
+  O deep, sweet eyes, but severer
+   Than steel! See you yet, where he comes--
+    Our hero? Bend your glance nearer;
+     Speak, Faith! For, as wakening drums,
+
+  Your voice shall set his blood stirring;
+   His heart shall grow strong like the main
+    When the rowelled winds are spurring,
+     And the broad tides landward strain.
+
+  O hero, art thou among us?
+   O helper, hidest thou, still?
+    Why hast thou no anthem sung us,
+     Why workest thou not our will?
+
+
+  For a smirk of the face, or a favor,
+   Still shelters the cheat where he crawls;
+    And the truth we began with needs braver
+     Upholders, and loftier walls.
+
+  Too long has the land's soul slumbered
+   In wearying dreams of gain,
+    With prosperous falsity cumbered
+     And dulled with bribes, as a bane.
+
+  Yes, cunning is civilized evil,
+    And crafty the gold-baited snare;
+      But virtue, in fiery upheaval,
+        May cast fine device to the air.
+
+  Bring us the simple and stalwart
+    Purpose of earlier days.
+      Come! Far better than all were't--
+        Our precepts, our pride, and our lays--
+
+  That the people in spirit should tremble
+    With heed of the God-given Word;
+      That we cease from our boast, nor dissemble,
+        But follow where truth's voice is heard.
+
+  Come to us, mountain-dweller,
+    Leader, wherever thou art;
+      Skilled from thy cradle, a queller
+        Of serpents, and sound to the heart!
+
+  Modest and mighty and tender;
+    Man of an iron mold;
+      Honest, fine-grained, our defender;--
+        American-souled!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE NAME OF WASHINGTON
+
+  [Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887]
+
+
+  Sons of the youth and the truth of the nation,
+    Ye that are met to remember the man
+  Whose valor gave birth to a people's salvation,
+    Honor him now; set his name in the van.
+      A nobleness to try for,
+      A name to live and die for--
+        The name of Washington.
+
+  Calmly his face shall look down through the ages--
+    Sweet yet severe with a spirit of warning;
+  Charged with the wisdom of saints and of sages;
+    Quick with the light of a life-giving morning.
+      A majesty to try for,
+      A name to live and die for--
+        The name of Washington!
+
+  Though faction may rack us, or party divide us,
+    And bitterness break the gold links of our story,
+  Our father and leader is ever beside us.
+    Live, and forgive! But forget not the glory
+      Of him whose height we try for,
+      A name to live and die for--
+        The name of Washington!
+
+  Still in his eyes shall be mirrored our fleeting
+    Days, with the image of days long ended;
+  Still shall those eyes give, immortally, greeting
+    Unto the souls from his spirit descended.
+      His grandeur we will try for,
+      His name we 'll live and die for--
+        The name of Washington!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  GRANT'S DIRGE
+
+
+  I
+
+    Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
+    And what shall be the music of his dirge?
+    No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
+    No formal strain can give its woe relief.
+    The pent-up anguish of the loyal wife,
+    The sobs of those who, nearest in this life,
+    Still hold him closely in the life beyond;--
+    These first, with threnody of memories fond.
+  But look! Forth press a myriad mourners thronging,
+    With hearts that throb in sorrow's exaltation,
+  Moved by a strange, impassioned, hopeless longing
+    To serve him with their love's last ministration.
+    Make way! Make way, from wave-bound verge to verge
+    Of all our land, that this great multitude
+    With lamentation proud albeit subdued,
+  Deep murmuring like the ocean's mighty surge,
+  May pass beneath the heavens' triumphal arch!
+
+
+  II
+
+    What is the sound we hear?
+  Never the fall of a tear;
+  For grief repressed
+  In every breast
+  More honors the man we revere.
+  Rising from East and West,
+  There echoes afar or near--
+  From the cool, sad North and the burning South--
+  A sound long since grown dear,
+  When brave ranks faced the cannon's mouth
+  And died for a faith austere:
+  The tread of marching men,
+  A steady tramp of feet
+  That never flinched nor faltered when
+  The drums of duty beat.
+  With sable hats whose shade
+  Falls from the cord of gold
+  On every time-worn face;
+  With tattered flags, in black enrolled,
+  Beneath whose folds they warred of old;
+  Forward, firmly arrayed,
+  With a sombre, martial grace;
+  So the Grand Army moves
+  Commanded by the dead,
+  Following him whose name it loves,
+  Whose voice in life its footsteps led.
