Songs at the Start

Songs at the Start

BY
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY

“And we sail on, away, afar,

Without a course, without a star,

But by the instinct of sweet music driven.”

Shelley: Prometheus Unbound.

BOSTON
CUPPLES, UPHAM AND COMPANY
1884

Copyright,
By Louise Imogen Guiney,
1884.
C. J. PETERS AND SON,
STEREOTYPERS AND ELECTROTYPERS,
145 High Street.

ERRATA.

Page 10. Third line: read haunt for haunts.

Page 26. Tenth and eleventh lines: omit the word no.

[Transcriber’s Note: These changes have been made to the text.]

THIS
FIRST SLIGHT OUTCOME OF TASTES TRANSMITTED BY
MY FATHER,
Is Inscribed to His Friend and Mine,
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.

CONTENTS.

Songs at the Start.

GLOUCESTER HARBOR.

North from the beautiful islands,

North from the headlands and highlands,

The long sea-wall,

The white ships flee with the swallow;

The day-beams follow and follow,

Glitter and fall.

The brown ruddy children that fear not,

Lean over the quay, and they hear not

Warnings of lips;

For their hearts go a-sailing, a-sailing,

Out from the wharves and the wailing

After the ships.

Nothing to them is the golden

Curve of the sands, or the olden

Haunt of the town;

Little they reck of the peaceful

Chiming of bells, or the easeful

Sport on the down:

The orchards no longer are cherished;

The charm of the meadow has perished:

Dearer, ay me!

The solitude vast, unbefriended,

The magical voice and the splendid

Fierce will of the sea.

Beyond them, by ridges and narrows

The silver prows speed like the arrows

Sudden and fair;

Like the hoofs of Al Borak the wondrous,

Lost in the blue and the thund’rous

Depths of the air;

On to the central Atlantic,

Where passionate, hurrying, frantic

Elements meet;

To the play and the calm and commotion

Of the treacherous, glorious ocean,

Cruel and sweet.

In the hearts of the children forever

She fashions their growing endeavor,

The pitiless sea;

Their sires in her caverns she stayeth,

The spirits that love her she slayeth,

And laughs in her glee.

Woe, woe, for the old fascination!

The women make deep lamentation

In starts and in slips;

Here always is hope unavailing,

Here always the dreamers are sailing

After the ships!

LEONORE.

You scarce can mark her flying feet

Or bear her eyelids’ flash a space;

Her passing by is like the sweet

Blown odor of some tropic place;

She has a voice, a smile sincere,

The blitheness of the nascent year,

April’s growth and grace;

All youth, all force, all fire and stress

In her impassioned gentleness,

Half exhortation, half caress.

A thing of peace and of delight,—

A fountain sparkling in the sun,

Reflecting heavenly shapes by night,—

Her moods thro’ ordered beauty run.

Light be the storm that she must know,

And branches greener after snow

For hope to build upon;

Late may the tear of memory start,

And Love, who is her counterpart,

Be tender with that lily-heart!

A BALLAD OF METZ.

Léon went to the wars,

True soul without a stain;

First at the trumpet-call,

Thy son, Lorraine!

Never a mighty host

Thrilled so with one desire;

Never a past Crusade

Lit nobler fire.

And he, among the rest,

Smote foemen in the van,—

No braver blood than his

Since time began.

And mild and fond was he,

And sensitive as a leaf;—

Just Heaven! that he was this,

Is half my grief!

We followed where the last

Detachment led away,

At Metz, an evil-starred

And bitter day.

Some of us had been hurt

In the first hot assault,

Yet wills were slackened not,

Nor feet at fault.

We hurried on to the front;

Our banners were soiled and rent;

Grim riflemen, gallants all,

Our captain sent.

A Prussian lay by a tree

Rigid as ice, and pale,

And sheltered out of the reach

Of battle-hail.

His cheek was hollow and white,

Parched was his purpled lip;

Tho’ bullets had fastened on

Their leaden grip,

Tho’ ever he gasped and called,

Called faintly from the rear,

What of it? And all in scorn

I closed mine ear.

