NIAGARA, AND OTHER POEMS

Niagara, and Other Poems

By

Benjamin Copeland

Buffalo and New York:

The Matthews-Northrup Works

1904

Copyright, 1904,

By

Benjamin Copeland

CONTENTS.

NIAGARA.

Majestic symbol of eternal power!

Dread oracle of eons all unknown!

Before thy presence Pomp and Passion cower,—

All men are equal at thy awful throne.

Abashed, the eager babble of the mart,—

To silence shamed, the vulgar greed for gain;

No more ambition goads the weary heart,

And Toil forgets its unrequited pain.

Stern type of Truth’s inexorable law!

No room remains for envy or for pride;

Here prince and pauper stand in common awe,

Swayed by the spell of thy resistless tide.

A rushing, seething Sinai,—thou dost pour

On sluggish consciences the solemn sense

Of justice infinite:—thy thunder’s roar

Declares to Wrong relentless recompense.

Against our arrogance thy strength doth plead;

Deep unto deep imperiously calls;

Impartial annalist! the nations read

Their transient glory on thy ageless walls.

Yet dost thou deign to dower the moment’s need,—

Our dreams exceeding by thy bounteous sway;

With power unrivaled thy proud flood shall speed

The New World’s progress toward Time’s perfect day.

O mighty monitor! O seer sublime!

The soul’s surpassing grandeur thou dost show;—

The fountains of thy immemorial prime

Through man’s immortal being freely flow.

THE MEADOW AIR IS SWEET.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The cowslip’s cup of gold

Is full of fresh and fragrant dew,—

More full than it can hold.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The blackbird’s mellow note,

Like water in a little brook,

Flows gurgling from his throat.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The stream that cheers the lea

Will feel the willow’s tender kiss,

E’en to the distant sea.

The meadow air is sweet;—

Hark! from the old elm tree:—

Ah! only lovers understand

The oriole’s ecstasy.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The clover, handsome-white,

With dainty odors woos the bee,

And fills her with delight.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The bobolink is there!

When he is mute a faery flute

Seems echoing in the air.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The daisy in the grass

Looks up to see the clouds, and feel

Their shadow as they pass.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The swallow flashes by,

Too merry for a moment’s rest

Between the earth and sky.

The meadow air is sweet;—

The day wanes in the west,

And twilight’s soothing shadows lull

A weary world to rest.

The meadow air is sweet;—

Like altar incense rare,

It blends the robin’s even-song

With the little children’s prayer.

WHEN LIFE WAS LIKE A SUNNY STREAM.

Alas! it seemeth but a dream,—

My childhood’s bright, bright day,

When life was like a sunny stream

Left to its own glad way.

How wonderful the radiant Spring,

In garden, glade, and wood!

Fresh from God’s hand seemed everything,

"And everything was good!"

Close by the door, the apple tree,

From many a fruitful bough,

Its richest blossoms spread for me;—

I feel their fragrance now!

The robin and the oriole,

(I loved them both the same),

Their sweetest songs to me did troll,—

I think they knew my name!

A little brook, from hidden spring,

Ran babbling down the hill;

It seemed to me a living thing,—

I hear its laughter still!

Ah! ours was bliss without alloy,

And friendship fondly leal;—

I brought it human love and joy,—

It turned my water-wheel!

And, tired of play, what peace I found,

As the bright clouds sailed by,

Just to lie down upon the ground

And look into the sky!

Deep, deep, that look of calm delight,

So free from care and pain;—

Would God I might its holy height,

Its sweet repose, regain!

The meadow, and the old elm tree,

The woods, the waterfall,—

Once more they all come back to me;

I see and hear them, all.

I see and hear them, and rejoice;

For forms and faces dear,

Lost long, long since to sight and voice,

Once more to me appear.

And hark! a little child again,—

I hear, with heart abrim,

That tender, ravishing refrain,—

The redbreast’s evening hymn!

So God be praised for that sweet dream,

My childhood’s bright, bright day,—

When life was like a sunny stream

Left to its own glad way.

THE FIRST ROBIN.

Herald of the happy year,

Robin redbreast, art thou here?

Welcome to thy destined goal;

Welcome, songster of the soul!

Age and Childhood find, in thee,

Kindred bond of sympathy;

Hope and memory are one,

In thy song’s sweet unison.

Common freehold all hearts claim

In thy nature’s artless aim;

Best of priests and poets, thou,

Singing on the leafless bough.

Mead and mountain, wood and wold,

Wait the rapture manifold,

Which shall prove thee saint and seer,—

Dearest minstrel of the year!

Every note like April rain,—

Thou transmutest, in thy strain,

With the season’s subtle power,

Winter’s dearth to summer’s dower.