+
+
+  III
+
+  Those that in the combat perished,--
+    Hostile shapes and forms of friends,--
+  Those we hated, those we cherished,
+    Meet the pageant where it ends.
+  Flash of steel and tears forgiving
+    Blend in splendor. Hark, the knell!
+  Comrades ghostly join the living--
+    Dreaming, chanting: "All is well."
+  They receive the General sleeping,
+    Him of spirit pure and large:
+  Him they draw into their keeping
+    Evermore, in faithful charge.
+
+
+  IV
+
+  Pass on, O steps, with your dead, sad note!
+    For a people's homage is in the sound;
+  And the even tread, in measured rote,
+    As a leader is laid beneath the ground,
+      Rumors the hum of a pilgrim train
+      That shall trample the earth as tramples the rain,
+      Seeking the door of the hero's tomb,
+      Seeking him where he lies low in the gloom,
+      Paying him tribute of worker and mage,
+      Through age on age!
+
+
+  V
+
+    Tall pine-tree on McGregor's height,
+  How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing,
+  For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring,
+  There where thy shadow touched the dying brow?
+  Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright?
+  Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daring
+  Didst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous bough
+  And trust it to the frail support of air?
+  We only know that thou art now supreme:
+  We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair.
+  So from the unnoticed, humble earth arose
+  The sturdy man whom we, bewailing, deem
+  Worthy the wondrous name fame's far voice blows.
+  And lo! his ancient foes
+  Rise up to praise the plan
+  Of modest grandeur, loyal trust,
+  And generous power from man to man,
+  That lifted him above the formless dust.
+  O heart by kindliness betrayed,
+  O noble spirit snared and strayed--
+  Unmatched, upright thou standest still
+  As that firm pine-tree rooted on the hill!
+
+
+  VI
+
+    No paragon was he,
+  But moulded in the rough
+  With every fault and scar
+  Ingrained, and plain for all to see:
+  Even as the rocks and mountains are,
+  Common perhaps, yet wrought of such true stuff
+  That common nature in his essence grew
+  To something which till then it never knew;
+  Ay, common as a vast, refreshing wind
+  That sweeps the continent, or as some star
+  Which, 'mid a million, shines out well-defined:
+  With honest soul on duty bent,
+  A servant-soldier, President;
+  Meekest when crowned with victory,
+  And greatest in adversity!
+
+
+  VII
+
+    A silent man whom, strangely, fate
+  Made doubly silent ere he died,
+  His speechless spirit rules us still;
+  And that deep spell of influence mute,
+  The majesty of dauntless will
+  That wielded hosts and saved the State,
+  Seems through the mist our spirits yet to thrill.
+  His heart is with us! From the root
+  Of toil and pain and brave endurance
+  Has sprung at last the perfect fruit,
+  The treasure of a rich assurance
+  That men who nobly work and live
+  A greater gift than life may give;
+  Yielding a promise for all time,
+  Which other men of newer date
+  Surely redeem in deeds sublime.
+  Forerunner of a valiant race,
+  His voiceless spirit still reminds us
+  Of ever-waiting, silent duty:
+  The bond of faith wherewith he binds us
+  Shall hold us ready hour by hour
+  To serve the sacred, guiding power
+  Whene'er it calls, where'er it finds us,
+  With loyalty that, like a folded flower,
+  Blooms at a touch in proud, full-circled beauty.
+
+
+  VIII
+
+    Like swelling river waves that strain,
+  Onward the people crowd
+  In serried, billowing train.
+  And those so slow to yield,
+  On many a hard fought field,
+  Muster together
+  Like a dark cloud
+  In summer weather,
+  Whose threatening thunders suddenly are stilled,--
+  And all the world is filled
+  With smiling rest. Victory to him was pain,
+  Till he had won his enemies by love;
+  Had leashed the eagle and unloosed the dove;
+  Setting on war's red roll the argent seal of peace.
+  So here they form their solid ranks again,
+  But in no mood of hatred or disdain.
+  They say: "Thou who art fallen at last,
+  Beleaguered stealthily, o'ercome by death,
+  Thy conqueror now shall be magnanimous
+  Even as thou wast to us.