The very colors he wore,

They burnt and bruised my sight;

The greater his anguish, so

Was my delight.

We laughed a savage laugh,

Who loved our land too well,

Giving its enemies hate

Unspeakable:

But Léon, kind heart, poor heart,

Clutched me around the arm;

“He faints for water!” he said,

“It were no harm

To soothe a wounded man

Already on death’s rack.”

He seized his brimming gourd,

And hurried back.

The foeman grasped it quick

With wild eyes, ’neath whose lid

A coiled and viper-like look

Glittered and hid.

He raised his shattered frame

Up from the grassy ground,

And drank with the loud, mad haste

Of a thirsty hound.

Léon knelt by his side,

One hand beneath his head;

Not kinder the water than

The words he said.

He rose and left him so,

Stretched on the grassy plot,

The viper-like flame in his eyes

Alas! forgot.

Léon with easy gait

Strode on; he bared his hair,

Swinging his army cap,

Humming an air.

Just as he neared the troops,

Over there by the stream—

Good God! a sudden snap

And a lurid gleam.

I wrenched my bandaged arm

With the horror of the start:

Léon was low at my feet,

Shot thro’ the heart.

Do you think an angel told

Whose hands the deed had done?

To the Prussian we dashed back,

Mute, every one.

Do you think we stopped to curse,

Or wailing feebly, stood?

Do you think we spared who shed

A friend’s sweet blood?

Ha! vengeance on the fiend:

We smote him as if hired;

I most of them, and more

When they had tired.

I saw the deep eye lose

Its dastard, steely blue:

I saw the trait’rous breast

Pierced thro’ and thro’.

His musket, smoking yet,

Unhanded, lay beside;

Three times three thousand deaths

That Prussian died.

And he, my brother, Léon,

Lies, too, upon the plain:

O teach no more Christ’s mercy,

Thy sons, Lorraine!

[This incident actually befell a private in a Massachusetts volunteer regiment, belonging to the Fifth Corps, at the battle of Malvern Hill.]

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

You were a haughty beauty, Polly,

(That was in the play,)

I was the lover melancholy;

(That was in the play.)

And when your fan and you receded,

And all my passion lay unheeded,

If still with tenderer words I pleaded,

That was in the play!

I met my rival at the gateway,

(That was in the play,)

And so we fought a duel straightway;

(That was in the play.)

But when Jack hurt my arm unduly,

And you rushed over, softened newly,

And kissed me, Polly! truly, truly,

Was that in the play?

DIVINATION BY AN EASTER LILY.

Out of the Lenten gloom it springs,

Out of the wintry land,

White victor-flower with breath of myrrh,

Joy’s oracle and harbinger;

I take it in my hand,

I fold it to my lips, and know

That death is overpast,

That blessèd is thy glad release,

And thou with Christ art full of peace,

Dear heart in Heaven! at last.

THE RIVAL SINGERS.

Two marvellous singers of old had the city of Florence,—

She that is loadstar of pilgrims, Florence the beautiful,—

Who sang but thro’ bitterest envy their exquisite music,

Each for o’ercoming the other, as fierce as the seraphs

At the dread battle pre-mundane, together down-wrestling.

And once when the younger, surpassing the best at a festival,

Thrilled the impetuous people, O singing so rarely!

That up on their shoulders they raised him, and carried him straightway

Over the threshold, ’mid ringing of belfries and shouting,

Till into his pale cheek mounted a color like morning

(For he was Saxon in blood) that made more resplendent

The gold of his hair for an aureole round and above him,

Seeing which, called his adorers aloud, thanking Heaven

That sent down an angel to sing for them, taking their homage;—

While this came to pass in the city, one marked it, and harbored

A purpose which followed endlessly on, like his shadow.

Therefore at night, as a vine that aye clambering stealthily

Slips by the stones to an opening, came the assassin,

And left the deep sleeper by moonlight, the Saxon hair dabbled

With red, and the brave voice smitten to death in his bosom.

