“I am his trusted friend. Unflagging,
I help him win his daily bread.
Though heart may ache, or thought be lagging,
Still must the ink be ever shed.
Yet oft he lays me down, and, sighing,
Looks through the casement at the stars;
And then I know his soul is trying
Vainly to pass beyond its bars.
“A soldier in the war of labor,
He battles on, from day to day,
Swinging the gold-compelling sabre,
Nor finding time to pluck a spray.
Nay, more! he must, through glorious bowers,
Press harshly on, with heavy tread,
Crushing to earth the beauteous flowers
With which he fain had wreathed thy head.”
The Muse grew pensive. Softly sighing,
She said: “Now pity him I can.
Strong, purposeful and self-denying,
Here I have what I seek, a Man.
Would that this noble self-surrender,
These high resolves, this purpose stern,
Might yet the grander verse engender,
And brighter make his genius burn!
“How grief must gnaw his heart asunder
As still Fate balks him, day by day!”
“Nay!” cried the Pen, “thou may’st wonder,
But know, my master’s heart is gay.
Perchance at times, a pang concealing,
His face grows sad; but not for long,
For sweet, loved arms, around him stealing,
Fill all his soul with unvoiced song.”
The Muse above the table bending,
Laid her warm lips upon the Pen,
A thrill throughout its fibres sending:
“This for thy master.” Slowly then,
She passed away; and after, never
The writer labored, but a throng
Of fancies cheered him, singing ever:
“The Muse hath crowned each unvoiced song.”
THE BEAVER MEADOW.
’Tis a meadow green as an emerald’s heart
In the heart of an emerald wood,
And a crystal stream doth loiter and dart
Through the sun-smitten solitude.
The orioles glance like flashes of fire
From foliaged limb to limb,
And the harsh frogs pipe in a ceaseless choir
From the marsh, when day grows dim.
When the grey, cold Dawn in her robes of mist,
O’er meadow and wood and stream,
Looks forth from her tower of amethyst,
She sees the wild duck gleam
In the slender reeds that have waded out,
Far out, in the sinuous brook,
And she hears the loon, like a wary scout,
Shrill keen from his secret nook.
Long years ago when our fathers first,
Fearless and full of hope,
With love of venture and wealth athirst,
O’er river and mountain slope,
To this woodland came, a lakelet lay
As bright as a burnished shield,
Where now the rivulet waters play,
And the loud frogs pipe, concealed.
And a wonderful town with its sunward domes,
And wondrous people stood,
Where the deep mouthed frogs have now their homes,
And the wild ducks lurk and brood.
Grand were the fronts and the pictured walls
Of the Inca’s ancient sway,
But the town that stood where the streamlet calls,
More wondrous was than they.