+  But not for thee can we blot out the past:
+  We would not, if we might, forget thy last
+  Great act of war, that with a gentle hand
+  Brought back our hearts unto the mighty mother,
+  For whose defence and honor armed we stand.
+  We hail thee brother,
+  And so salute thy name with holy breath!"
+
+
+  IX
+
+    Land of the hurricane!
+  Land of the avalanche!
+  Land of tempest and rain;
+  Of the Southern sun and of frozen peaks;
+  Stretching from main to main;--
+  Land of the cypress-glooms;
+  Land of devouring looms;
+  Land of the forest and ranch;--
+  Hush every sound to-day
+  Save the burden of swarms that assemble
+  Their reverence dear to pay
+  Unto him who saved us all!
+  Ye masses that mourn with bended head,
+  Beneath whose feet the ground doth tremble
+  With weight of woe and a sacred dread--
+  Lift up the pall
+  That to us shall remain as a warrior's banner!
+  Gaze once more on the fast closed eyes;
+  Mark once the mouth that never speaks;
+  Think of the man and his quiet manner:
+  Weep if you will; then go your way;
+  But remember his face as it looks to the skies,
+  And the dumb appeal wherewith it seeks
+  To lead us on, as one should say, "Arise--
+  Go forth to meet your country's noblest day!"
+
+
+  X
+
+  Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
+    And what shall be the music of his dirge?
+    Let generations sing, as they emerge
+  And pass beneath the heavens' trumphal arch!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  BATTLE DAYS
+
+
+  I
+
+  Veteran memories rally to muster
+    Here at the call of the old battle days:
+  Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster:
+    All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze:
+  Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre,
+    Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell,
+  With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor,
+    And dreams of a charge and the deep rebel yell.
+  Stern was our task in the field where the reaping
+    Spared the ripe harvest, but laid our men low:
+  Grim was the sorrow that held us from weeping:
+     Awful the rush of the strife's ebb and flow.
+  Swift came the silence--our enemy hiding
+    Sudden retreat in the cloud-muffled night:
+  Swift as a hawk-pounce our hill-and-dale riding;
+    Hundreds on hundreds we caught in their flight!
+  Hard and incessant the danger and trial,
+    Laid on our squadrons, that gladly bore all,
+  Scorning to meet with delay or denial
+    The summons that rang in the battle-days' call!
+
+
+  II
+
+  Wild days that woke to glory or despair,
+    And smote the coward soul with sudden shame,
+  But unto those whose hearts were bold to dare
+    All things for honor brought eternal fame:--
+        Lost days, undying days!
+        With undiminished rays
+        Here now on us look down,
+        Illumining our crown
+  Of leaves memorial, wet with tender dew
+    For those who nobly died
+  In fierce self-sacrifice of service true,
+    Rapt in pure fire of life-disdaining pride;
+  Men of this soil, who stood
+    Firm for their country's good,
+  From night to night, from sun to sun,
+    Till o'er the living and the slain
+  A woful dawn that streamed with rain
+    Wept for their victory dearly won.
+
+
+  III
+
+  Days of the future, prophetic days,--
+    Silence engulfs the roar of war;
+  Yet, through all coming years, repeat the praise
+    Of those leal comrades brave, who come no more!
+  And when our voices cease,
+    Long, long renew the chant, the anthem proud,
+  Which, echoing clear and loud
+    Through templed aisles of peace,
+  Like blended tumults of a joyous chime,
+  Shall tell their valor to a later time.
+  Shine on this field; and in the eyes of men
+  Rekindle, if the need shall come again,
+  That answering light that springs
+  In beaconing splendor from the soul, and brings
+  Promise of faith well kept and deed sublime!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  KEENAN'S CHARGE
+
+  [CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863]
+
+  I
+
+  The sun had set;
+  The leaves with dew were wet:
+  Down fell a bloody dusk
+  On the woods, that second of May,
+  Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,
+  Tore through, with angry tusk.
+
+  "They've trapped us, boys!"--
+  Rose from our flank a voice.
+  With a rush of steel and smoke
+  On came the rebels straight,
+  Eager as love and wild as hate;
+  And our line reeled and broke;
+
+  Broke and fled.
+  No one stayed--but the dead!