Now this was the end of the hate and the striving and singing.

But the Italian thro’ Florence, his city familiar,

Fared happily ever, none knowing the crime and the passion,

Winning honor and guerdon in peaceful and prosperous decades,

Supreme over all, and rejoiced with the cheers and the clanging.

Carissima! what? and you wonder the world did not loathe him?

Child, he lived long, and was lauded, and died very famous.

AFTER THE STORM.

I.

Now that the wind is tamed and broken,

And day gleams over the lea,

Row, row, for the one you love

Was out on the raging sea:

Row, row, row,

Sturdy and brave o’er the treacherous wave,

Hope like a beacon before,

Row, sailor, row

Out to the sea from the shore!

II.

O, the oar that was once so merry,

O, but the mournful oar!

Row, row; God steady your arm

To the dark and desolate shore:

Row, row, row,

With your own love dead, and her wet gold head

Laid there at last on your knee,

Row, sailor, row,

Back to the shore from the sea!

HEMLOCK RIVER.

On that river, where their will is,

Grow the tranquil-hearted lilies;

In and out, with summer cadence,

Brown o’erbrimming waters slide;

Shade is there and mossy quiet,—

O but go thou never nigh it!

Ghosts of three unhappy maidens

Float upon its bosom wide.

ON ONE POET REFUSING HOMAGE TO ANOTHER.

A name all read and many rue

Chanced on the idle talk of two;

I saw the listener doubt and falter

Till came the rash reproof anew.

Then on his breath arose a sigh,

And in the flashes of reply

I saw the great indignant shower

Surcharge the azure of his eye.

Said he: “’Neath our accord intense

At mutual shrines of soul and sense,

Flows, like a subterraneous river,

This last and only difference.

“Behold, I am with anguish torn

That you should name his name in scorn,

And use it as an April flower

Plucked from his grave and falsely worn:

“Thrice better his renown were not!

And he in silence lay forgot,

Than to exhale a strife unending

Should be his gentle memory’s lot.

“How can you, freedom in your reach,

Nurse your high thought on others’ speech,

And follow after brawling critics

Reiterating blame with each?

“The world’s ill judgments roll and roll

Nor touch that shy, evasive soul,

Whose every tangled hour of living

God draws to issues fair and whole.

“It grieves me less that, purely good,

His aims are darkly understood,

Than that your spirit jars unkindly

Against its golden brotherhood.

“Et tu, Brute! Where he hath flown

On kindred wing you cross the zone,

And yet for hate, thro’ lack of knowing,

Austerely misconstrue your own.

“No closer wave and wave at sea

Than he and you for grace should be;

I would endure the chains of bondage

That you might share this truth with me!

“A leaf’s light strength should break the wind,

Ere my desire, your wilful mind;

If I should waste my lips in pleading,

Or drain my heart, you still were blind,

“Still warring on the citadels

Of Truth remotely, till her bells

Rouse me, your friend, to old defiance,—

Tho’ dear you be in all things else,—

“And tho’ my hope the day-star is

Of broadening eternities,

Wherein, the shadows cleared forever,

Your cordial hand shall rest in his.”

BROTHER BARTHOLOMEW.

Brother Bartholomew, working-time,

Would fall into musing and drop his tools;

Brother Bartholomew cared for rhyme

More than for theses of the schools;

And sighed, and took up his burden so,

Vowed to the Muses, for weal or woe.

At matins he sat, the book on his knees,

But his thoughts were wandering far away;

And chanted the evening litanies

Watching the roseate skies grow gray,

Watching the brightening starry host

Flame like the tongues at Pentecost.

“A foolish dreamer, and nothing more;

The idlest fellow a cell could hold;”

So murmured the worthy Isidor,

Prior of ancient Nithiswold;

Yet pitiful, with dispraise content,

Signed never the culprit’s banishment.

Meanwhile Bartholomew went his way

And patiently wrote in his sunny cell;

His pen fast travelled from day to day;

His books were covered, the walls as well.

