Proud stands the ship to the sea, fair breezes belly her sails;
Strong masted, stanch in her shrouds, stanch in her beams and her bones;
Bound for Hesperian isles—for the isles of the plantain and palm,
Hope walks her deck with a smile and Confidence stands at the helm;
Proudly she turns to the sea and walks like a queen on the waves.
Caught in the grasp of the tempest, lashed by the fiends of the storm,
Torn into shreds are her sails, tumbled her masts to the main;
Rudderless, rolling she drives and groans in the grasp of the sea;
Harbor or hope there is none; she goes to her grave in the brine:
Dead in the fathomless slime lie the bones of the ship and her crew.
Such was the promise of life; so is the promise fulfilled.
Down into the darkness at last, Daniel,—down into the darkness at last;
Laid in the lap of our Mother, Daniel,—sleeping the dreamless sleep,—
Sleeping the sleep of the babe unborn—the pure and the perfect rest:
Aye, and is it not better than this fitful fever and pain?
Aye, and is it not better, if only the dead soul knew?
Over your grave the tempest may roar or the zephyr sigh;
Over your grave the blue-bells may blink or the snow-drifts whirl,—
Dead Ashes, what do you care?—they break not the sleep of the dead.
They that were friends may mourn, they that were friends may praise;
They that knew you and yet—knew you never—may cavil and blame;
They that were foes in disguise may strike at you down in the grave;
Slander, the scavenger-buzzard—may vomit her lies on you there;
Dead Ashes, what do you care?—they break not the sleep of the dead.
The hoarse, low voice of the years croaks on forever-and-aye:
Change! Change! Change! and the winters wax and wane.
The old oak dies in the forest; the acorn sprouts at its feet;
The sea gnaws on at the land; the continent crowds on the sea.
Bound to the Ixion wheel with brazen fetters of fate
Man rises up from the dust and falls to the dust again.
God washes our eyes with tears, and still they are blinded with dust:
We grope in the dark and marvel, and pray to the Power unknown—
Crying for help to the desert: not even an echo replies.
Doomed unto death like the moon, like the midget that men call man,
Wrinkled with age and agony the old Earth rolls her rounds;
Shrinking and shuddering she rolls—an atom in God's great sea—
Only an atom of dust in the infinite ocean of space.
What to him are the years who sleeps in her bosom there?
What to him is the cry wrung out of the souls of men?
Change, Change, Change, and the sea gnaws on at the land:
Dead Ashes, what do you care?—it breaks not the sleep of the dead.
Down into the darkness at last, Daniel,—down into the darkness at last;
Laid in the lap of our Mother, Daniel,—sleeping the dreamless sleep,—
Sleeping the sleep of the babe unborn—the pure and the perfect rest:
Aye, and is it not better than this fitful fever and pain?
Aye, and is it not better if only the dead soul knew?
Up—out of the darkness at last, Daniel,—out of the darkness at last;
Into the light of the life eternal—into the sunlight of God,
Singing the song of the soul immortal freed from the fetters of flesh:
Aye, and is it not better than this fitful fever and pain?
Aye, and is it not better than sleeping the dreamless sleep?
Hark! from the reel of the spheres eternal the freed soul answereth "Aye."
Aye—Aye—Aye—it is better, brothers, if it be but the dream of the famished soul.
MINNETONKA[[BZ]]
I sit once more on breezy shore, at sunset in this glorious June,
I hear the dip of gleaming oar, I list the singers' merry tune.
Beneath my feet the waters beat, and ripple on the polished stones,
The squirrel chatters from his seat; the bag-pipe beetle hums and drones.
The pink and gold in blooming wold,—the green hills mirrored in the lake!
The deep, blue waters, zephyr-rolled, along the murmuring pebbles break.
The maples screen the ferns, and lean the leafy lindens o'er the deep;
The sapphire, set in emerald green, lies like an Orient gem asleep.
The crimson west glows like the breast of Rhuddin[[CB]] when he pipes in May,
As downward droops the sun to rest, and shadows gather on the bay.
In amber sky the swallows fly and sail and circle o'er the deep;
The light-winged night-hawks whir and cry; the silver pike and salmon leap.
The rising moon, o'er isle and dune, looks laughing down on lake and lea;
Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea.
From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping forth his flute-like notes,
And clear and shrill the answers trill from leafy isles and silver throats.
The twinkling light on cape and height; the hum of voices on the shores;
The merry laughter on the night; the dip and plash of frolic oars,—
These tell the tale. On hill and dale the cities pour their gay and fair;
Along the sapphire lake they sail, and quaff like wine the balmy air.
'Tis well. Of yore from isle and shore the smoke of Indian teepees[[CC]] rose;
The hunter plied the silent oar; the forest lay in still repose.
The moon-faced maid, in leafy glade, her warrior waited from the chase;
The nut-brown, naked children played, and chased the gopher on the grass.
The dappled fawn on wooded lawn, peeped out upon the birch canoe,
Swift-gliding in the gray of dawn along the silent waters blue.
In yonder tree the great Wanm-dee[[CD]] securely built her spacious nest;
The blast that swept the landlocked sea[[CE]] but rocked her clamorous babes to rest.
By grassy mere the elk and deer gazed on the hunter as he came;
Nor fled with fear from bow or spear;—"so wild were they that they were tame."
Ah, birch canoe, and hunter, too, have long forsaken lake and shore;
He bade his fathers' bones adieu and turned away forevermore.
But still, methinks, on dusky brinks the spirit of the warrior moves;
At crystal springs the hunter drinks, and nightly haunts the spot he loves.
For oft at night I see the light of lodge-fires on the shadowy shores,
And hear the wail some maiden's sprite above her slaughtered warrior pours.
I hear the sob, on Spirit Knob,[[CA]] of Indian mother o'er her child;
And on the midnight waters throb her low yun-he-he's[[CF]] weird and wild:
And sometimes, too, the light canoe glides like a shadow o'er the deep
At midnight when the moon is low, and all the shores are hushed in sleep.
Alas,—Alas!—for all things pass; and we shall vanish too, as they;
We build our monuments of brass, and granite, but they waste away.
[Illustration: CRYSTAL BAY LAKE MINNETONKA]