+  With curses, shrieks, and cries,
+  Horses and wagons and men
+  Tumbled back through the shuddering glen,
+  And above us the fading skies.
+
+  There's one hope, still--
+  Those batteries parked on the hill!
+  "Battery, wheel!" ('mid the roar)
+  "Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fire
+  Retiring. Trot!" In the panic dire
+  A bugle rings "Trot"--and no more.
+
+  The horses plunged,
+  The cannon lurched and lunged,
+  To join the hopeless rout.
+  But suddenly rode a form
+  Calmly in front of the human storm,
+  With a stern, commanding shout:
+
+  "Align those guns!"
+  (We knew it was Pleasonton's.)
+  The cannoneers bent to obey,
+  And worked with a will at his word:
+  And the black guns moved as if _they_ had heard.
+  But ah, the dread delay!
+
+  "To wait is crime;
+  O God, for ten minutes' time!"
+  The General looked around.
+  There Keenan sat, like a stone,
+  With his three hundred horse alone,
+  Less shaken than the ground.
+
+  "Major, your men?"
+  "Are soldiers, General." "Then,
+  Charge, Major! Do your best:
+  Hold the enemy back, at all cost,
+  Till my guns are placed;--else the army is lost.
+  You die to save the rest!"
+
+
+  II
+
+  By the shrouded gleam of the western skies,
+  Brave Keenan looked into Pleasonton's eyes
+  For an instant--clear, and cool, and still;
+  Then, with a smile, he said: "I will."
+
+  "Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank.
+  Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank,
+  Rose joyously, with a willing breath---
+  Rose like a greeting hail to death.
+
+  Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed;
+  Shouted the officers, crimson-sash'd;
+  Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow,
+  In their faded coats of the blue and yellow;
+  And above in the air, with an instinct true,
+  Like a bird of war their pennon flew.
+
+  With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds,
+  And blades that shine like sunlit reeds,
+  And strong brown faces bravely pale
+  For fear their proud attempt shall fail,
+  Three hundred Pennsylvanians close
+  On twice ten thousand gallant foes.
+
+  Line after line the troopers came
+  To the edge of the wood that was ring'd with flame;
+  Rode in and sabred and shot--and fell;
+  Nor came one back his wounds to tell.
+  And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall,
+  In the gloom like a martyr awaiting his fall,
+  While the circle-stroke of his sabre, swung
+  'Round his head, like a halo there, luminous hung.
+
+  Line after line, aye, whole platoons,
+  Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons
+  By the maddened horses were onward borne
+  And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn;
+  As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.
+
+  So they rode, till there were no more to ride.
+
+  But over them, lying there shattered and mute,
+  What deep echo rolls?--'T is a death-salute,
+  From the cannon in place; for heroes, you braved
+  Your fate not in vain: the army was saved!
+
+  Over them now--year following year--
+  Over their graves the pine-cones fall,
+  And the whip-poor-will chants his spectre-call;
+  But they stir not again: they raise no cheer:
+  They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease,
+  Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.
+  The rush of their charge is resounding still
+  That saved the army at Chancellorsville.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  MARTHY VIRGINIA'S HAND
+
+
+  "There, on the left!" said the colonel: the battle
+    had shuddered and faded away,
+  Wraith of a fiery enchantment that left only
+    ashes and blood-sprinkled clay--
+  "Ride to the left and examine that ridge, where
+    the enemy's sharpshooters stood.
+  Lord, how they picked off our men, from the
+    treacherous vantage-ground of the wood!
+  But for their bullets, I'll bet, my batteries sent
+    them something as good.
+  Go and explore, and report to me then, and tell
+    me how many we killed.
+  Never a wink shall I sleep till I know our vengeance
+    was duly fulfilled."
+
+  Fiercely the orderly rode down the slope of the
+    corn-field--scarred and forlorn,
+  Rutted by violent wheels, and scathed by the
+    shot that had plowed it in scorn;
+  Fiercely, and burning with wrath for the sight
+    of his comrades crushed at a blow,
+  Flung in broken shapes on the ground like
+    ruined memorials of woe:
+  These were the men whom at daybreak he knew,
+    but never again could know.
+  Thence to the ridge, where roots outthrust, and
+    twisted branches of trees
+  Clutched the hill like clawing lions, firm their
+    prey to seize.
+
+  "What's your report?"--and the grim colonel
+    smiled when the orderly came back at last.