“But O for the monk that I miss, instead

Of this listless rhymer!” the Prior said.

Bartholomew dying, as mortals must,

Not unbelov’d of the cowlèd throng,

Thereafter, they took from the dark and dust

Of shelves and of corners, many a song

That cried loud, loud to the farthest day,

How a bard had arisen,—and passed away.

Wonderful verses! fair and fine,

Rich in the old Greek loveliness;

The seer-like vision, half divine;

Pathos and merriment in excess.

And every perfect stanza told

Of love and of labor manifold.

The King came out and stood beside

Bartholomew’s taper-lighted bier,

And turning to his lords, he sighed:

“How worn and wearied doth he appear,—

Our noble poet,—now he is dead!”

“O tireless worker!” the Prior said.

RESERVE.

You that are dear, O you above the rest!

Forgive him his evasive moods and cold;

The absence that belied him oft of old,

The war upon sad speech, the desperate jest,

And pity’s wildest gush but half-confessed,

Forgive him! Let your gentle memories hold

Some written word once tender and once bold,

Or service done shamefacedly at best,

Whereby to judge him. All his days he spent,

Like one who with an angel wrestled well,

O’ermastering Love with show of light disdain;

And whatsoe’er your spirits underwent,

He, wounded for you, worked no miracle

To make his heart’s allegiance wholly plain.

PATRIOT CHORUS ON THE EVE OF WAR.

In thy holy need, our country,

Shatter other idols straightway;

Quench our household fires before us,

Reap the pomp of harvests low;

Strike aside each glad ambition

Born of youth and golden leisure,

Leave us only to remember

Faith we swore thee long ago!

All the passionate sweep of heart-strings,

Thirst and famine, din of battle,

All the wild despair and sorrow

That were ever or shall be,

Are too little, are too worthless,

Laid along thine upward pathway

As with our souls’ strength we lay them,

Stepping-stones, O Love! for thee.

If we be thy burden-bearers,

Let us ease thee of thy sorrow;

If our hands be thine avengers,

Life or death, they shall not fail;

If thy heart be just and tender,

Wrong us not with hesitation:

Take us, trust us, lead us, love us,

Till the eternal Truth prevail!

LO AND LU.

When we began this never-ended

Kind companionship,

Childish greetings lit the splendid

Laughter at the lip;

You were ten and I eleven;

Henceforth, as we knew,

Was all the mischief under heaven

Set down to Lo and Lu.

Long we fought and cooed together,

Held an equal reign,

Snowballs could we fire and gather,

Twine a clover chain;

Sing in G an A flat chorus

’Mid the tuneful crew,—

No harmonious angels o’er us

Taught us, Lo or Lu.

Pleasant studious times have seen us

Arm-in-arm of yore,

Learnèd books, well-thumbed between us,

Spread along the floor;

Perched in pine-tops, sunk in barley,

Rogues, where rogues were few,

Right or wrong, in deed and parley,

Comrades, Lo and Lu.

Which could leap where banks were wider,

Mock the cat-bird’s call?

Which preside and pop the cider

At a festival?

Who became the finer Stoic

Stabbing trouble thro’,

Thrilled to hear of things heroic

Oftener, Lo or Lu?

Earliest, blithest! then and ever

Mirror of my heart!

Grow we old and wise and clever

Now, so far apart;

Still as tender as a mother’s

Floats our prayer for two;

Neither yet can spare the other’s

“God bless—Lo and Lu!”

HER VOICE.

A lark from cloud to cloud along

In wildest labyrinths of song,—

So jubilant and proud and strong;

A ray that climbs the garden wall

And leaps the height at evenfall,—

So clear, so faint, so mystical;

A summer fragrance on the breeze,

A shower upon the lilied leas,

A sunburst over violet seas,

A wand of light, a fairy spell

Beyond a faltering lip to tell;

Bright Music’s perfect miracle.

Still live the gift outrunning praise,

Inviolate from this earthly place

And fitly pure for heavenly days,

Sincerity its stay and guard,

A glowing nature, happy-starred,

Its dwelling now and afterward!

