Poems

by S. C. Mercer

Swift round the ring rode the Ten Brothers Brown,
Till the bugle sounds “Halt!” for award of the crown.
By what rule of the Fair shall the Judges decree?
Horsemen, horses, or mother—to which of the three?
There was strewing of flowers, kerchiefs waving galore
Acclamations round the vast amphitheatre roar
As waves boom aloud ’gainst the rocks on the shore,
As around the grand stand the brothers rode up
The Judges with one voice cried, “Take, O Mother, this cup,
Far better and higher than wealth, rank or beauty,
Your sons are your jewels—take the high prize of Duty,
For Motherhood’s Excellence is guarded secure
While Truth reigns on high and the heavens endure!”

ECHO RIVER.

Through the unpeopled realms of night
We have reached the Echo River;
And our swinging torches’ light
Over its sunless waters quiver—
Shooting their rays athwart the gloom
Of yonder stern, colossal tomb;
Emblazoning the funeral pall
Of night, that drapes the high-arched hall,
So dense, we almost hear it wave
Over the Titan’s rocky grave—
Once the dread Cyclops of the Cave.

What bold Ulysses, standing by,
Gazed on his dying agony,
When, blind and frenzied, he laid down
His scepter and imperial crown,
And yielded up his struggling breath
In this stern catacomb of death;
And felt the icy shiver
That chilled the fever’s fiery parch,
When took his soul its Stygian march
Adown the dark and stony arch
Of gloomy Echo River?

Lone as the tarn, whose sobbing flood
Sighs in some demon-haunted wood,
Its cheerless waters ever run
Without one welcome from the sun;
Without a smile from one lone star
That trembles in the sky afar;
But wend their solitary way,
Secluded from the light of day.

Kind Genii of the mystic wave,
Who guard the portals of the cave,
Gently along this sable tide
Now let our little shallop glide;
And by these weird and shadowy shores
Direct the dusky boatman’s oars,
Until yon night-enshrouded strand
Receives our wandering pilgrim band

High towering, like the rocky walls
Of the leviathan’s ocean halls,
Rises the overshadowing cliff
Above our frail but daring skiff,
Which skims along this lower deep,
Where angry tempests never sweep
Nor polar star affords its ray
To steer us on our trackless way.
And as we slowly sail along,
The plashing oar, the voice of song,
Caught by the Naiads of the waves
And echoed by the vocal caves,
Enchant the pleased yet startled ear
With strains that ring as loud and clear
As the wild mountain music—born
From the lone Alpine shepherd’s horn,
In peals so loud that they affright
The lammergeyer on dizzy height;
And the bold eagle’s trumpet shriek,
Loud-bugled from his thunder beak
And echoed round from peak to peak,
In hollow cadence dies away
Along the mountain river,
When the first stars of evening gray
On the blue waters quiver.

* * * * * * * *

Boom! rings the flashing pistol’s shot!
The sound, by myriad echoes caught,
Roars down the dark aisles of the grot;
Loud as the earthquake demon’s groan,
Peals the terrific thunder-tone—
As if the shrieking blasts of March,
That wrestle with the mountain larch,
Swept down the dark and stony arch
Of glory’s Echo River.

’Tis gone! and now a sad farewell
Unto the listening waves we tell;
Softer than midnight serenade
Sung to the ears of Spanish maid
By the blue Guadalquiver!
Plaintive and sweet as “Dixie”‘s air
Of sadness which is not despair
And ravishes the enchanted ear
Of home-returning volunteer—
By his dear Bluegrass maiden sung,
To mandolin with silver tongue.
And witching is the fond adieu
The voice of beauty sings to you—
O, music-murmuring river!
For one, whose eyes and flowing locks
Are darker than the raven’s wing
Of midnight, brooding o’er yon rocks,
Touches the plaintive sounding string,
And pours a melancholy song
That floats the vocal stream along,
Sad as the convent’s vesper hymn,
Chanted by nuns, at twilight dim,
Or that strange harp, whose magic tone
So wildly sweet, so sad and lone,
To mortal minstrel never known,
On night winds wafts its hollow moan.
The ravished Genii of the waves
Repeat the story through the caves;
And far along the tuneful flood,
A never-ending multitude
Of echoing Ariels take their flight
Far down the dark aisles of the night.