A VOYAGE
1909
Breathing the stale and stuffy air
Of office or consulting room,
Our thoughts will wander back to where
We heard the low Atlantic boom,
And, creaming underneath our screw,
We watched the swirling waters break,
Silver filagrees on blue
Spreading fan-wise in our wake.
Cribbed within the city's fold,
Fettered to our daily round,
We'll conjure up the haze of gold
Which ringed the wide horizon round.
And still we'll break the sordid day
By fleeting visions far and fair,
The silver shield of Vigo Bay,
The long brown cliff of Finisterre.
Where once the Roman galley sped,
Or Moorish corsair spread his sail,
By wooded shore, or sunlit head,
By barren hill or sea-washed vale
We took our way. But we can swear,
That many countries we have scanned,
But never one that could compare
With our own island mother-land.
The dream is o'er. No more we view
The shores of Christian or of Turk,
But turning to our tasks anew,
We bend us to our wonted work.
But there will come to you and me
Some glimpse of spacious days gone
by,
The wide, wide stretches of the sea,
The mighty curtain of the sky,
THE ORPHANAGE
When, ere the tangled web is reft,
The kid-gloved villain scowls and
sneers,
And hapless innocence is left
With no assets save sighs and tears,
'Tis then, just then, that in there stalks
The hero, watchful of her needs;
He talks, Great heavens how he talks!
But we forgive him, for his deeds.
Life is the drama here to-day
And Death the villain of the plot.
It is a realistic play.
Shall it end well or shall it not?
The hero? Oh, the hero's part
Is vacant — to be played by you.
Then act it well! An orphan's heart
May beat the lighter if you do.
SEXAGENARIUS LOQUITUR
From our youth to our age
We have passed each stage
In old immemorial order,
From primitive days
Through flowery ways
With love like a hedge as their border.
Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy,
And we were the king and the queen,
When I was a year
Short of thirty, my dear,
And you were just nearing nineteen.
But dark follows light
And day follows night
As the old planet circles the sun;
And nature still traces
Her score on our faces
And tallies the years as they run.
Have they chilled the old warmth in your
heart?
I swear that they have not in mine,
Though I am a year
Short of sixty, my dear,
And you are — well, say thirty-nine.
NIGHT VOICES
Father, father, who is that a-whispering?
Who is it who whispers in the wood?
You say it is the breeze
As it sighs among the trees,
But there's some one who whispers in the
wood.
Father, father, who is that a-murmuring?
Who is it who murmurs in the night?
You say it is the roar
Of the wave upon the shore,
But there's some one who murmurs in the
night.
Father, father, who is that who laughs
at us?
Who is it who chuckles in the glen?
Oh, father, let us go,
For the light is burning low,
And there's somebody laughing in the
glen.
Father, father, tell me what you're waiting
for,
Tell me why your eyes are on the
door.
It is dark and it is late,
But you sit so still and straight,
Ever staring, ever smiling, at the door.