Where’er that gentle heart shall be,

Responsive to their source I see

The fount and form of melody;

And my foreshadowed spirit drawn

Of hindrance free, and unforlorn,

To list thro’ some ambrosial dawn,

To follow with oblivious eyes

The old delight, the fresh surprise,

Adown the glades of Paradise!

AN EPITAPH.

Fugitive to nobler air,

Dead avow thee who shall dare?

Freeborn spirit, eagle heart,

Full of life thou wert and art!

Tender was thy glance, and bland;

Honor swayed thy giving hand;

Sweet as fragrance on the sense

Stole thy rich intelligence,

And thy coming, like the spring,

Moved the saddest lips to sing.

Wealth above all argosies!

Sunshine of our drooping eyes!

Be to Heaven, for Heaven’s desert,

Fair as unto us thou wert.

Tho’ the groping breezes moan

Here about thy burial-stone,

Never sorrow’s lightest breath

Links thy happy name with death,

Lest therein our love should be,

Thou that livest! false to thee.

THE FALCON AND THE LILY.

My darling rides across the sand;

The wind is warm, the wind is bland;

It lifts the pony’s glossy mane,

So light and proud she holds his rein.

Not easier bears a leaf the dew

Than she her scarf and kirtle blue,

And on her wrist, in bells and jess,

The falcon perched for idleness.

That merry bird, O would I were!

In joy with her, in joy with her.

My darling comes not from her bower,

The lowered pennon sweeps the tower;

The larches droop their tassels low,

And bells are marshalled to and fro.

My heart, my heart, beholds her now,

The pallid hands, the saintly brow,

The lily with chill death oppressed

Against the summer of her breast:

That lily pale, O would I were!

In peace with her, in peace with her.

BOSTON, FROM THE BRIDGE.

This night my heart’s world-roaming dreams are met,

The while I gaze across the river-brim,

Beyond the anchored ships with cordage dim,

To the clear lights, that like a coronet

On thee, my noble city, nobly set,

Along thy summits trail their golden rim.

Peril forsake thee! so shall peal my hymn;

Glory betide thee! Nor may men forget,

Shelter of scholars, poets, artisans!

The sap that filled the perfect vein of Greece,

And hung with bloom her fair, illustrious tree,

Unheeded, thro’ dull eras made advance,

Unfruitful, stole to topmost boughs in peace

Twice centuries twelve; and flowered again in thee.

THE RED AND YELLOW LEAF.

The red and yellow leaf

Came down upon the wind,

Across the ripened grain;

The red and yellow leaf,

Before me and behind,

Sang shrilly in my brain:

“Pride and growth of spring,

Ease, and olden cheer,

Shall no longer be:

What benighted thing,

Dreamer, dost thou here?

Follow, follow me!

“Youth is done, and skill;

What is any trust

Any more to thee?

Pale thou art and chill;

All of love is dust:

Follow, follow me!”

“Thou red and yellow leaf,

O whither?” from my staff

I called adown the wind;

The red and yellow leaf,

I heard its mocking laugh

Before me and behind!

“POETE MY MAISTER CHAUCER.”[A]

Somewhere, sometime, I walked a field wherein

The daisies held high festival in white,

Thinking: Alas! he with a young delight

Among them once his golden web did spin;

He who made half-divine an olden inn,

The Tabard; sung of Ariadne bright,

And penned of Sarra’s king at fall of night,

“Where now I leave, there will I fresh begin.”

Then straightway heard I merry laughter rise

From one that wrote, thrown on a daisy-bed,

Who, seeing the two-fold wonder in mine eyes,

Spake, lifting up his fair and reverend head:

“Child! this is the earth-completing Paradise,

And thou, that strayest here, art centuries dead.”

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Lydgate so calls him,

. . . . “of righte and equitie,

Since he in Englishe in rhyming was the beste.”

MOUNT AUBURN IN MAY.