+  Strangely the soldier paused: "Well, they were
+    punished." And strange his face, aghast.
+  "Yes, our fire told on them; knocked over fifty--
+    laid out in line of parade.
+  Brave fellows, colonel, to stay as they did! But
+    one I 'most wish had n't stayed.
+  Mortally wounded, he'd torn off his knapsack;
+    and then at the end he prayed--
+  Easy to see, by his hands that were clasped;
+    and the dull, dead fingers yet held
+  This little letter--his wife's--from the knapsack.
+    A pity those woods were shelled!"
+
+  Silent the orderly, watching with tears in his eyes
+    as his officer scanned
+  Four short pages of writing. "What's this, about
+    'Marthy Virginia's hand'?"
+  Swift from his honeymoon he, the dead soldier,
+    had gone from his bride to the strife;
+  Never they met again, but she had written him,
+    telling of that new life,
+  Born in the daughter, that bound her still closer
+    and closer to him as his wife.
+  Laying her baby's hand down on the letter,
+    around it she traced a rude line;
+  "If you would kiss the baby," she wrote, "you
+    must kiss this outline of mine."
+
+  There was the shape of the hand on the page,
+    with the small, chubby fingers outspread.
+  "Marthy Virginia's hand, for her pa,"--so the
+    words on the little palm said.
+  Never a wink slept the colonel that night, for
+    the vengeance so blindly fulfilled;
+  Never again woke the old battle-glow when the
+    bullets their death-note shrilled.
+  Long ago ended the struggle, in union of
+    brotherhood happily stilled;
+  Yet from that field of Antietam, in warning and
+    token of love's command,
+  See! there is lifted the hand of a baby--Marthy
+    Virginia's hand!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  GETTYSBURG: A BATTLE ODE
+
+
+  I
+
+    Victors, living, with laureled brow,
+      And you that sleep beneath the sward!
+    Your song was poured from cannon throats:
+    It rang in deep-tongued bugle-notes:
+    Your triumph came; you won your crown,
+    The grandeur of a world's renown.
+          But, in our later lays,
+          Full freighted with your praise,
+  Fair memory harbors those whose lives, laid down
+        In gallant faith and generous heat,
+          Gained only sharp defeat.
+  All are at peace, who once so fiercely warred:
+  Brother and brother, now, we chant a common chord.
+
+
+  II
+
+        For, if we say God wills,
+        Shall we then idly deny Him
+        Care of each host in the fight?
+        His thunder was here in the hills
+        When the guns were loud in July;
+        And the flash of the musketry's light
+        Was sped by a ray from God's eye.
+        In its good and its evil the scheme
+        Was framed with omnipotent hand,
+        Though the battle of men was a dream
+        That they could but half understand.
+        Can the purpose of God pass by him?
+        Nay; it was sure, and was wrought
+        Under inscrutable powers:
+        Bravely the two armies fought
+  And left the land, that was greater than they, still theirs and ours!
+
+
+  III
+
+  Lucid, pure, and calm and blameless
+    Dawned on Gettysburg the day
+  That should make the spot, once fameless,
+    Known to nations far away.
+  Birds were caroling, and farmers
+    Gladdened o'er their garnered hay,
+  When the clank of gathering armors
+    Broke the morning's peaceful sway;
+  And the living lines of foemen
+    Drawn o'er pasture, brook, and hill,
+  Formed in figures weird of omen
+    That should work with mystic will
+  Measures of a direful magic--
+    Shattering, maiming--and should fill
+  Glades and gorges with a tragic
+    Madness of desire to kill.
+  Skirmishers flung lightly forward
+    Moved like scythemen skilled to sweep
+  Westward o'er the field and nor'ward,
+    Death's first harvest there to reap.
+  You would say the soft, white smoke-puffs
+    Were but languid clouds asleep,
+  Here on meadows, there on oak-bluffs,
+    Fallen foam of Heaven's blue deep.
+  Yet that blossom-white outbreaking
+    Smoke wove soon a martyr's shroud.
+  Reynolds fell, with soul unquaking,
+    Ardent-eyed and open-browed:
+  Noble men in humbler raiment
+    Fell where shot their graves had plowed,
+  Dying not for paltry payment:
+    Proud of home, of honor proud.