Glows the mold with vernal fire

Kindled by thy love’s desire;

Nature wakens, at thy call,

To her Easter festival.

Mateless messenger divine!

Peerless privilege is thine:—

Thou interpretest to Faith

The deep mystery of death.

THE GOAL.

Sweet scents, sweet sounds, sweet scenes!

With all that intervenes

In sweeter solemn silences profound,—

Whereinto overflows,

In forest, river, rose,

Passionless being, beauty without bound.

How deep the mind’s repose!

The vagrant sea-breeze blows

With kindred pulses through the fragrant shade;

And sod and soul are blent

In blest enfranchisement,—

Prefiguring the end for all things made.

For life and love, supreme

Beyond the poet’s dream,

Shall bear all being to its blissful goal;

The wondrous word is true—

"Lo! I make all things new;"

The universe is ransomed with the soul!

THE REWARD.

From green to gold

The year grows old,

With beautiful increase;

The seasons wane

To ripened grain

And Nature’s deepest peace.

The same sure plan

Is thine, O man!

Alike for sod and soul,

The law of love,—

Enthroned above—

That guides thee to thy goal.

Have faith in God:—

Who gives the clod

Its meed of fruit or flower,

Shall crown thy cares,

Thy tears, thy prayers,

With an immortal dower.

STRENGTH AND BEAUTY.

The Useful and the Beautiful,

Indissolubly blent,

One law reveal, one Will and weal,

In sod and firmament.

The earth below, the sky above,

With flowers and stars are sprent;—

The child to cheer, the saint, the seer,

Their love and light are lent.

For Strength and Beauty equal are,

In Nature’s kind intent,—

The hawthorn hedge, and granite ledge

That binds the continent.

Were wish and will more dutiful,

And life more nobly spent,

Would we not know, with souls aglow,

What such high vision meant?

Ah, yes! our lowliest tasks would then

In heaven’s own glory shine,

And time be told on harps of gold,

In dream and deed divine.

VIOLET, ROSE, AND GOLDEN-ROD.

Violet, rose, and golden-rod!

Blossoms of the self-same sod,

Springing from the breathing mold

Into beauty manifold.

Each its season knoweth well,

Without sign or syllable,—

Faithful to the law benign

Potent over palm and pine.

Excellent in their degree,

Rivals they can never be;

Fashioned with divinest grace,

Each is perfect in its place.

Dear to Childhood and to Age,

Each hath ample heritage

In these human hearts of ours,

Kindred with the leaves and flowers.

Children of the shower and sun,

Soon, like theirs, our day is done;—

We are fading e’en as they,—

We with them must pass away.

But the flowers shall bloom again;

Ends, at last, the winter’s reign;—

Life is larger than a breath,—

Love is master over death!

Precious, in the sight of God,

Violet, rose, and golden-rod;—

Dearer far to Heaven are we,

Children of eternity!

OCTOBER.

Crimson-and-gold, October’s boughs proclaim

The approaching Passion of the waning year;

By sacramental signs, for aye the same,

Pathetic portents show the end is near.

The landscape lessens in the shimmering haze;

The songless silence chants the season’s grief;—

Too soon shall follow, with the darkening days,

The fading field-flower and the falling leaf.

No more allures the lovely glade or glen;

A nameless sorrow haunts the lonely shore;

The frosts have fallen on the hearts of men;

The little children seek the woods no more.

For Nature holds us surely as her own,

In sleet and snow, or under skies of blue;

From birth to death we share her mirth or moan,—

Forever to our faithful mother true.

Yet, in our loneliest hours, alike we feel

The comfort Heaven to wood and wold supplies,—

A hope that doth the season’s sadness heal

And binds us closer still, in tenderest ties.

A kindred impulse stirs our common dust

To look beyond the winter’s dearth and dole,

And find in God, our Life, our Strength, our Trust,

The everlasting summer of the soul.

THE WINDOW OVER THE STABLE-DOOR.
An Idyl of the Common Life.

From the window over the stable-door,

Hark! how the notes of gladness pour!

Like playful brook, their free, clear flow,—

But why such joy I do not know;

For ’tis the coachman’s humble cot;—

The horses share his lowly lot:—

The same roof shelters beast and man;—

So prudently doth Dives plan!

Who here would look to see enshrin’d

A happy heart, a peaceful mind?

The fact exceeds my fancy’s range,—

Yet ’tis as true as it is strange;—

For hark! how the notes of gladness pour

Through the window over the stable-door!

In such secluded spot, I fear

’T were sacrilege to venture near;—

Half guiltily I close the book,

And turn, unseen, an eager look

To the window over the stable-door,

Whence still those notes of gladness pour.

Ah! now the meaning plain I see

Of that sweet-throated mystery;—