This is earth’s liberty-day:

Yonder the linden-trees sway

To music of winds from the west,

And I hear the old merry refrain,

Of the stream that has broken its chain

By the gates of the City of Rest,

The City whose exquisite towers

I see thro’ the sunny long hours

If but from my window I lean;

Yea, dearest! thy threshold of stone,

Thine ivy-grown door and my own

Have naught save the river between.

Thine on that heavenly height

Are beauty, and warmth, and delight;

And long as our parting shall be,

Live there in thy summer! nor know

How near lie the frost and the snow

On hearts that are breaking for thee.

AMONG THE FLAGS
IN DORIC HALL, MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE.

Dear witnesses, all luminous, eloquent,

Stacked thickly on the tesselated floor!

The soldier-blood stirs in me, as of yore

In sire and grandsire who to battle went:

I seem to know the shaded valley tent,

The armed and bearded men, the thrill of war,

Horses that prance to hear the cannon roar,

Shrill bugle-calls, and camp-fire merriment.

And as fair symbols of heroic things,

Not void of tears mine eyes must e’en behold

These banners lovelier as the deeper marred:

A panegyric never writ for kings

On every tarnished staff and tattered fold;

And by them, tranquil spirits standing guard.

CHILD AND FLOWER.

[From the French of Chateaubriand.][B]

Along her coffin-lid the spotless roses rest

A father’s sad, sad hand culled from a happy bower;

Earth, they were born of thee: take back upon thy breast

Young child and tender flower.

To this unhallowed world, ah! let them not return,

To this dark world where grief and sin and anguish lower;

The winds might wound and break, the sun might parch and burn

Young child and tender flower.

Thou sleepest, O Elise! thy years were brief and bright;

The burden and the heat are spared thy noonday hour;

For dewy morn has flown, and on its pinions light,

Young child and tender flower.

FOOTNOTE:

[B] The author’s title runs: “Sur la Fille de mon Ami, enterrée devant moi hier au Cimetière de Passy: 16 Juin, 1832.”

KNIGHT FALSTAFF.

I saw the dusty curtain, ages old,

Its purple tatters twitched aside, and lo!

The fourth King Harry’s reign in lusty show

Behind, its deeds in living file outrolled

Of peace and war; some sage, some mad, and bold:

Last, near a tree, a bridled neighing row

With latest spoils encumbered, saints do know,

By Hal and Hal’s boon cronies; on the wold

Laughter of prince and commons; there and here

Travellers fleeing; drunken thieves that sang;

Wild bells; a tavern’s echoing jolly shout;

Signals along the highway, full of cheer;

A gate that closed with not incautious clang,

When that sweet rogue, bad Jack! came lumbering out.

THE POET.[C]

Listen! the mother

Croons o’er her darling;

Birds to the summer

Call from the trees;

Sailors in chorus

Chant of the ocean:

The poet’s heart singeth

Songs sweeter than these.

Thy lute, gentle lover,

To her thou adorest;

Ye troubadours! pæans

For princes of Guelph:

But Heaven’s own harpers

Breathe not in their music

The song that his happy heart

Sings to itself;

The changeless, soft song that it

Sings to itself!

FOOTNOTE:

[C] For this trifle, obligations are due to Maestro Mozart. A sunny little opening Andante of his, from the Second Sonata in A major, suggested immediately and quite irresistibly the words here appended, which follow its rhythm throughout.

A CRIMINAL. 1865.

“Close as a mask he wore this fiery sin

Of hate; and daring peril foremost, died

Ere yet the wrath of law was justified,

Hopeless, with memory such as miscreants win.

One sacred head he smote, encircled in

A people’s arms; and shook, with storms allied,

The pillars of the world from side to side.”...

E’en so the Angel’s record must begin.

Show me not anguish since that traitor-stroke

Rang o’er the brunt of war; yet child, O child!

When later days bring bitter thoughts, recall,

No maledictions on his name I spoke,

Catching lost cues; but asked, well-reconciled,

God, our Interpreter, to right us all.

ORIENT-BORN.