+
+
+  IV
+
+      Mute Seminary there,
+  Filled once with resonant hymn and prayer,
+  How your meek walls and windows shuddered then!
+      Though Doubleday stemmed the flood,
+    McPherson's Wood and Willoughby's Run
+        Saw ere the set of sun
+      The light of the gospel of blood.
+      And, on the morrow again,
+    Loud the unholy psalm of battle
+      Burst from the tortured Devil's Den,
+    In cries of men and musketry rattle
+    Mixed with the helpless bellow of cattle
+      Torn by artillery, down in the glen;
+        While, hurtling through the branches
+        Of the orchard by the road,
+     Where Sickles and Birney were walled with steel,
+        Shot fiery avalanches
+    That shivered hope and made the sturdiest reel.
+    Yet peach-bloom bright as April saw
+     Blushed there anew, in blood that flowed
+    O'er faces white with death-dealt awe;
+     And ruddy flowers of warfare grew,
+  Though withering winds as of the desert blew,
+    Far at the right while Ewell and Early,
+      Plunging at Slocum and Wadsworth and Greene,
+    Thundered in onslaught consummate and surly;
+      Till trembling nightfall crept between
+  And whispered of rest from the heat of the whelming strife.
+        But unto those forsaken of life
+        What has the night to say?
+    Silent beneath the moony sky,
+    Crushed in a costly dew they lie:
+    Deaf to plaint or paean, they:--
+    Freed from Earth's dull tyranny.
+
+
+  V
+
+  Wordless the night-wind, funereal plumes of the tree-tops swaying--
+    Writhing and nodding anon at the beck of the unseen breeze!
+  Yet its voice ever a murmur resumes, as of multitudes praying:
+    Liturgies lost in a moan like the mourning of far-away seas.
+  May then those spirits, set free, a celestial council obeying,
+    Move in this rustling whisper here thro' the dark, shaken trees?--
+  Souls that are voices alone to us, now, yet linger, returning
+    Thrilled with a sweet reconcilement and fervid with speechless desire?
+  Sundered in warfare, immortal they meet now with wonder and yearning,
+    Dwelling together united, a rapt, invisible choir:
+  Hearken! They wail for the living, whose passion of battle, yet burning,
+  Sears and enfolds them in coils, and consumes, like a serpent of fire!
+
+
+  VI
+
+  Men of New Hampshire, Pennsylvanians,
+    Maine men, firm as the rock's rough ledge!
+  Swift Mississippians, lithe Carolinians
+    Bursting over the battle's edge!
+  Bold Indiana men; gallant Virginians;
+    Jersey and Georgia legions clashing;--
+  Pick of Connecticut; quick Vermonters;
+    Louisianians, madly dashing;--
+  And, swooping still to fresh encounters,
+    New-York myriads, whirlwind-led!--
+  All your furious forces, meeting,
+    Torn, entangled, and shifting place,
+  Blend like wings of eagles beating
+    Airy abysses, in angry embrace.
+  Here in the midmost struggle combining--
+    Flags immingled and weapons crossed--
+  Still in union your States troop shining:
+    Never a star from the lustre is lost!
+
+
+  VII
+
+  Once more the sun deploys his rays:
+  Third in the trilogy of battle-days
+    The awful Friday comes:
+      A day of dread,
+  That should have moved with slow, averted head
+      And muffled feet,
+  Knowing what streams of pure blood shed,
+  What broken hearts and wounded lives must meet
+    Its pitiless tread.
+  At dawn, like monster mastiffs baying,
+  Federal cannon, with a din affraying,
+  Roused the old Stonewall brigade,
+  That, eagerly and undismayed,
+  Charged amain, to be repelled
+    After four hours' bitter fighting,
+    Forth and back, with bayonets biting;
+  Where in after years, the wood--
+  Flayed and bullet-riddled--stood
+  A presence ghostly, grim and stark,
+    With trees all withered, wasted, gray,
+    The place of combat night and day
+  Like marshaled skeletons to mark.
+  Anon, a lull: the troops are spelled.
+      No sound of guns or drums
+      Disturbs the air.
