THE NIGHTMARE.
In the depths of my ink bottle,
With a fiery gleaming throttle
Stood a fierce and ghoulish demon all the day;
And the murky ink was lighted
With a fiendish fire that blighted
Every sprite of good that on its bosom lay.
And my pen, from Love’s own quiver,
Wrought of gold, began to shiver
With a fearful quaking terror born of death
As I touched the hellish-lighted
Surface of the Ink that frighted
Pluto’s self and stole Persephone’s sweet breath.
Hour after fearful hour
Stood that blasting, fiendish power
In whose grasp my golden pen was ground to dust.
Oh, the wasting, endless season
Chilling heart and killing reason
As the gloating demon glutted full his lust!
“Golden Pen that Love had given,
Wrought of gold from my heart riven,
Thus my palsied, broken heart must bury thee
In the fiendish ink, made blacker
By the demon’s fiery lacquer
On the surface of its dark uncertainty.”
Then a shadow came before me
And a loathing sickness o’er me
As the demon sank below and out of sight;
For I saw a stream of gold
That the demon could not hold
To the bottom of the darkness drip its light.
Then I knew that never, never
Would Love’s gold-illumined quiver
Bind again the shaft the demon could not hold;
For I saw a radiance shining
’Round the place, and angels twining
Strange and all-eternal Beauty of the gold!
Darkness reigned then, deep, unlighted,
Silence sitting near, half-frighted
By the demon’s disappointed distant wail
And far-off mingled angel voices
Tuned to music that rejoices
In the glory of a love that cannot fail.
Morning?—Thank God that all our seeing
And our seeming is not being!
Dear wife, let your warm cheek still against mine lie
While your loving arms and kisses
Doubly tell what loving bliss is.—
Warning:—Before you go to bed, don’t eat mince pie!
“FALSE WOMANKIND!”
ON READING A SLUR THAT WAS MADE ON HER BY THE LACK-LOVE GAY, OF QUEEN ANNE’S DAY.
“False womankind, false womankind!”
Thus wails and rails a many a blind
And foolish heart, too long confined
Where light and love have never shined.
E’en sweetest Shakespeare’s pen, embrined
With biting bitterness of mind,
“As false as woman’s love,” has whined.
—Unkind the cut, the heart unkind.
“False womankind, false womankind!”—
I hurl the lie back from my mind
To those who thus a wreath have twined
Of roseless thorns to crown and bind
A sister’s crown, or mother’s kind
And sainted brow;—or twine and wind
It, thorns and all, round heart and mind
Of sweetheart-wife in love enshrined.
False, false the charge and false the mind
That ever says “False womankind!”
For the pæan ages wind
Unto me this truth they find
In the heart of humankind,
In the human heart enshrined:—
“None so false and none so blind
As whose loveless pens have lined
“What the heart has undermined,
‘False womankind, false womankind!’
None so true as her we find:
None so pure of heart and mind,
None so sweet and so refined,
None so great and good and kind,
None so in the heart enshrined
As womankind, as womankind!”
LONELY!
TO —— (LONG AGO DEAD.)
I am lonelier, lonelier, Dear, to-day
Than ever I’ve been before:
And the restless old ocean, foam-fretted alway,
Moans only of days of yore.
But somehow my heart is so sad in life’s whirl,
And my life is so shut in its shell,
Tho’ it heal every wound o’er with purest of pearl
Of naught but the sea will it tell.
Oh, lonely and lorn as the bittern’s boom,
I haunt every solitude known,
Only to find from the wide world’s room
A nameless something has flown.
I know not the reason, and fear nor I care;
I only know I am lonelier, Dear,
As over the well-wonted moorland I fare,
Than ever the death-wept tear.
How lonely, Dear! how long the time!—
But I’ll bear it, I’ll bear it for thee,
That at last I may join in the glad-voiced chime
Far out on the crystal sea.
I’SE SEEN A LIGHT IN DE SKY.
(A PLANTATION MELODY.)
Oh I’se gittin’ ol’ an’ grizzled,
An’ I haint got long to stay;
My head hab got to noddin’
An’ I haint right well noway.
Oh I’se gwine, gwine to leab you,
An’ doan’ you chillun cry;
Oh I know I’se gwine to leab you
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Chorus.
Oh yes! in de white clouds floatin’ high,
Oh yes! caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I,—
Oh I’se seen—
I’se seen a light,—
I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I’se gwine away to leab you,
An’ doan’ you chillun cry!
Oh I know I’se gwine to leab you
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh dat light am a-gittin’ brightah,
An’ de cloud am a-comin’ nigh,—
Oh I know hits de angels comin’
Fer to carry me home on high.
Oh dese eyes dey’ll nebber see you,—
Hoh my chillun doan’ you cry!—
Twell dey wake in de happy mawnin,
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Chorus.
Oh yes! in de white clouds floatin’ high,
Oh yes! caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I,—
Oh I’se seen—
I’se seen a light,—
I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I’se gwine away to leab you,
An’ doan’ you chillun cry!
Oh I know I’se gwine to leab you
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh good-bye to de ol’ plantation,
De mawnin’ am growin’ gray!—
Oh good-bye, an’ stop yo’ weepin’,—
De mawnin’ am breakin’ Day!
Oh yes! in de heaben dat’s comin’
I’ll meet you by-an’-by!—
Hoh yes! in de happy mawnin’,
Caze you’ll see de Light in de sky!
Chorus.
Oh yes! in de white clouds floatin’ high!
Oh yes! caze you’ll see de Light in de sky!
Oh I,—
Oh I’se seen—
I’se seen a light,—
I’se seen a light in de sky!
Oh I’se gwine, gwine to leab you,
But I’ll meet you by-an’-by!
Oh I know I’se gwine to meet you,
Caze I’se seen a light in de sky.