Beautiful olive-brown brows, chin where the fairy-print lies;

Vagrant dark tresses above splendid mysterious eyes;

Mellowest fires that glow under the calm of her face,

Girl of all girls in the world for mould and for color and grace.

Such are the opal-like maids that flash in the groves to and fro,

Dancers Arabian; such, languorous ages ago,

Ptolemy’s daughter; and so, breathing faint cassia and musk,

Veilèd young Moors on divans, singing and sighing at dusk.

Never in opiate dreams have I o’ertaken you, sweet;

Never with henna-tipped hands; never with silken-shod feet;

Still the love-charm of the East must over and over be told:

By-and-by havoc with hearts!... Ah, slowly, my seven-year-old!

CHARONDAS.

He lifted his forehead, and stood at his height,

And gathered the cloak round his noble age,

This man, the law-giver, Charondas the Greek;

And loud the Eubœans called to him: “Speak,

We listen and learn, O sage!”

“In peace shall ye come where the people be,”

Spake the lofty figure with flashing eyes:

“But whoso comes armed to the public hall

Shall suffer his death before us all.”

And the hearers believed him wise.

The years sped quick and the years dragged slow;

In council oft was the throng arrayed,

But never the statued chamber saw

The gleam of a weapon; for loving the law,

The Greeks from their hearts obeyed.

War’s challenge knocked at the city gates;

Students flocked to the front, grown bold;

The strong men, girded, faced up to the north;

The women wept to the gods; and forth

Went the brave of the days of old.

Peace winged her flight to the city gates;

Young men and strong, they followed fast

Back to the breast of their fair, free land:

Charondas, afar on the foreign strand,

Remained at his post the last.

Their leader he, in war as in word,

The fire of youth for his life-long lease,

The strength of Mars in the arm that stood

Seven hot decades upheld for good

In the turbulent courts of Greece.

The fight is finished, the council meets.

Who is the tardy comer without

In cuirass and shield, and with clanking sword,

Who strides up the aisles without a word,

Rousing that awe-struck shout?

The tardy comer home from the field—

Great gods! the first to forget and belie

The law he honored, the law he formed:

“Charondas—stand! you enter armed,”

With a shudder the hundreds cry.

The men who loved him on every side,

The men he led to the victor’s gain,

He paused a moment, the fearless Greek;

A sudden glow on his ashen cheek,

A sudden thought in his brain.

“I seal the law with my soul and might:

I do not break it,” Charondas said.

He raised his blade, and plunged to the hilt.

Ah! vain their rush, for in glory and guilt,

He lay on the marble, dead.

CRAZY MARGARET.

That is she across the way,

Dressed as for a holiday,

Wandering aimlessly along

In oblivion of the throng,

With her lay of old regret;

That is crazy Margaret.

And her tale floats up and down

This enchanted Norman town,

Told among the wharves and ships,

On the children’s babbling lips,

Over gossips’ window-sills,

In the rectory, thro’ the mills.

Very sad and very brief,

Graven on a cypress leaf,

Is the record of her days.

When the aloes were ablaze

Long ago, in summertide,

He maid Margaret cherished, died.

Hush! there is the holier part:

He knew nothing of her heart.

Tears thrilled in her lustrous eye

But to see him passing by,

And she turned from many a claim

Dreaming on that dearest name.

Solely on his thoughts intent

The rapt student came and went,

All the gladness in his looks

Sprung from visions and from books,

Grave with all, and kind to her,

His meek peasant worshipper.

So she loved him to the last,

Keeping her soul’s secret fast,

Suffering much and speaking naught

Of the woe her loving wrought;

Till the second summertide,

The young stranger drooped and died.

At the grave, before them all,

In the market, in the hall,

Down the forest-paths alone,

Ever since, in undertone

She goes singing soft and slow:

“When I meet him, he shall know.”

Therefore is she eager yet,

Poor, unhappy Margaret,

Holding still, in faith and truth,

The lost idyl of her youth,

Seeking fondly and thro’ tears,

One who sleeps these forty years.