+  Only the insect-chorus faintly hums,
+    Chirping around the patient, sleepless dead
+  Scattered, or fallen in heaps all wildly spread;
+  Forgotten fragments left in hurried flight;
+    Forms that, a few hours since, were human creatures,
+      Now blasted of their features,
+      Or stamped with blank despair;
+  Or with dumb faces smiling as for gladness,
+      Though stricken by utter blight
+  Of motionless, inert, and hopeless sadness.
+  Fear you the naked horrors of a war?
+  Then cherish peace, and take up arms no more.
+      For, if you fight, you must
+      Behold your brothers' dust
+      Unpityingly ground down
+    And mixed with blood and powder,
+    To write the annals of renown
+      That make a nation prouder!
+
+
+  VIII
+
+    All is quiet till one o'clock;
+      Then the hundred and fifty guns,
+      Metal loaded with metal in tons,
+    Massed by Lee, send out their shock.
+      And, with a movement magnificent,
+      Pickett, the golden-haired leader,
+  Thousands and thousands flings onward, as if he sent
+      Merely a meek interceder.
+    Steadily sure his division advances,
+    Gay as the light on its weapons that dances.
+      Agonized screams of the shell
+      The doom that it carries foretell:
+    Rifle-balls whistle, like sea-birds singing;
+    Limbs are severed, and souls set winging;
+      Yet Pickett's warriors never waver.
+    Show me in all the world anything braver
+    Than the bold sweep of his fearless battalions,
+      Three half-miles over ground unsheltered
+      Up to the cannon, where regiments weltered
+    Prone in the batteries' blast that raked
+    Swaths of men and, flame-tongued, drank
+    Their blood with eager thirst unslaked.
+      Armistead, Kemper, and Pettigrew
+    Rush on the Union men, rank against rank,
+    Planting their battle-flags high on the crest.
+    Pause not the soldiers, nor dream they of rest,
+    Till they fall with their enemy's guns at the breast
+  And the shriek in their ears of the wounded artillery stallions.
+       So Pickett charged, a man indued
+    With knightly power to lead a multitude
+    And bring to fame the scarred surviving few.
+
+
+  IX
+
+      In vain the mighty endeavor;
+      In vain the immortal valor;
+    In vain the insurgent life outpoured!
+    Faltered the column, spent with shot and sword;
+    Its bright hope blanched with sudden pallor;
+  While Hancock's trefoil bloomed in triple fame.
+  He chose the field; he saved the second day;
+    And, honoring here his glorious name,
+  Again his phalanx held victorious sway.
+  Meade's line stood firm, and volley on volley roared
+  Triumphant Union, soon to be restored,
+  Strong to defy all foes and fears forever.
+    The Ridge was wreathed with angry fire
+    As flames rise round a martyr's stake;
+  For many a hero on that pyre
+    Was offered for our dear land's sake,
+    What time in heaven the gray clouds flew
+    To mingle with the deathless blue;
+    While here, below, the blue and gray
+    Melted minglingly away,
+  Mirroring heaven, to make another day.
+    And we, who are Americans, we pray
+      The splendor of strength that Gettysburg knew
+  May light the long generations with glorious ray,
+      And keep us undyingly true!
+
+
+  X
+
+    Dear are the dead we weep for;
+      Dear are the strong hearts broken!
+    Proudly their memory we keep for
+      Our help and hope; a token
+    Of sacred thought too deep for
+      Words that leave it unspoken.
+    All that we know of fairest,
+      All that we have of meetest,
+    Here we lay down for the rarest
+      Doers whose souls rose fleetest
+    And in their homes of air rest,
+      Ranked with the truest and sweetest.
+  Days, with fiery-hearted, bold advances;
+    Nights in dim and shadowy, swift retreat;
+  Rains that rush with bright, embattled lances;
+    Thunder, booming round your stirless feet;--
+  Winds that set the orchard with sweet fancies
+    All abloom, or ripple the ripening wheat;
+  Moonlight, starlight, on your mute graves falling;
+      Dew, distilled as tears unbidden flow;--
+  Dust of drought in drifts and layers crawling;
+      Lulling dreams of softly whispering snow;
+  Happy birds, from leafy coverts calling;--
+      These go on, yet none of these you know:
+        Hearing not our human voices
+        Speaking to you all in vain,
+        Nor the psalm of a land that rejoices,
+  Ringing from churches and cities and foundries a mighty refrain!
+  But we, and the sun and the birds, and the breezes that blow
+  When tempests are striving and lightnings of heaven are spent,
+          With one consent
+          Make unto them
+      Who died for us eternal requiem.
