SONNETS
LUX EX ORIENTE
(Inscription on Haskal hall, University of Chicago)
A feeble light of mummy-cloth and bones,
From crumbling coffins and the broken tombs,
From hieroglyphic mysteries on stones,
Removed from pyramidal catacombs,
Or sacred rock-hewn shrines where silence, and
Dark night have reigned five thousand years,—
A flick’ring flame, hid ’neath the desert sand,
And now revived, until its brightness clears
The gloom of history, thanks to the toil
Of sages who are following its gleam
Into the hoary past, and there the oil
Of wisdom find which turns the agelong dream
Of resurrection to reality,
And Egypt from Oblivion sets free.
ON THE STATUE OF VOLTAIRE
(In the Art Institute, Chicago)
He looks upon the daily passing throng,
As in his day he gazed upon the world,
With cynic smile while it did pass along
With standards of its varied creeds unfurled;
Upon his forehead, reason’s citadel,
His searching thoughts have left their runic stamp;
The meager hands and neck the story tell,
How frail the temple of his spirit’s lamp;
In classic robe and fillet does he sit,
The poet-critic of France’ golden age,
By whom the torch of liberty was lit,
In truth and beauty on the written page;—
And work and freedom in this sage did find
Their true apostle to all humankind.
A VENETIAN WELL-HEAD (XV CENTURY)
(In the Gothic room of the Minneapolis Art Institute)
When I behold these grooves, cut in the edge
Of Istrian marble by the bucket-ropes,
Thy ancient history its romance opes
From Zorzi palace garden and its hedge:
I see the dark-eyed maidens, near the ledge,
And plumed signors feeding ardent hopes
From glances darting o’er thy watery slopes:
Or hear the lovers whisper soft their pledge,
As deep and pure as was thy cooling drink,—
The fount of life, the elixir of youth,
The well-spring of Venetian art and song,
When truth was beauty and all beauty truth;—
Even now thy charms can make the weary strong,
While pausing at thy side to dream and think.
THE PROSPECT
A youth lay stretched upon the new-mown hay,
In woodland meadow, near a winding stream,
And gazed at summer-clouds so far away,
And who can tell the substance of his dream?—
A span of horses and a rusty rake
Stood near him, where his father made repair,—
The ground was rough, and things did sometimes break,
And added trouble to the toiler’s care;—
At last the rake was fixed, the boy arose
To take his place upon its iron-stool,
And doing so, he said: “Do you suppose
That I can go away, this fall, to school?”
To which his father answered: “We will see,—
If you work hard, till snow flies, it may be.”