Should he haunt our Norman coast,

Should he come, the gentle ghost;

Should she tell him of her pain,

Of her passion hushed and vain,—

Would he grieve? or would he care?

What a tragic chance is there!

TO THE WINDING CHARLES.

Thou wanderer, what longing hath

Thee peace on earth denied,

Ah, tell me: constant in no path,

Thy pensive currents glide.

From dim pursuit and mocking zest,

Would I could set thee free!

My soul hath its divine unrest,

Dear river, like to thee.

MY NEIGHBOR.[D]

Who art thou that nigh to me

Alone dost dwell, perpetually?

The latch against thy door is mute,

I have not heard thy kind salute,

And though I live here at the gate,

Have never known thy birth or state,

Nor seen thy wide colonial lands

With slaves obeying all commands,

Or children playing at thy knee;

Ah, neighbor mine, unneighborly!

The sun beats hard upon thy roof,

The tree’s cool shadow waves aloof;

Thou dost not heed, nor speak in ire,

Nor wound thy calm with vain desire.

The cones that patter as they fall,

The drifts that build thine outer wall,

The rains that glisten in the trace

Of thine inscription, dimmed apace,

The winds that blow, the birds that sing,—

Thou carest not for any thing!

Two centuries and more art thou

In solitude abiding; now

This town is other than thy town;

Its lanes are highways broad and brown;

The oaken houses of thy day,

And inns, and booths, are swept away.

Strange spires would meet thine eager eye,

New ships sail in, new banners fly;

And names are kept of them that fell

In wars to thee incredible.

How beautiful thine endless rest!

The quiet conscience in thy breast,

Thy hidden place of peace, where pass

The ghost-like stirrings of the grass;

The long immunity from strife,

The tumult, love; the trouble, life;

The blossom at thy feet, to be

A thousand summers, dust like thee;

The winding-sheet, that white as worth,

Shuts all thy failings in the earth.

My silent neighbor! thou and I

Keep unobtrusive company.

For us each wild October weaves

The glistening clouds, the glowing leaves,

And March by March the robin sings,

Against the solemn porch of King’s,

His sweet good-morrow to us both.

O be not harsh with me, nor wroth,

That I, apart from all the throng,

Break, too, thy silence with a song!

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Jacob Sheafe, an old Boston worthy, laid away in 1658, in a quiet northerly corner of King’s Chapel Burying-Ground.

THE SEA-GULL.

Over the ships that are anchored,

Over the fleets that part,

Over the cities dark by the shore,

High as a dream thou art!

Beautiful is thy coming,

Light is thy wing as it goes;

And O but to leap and follow this hour

Thy perfect flight to the close,

O but to leap and follow

Where freedom and rest may be;

Where the soul that I loved in surpassing love

Hath vanished away, with thee!

LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY.

Darling of the cloistered flowers,

Rising meekly after showers,

Every cup a waving censer,—

Winds are softer at thy coming;

By thee goes the wild bee, humming

Music richer and intenser.

Indian balsam is thy breathing,

Sabbath stillness thy enwreathing;

Peace and thee no thought can sever.

In thy plaintive looks and tender,

Things of long-forgotten splendor

Thrill my inmost spirit ever.

And I love thee in such fashion,

With so much of truth and passion,

In this sad wish to enshrine thee:

Only pure hearts be thy wearers,

Only gentlest hands thy bearers,

Even if therefore mine resign thee;

Even if now I yield thee wholly

To the pure and gentle solely,

On whose breast thy cheek is lying!

Droop and glisten where she laid thee,

And remember me that made thee,

Dear, so happy in thy dying.

LOVER LOQUITUR.

Liege lady! believe me,

All night, from my pillow

I heard, but to grieve me,

The plash of the willow;

The rain on the towers,

The winds without number,

In the gloom of the hours,

And denial of slumber:

And nigh to the dawning,—

My heart aching blindly,

Unresting and mourning

That you were unkindly—

What did I ostensibly,