+
+
+  XI
+
+    Lovely to look on, O South,
+      No longer stately-scornful
+    But beautiful still in pride,
+  Our hearts go out to you as toward a bride!
+        Garmented soft in white,
+  Haughty, and yet how love-imbuing and tender!
+  You stand before us with your gently mournful
+  Memory-haunted eyes and flower-like mouth,
+    Where clinging thoughts--as bees a-cluster
+    Murmur through the leafy gloom,
+      Musical in monotone--
+    Whisper sadly. Yet a lustre
+    As of glowing gold-gray light
+      Shines upon the orient bloom,
+      Sweet with orange-blossoms, thrown
+    Round the jasmine-starred, deep night
+    Crowning with dark hair your brow.
+    Ruthless, once, we came to slay,
+      And you met us then with hate.
+    Rough was the wooing of war: we won you,
+      Won you at last, though late!
+        Dear South, to-day,
+    As our country's altar made us
+      One forever, so we vow
+    Unto yours our love to render:
+    Strength with strength we here endow,
+    And we make your honor ours.
+  Happiness and hope shall sun you:
+  All the wiles that half betrayed us
+    Vanish from us like spent showers.
+
+
+  XII
+
+  Two hostile bullets in mid-air
+      Together shocked,
+      And swift were locked
+  Forever in a firm embrace.
+  Then let us men have so much grace
+    To take the bullets' place,
+    And learn that we are held
+      By laws that weld
+      Our hearts together!
+  As once we battled hand to hand,
+    So hand in hand to-day we stand,
+      Sworn to each other,
+      Brother and brother,
+  In storm and mist, or calm, translucent weather:
+  And Gettysburg's guns, with their death-giving roar,
+  Echoed from ocean to ocean, shall pour
+    Quickening life to the nation's core;
+      Filling our minds again
+    With the spirit of those who wrought in the
+        Field of the Flower of Men!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+[1] _Bride Brook_.--The colony of New London (now part of
+Connecticut) was founded by John Winthrop, Jr., under the jurisdiction
+of Massachusetts. One of the boundary lines was a stream flowing into
+Long Island Sound, between the present city of New London and the
+Connecticut River. In the snowy winter of 1646, Jonathan Rudd, who dwelt
+in the settlement of Saybrook Fort, at the mouth of the Connecticut,
+sent for Winthrop to celebrate a marriage between himself and a certain
+"Mary" of Saybrook, whose last name has been lost. Winthrop performed
+the ceremony on the frozen surface of the streamlet, the farthest limit
+of his magistracy; and thereupon bestowed the name "Bride Brook," which
+it still bears.
+
+[2] _The Bride of War_.--Jemima Warner, a Pennsylvania woman, was the
+wife of one of Morgan's riflemen. She marched with the expedition; and,
+when her husband perished of cold and exhaustion, she took his rifle and
+equipments and herself carried them to Quebec, where she delivered them
+to Arnold as a token of her husband's sacrifice, and proof that he was
+not a deserter.
+
+Colonel Enos of Connecticut abandoned the column while it was struggling
+through the Dead River region, with his whole force, the rear-guard,
+numbering eight hundred men. But for this defection Arnold might have
+triumphed in his assault on Quebec. It is a curious circumstance that,
+with this traitor at the rear, and with Benedict Arnold at its head, the
+little army also counted in its ranks Aaron Burr, whose treason was to
+ripen after the war ended.
+
+[3] _The Sword Dham_.--Antar, the Bedouin poet-hero, was chief of the
+tribe of Ghaylib.
+
+[4] _The Name of Washington_.--Read before the Sons of the
+Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887, and adopted as the poem of the
+Society.
+
+[5] _Marthy Virginia's Hand_.--This was an actual incident in the
+experience of the late Colonel (formerly Captain) Albert J. Munroe. of
+the Third Rhode Island Artillery, a gallant officer, gentle and brave as
+well in peace as in war.
+
+[6] _Gettysburg: A Battle Ode_.--Written for the Society of the Army
+of the Potomac, and read at its re-union with Confederate survivors on
+the field of Gettysburg, July 3, 1888, the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of
+the Battle.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dreams and Days: Poems, by George Parsons Lathrop
+
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