On the dark decline of the unillumined
verge between the two worlds.
George Meredith.
THE UNILLUMINED VERGE
TO A FRIEND DYING They tell you that Death’s at the turn of the road,
That under the shade of a cypress you’ll find him,
And, struggling on wearily, lashed by the goad
Of pain, you will enter the black mist behind him.
I can walk with you up to the ridge of the hill,
And we’ll talk of the way we have come through the valley;
Down below there a bird breaks into a trill,
And a groaning slave bends to the oar of his galley.
You are up on the heights now, you pity the slave—
“Poor soul, how fate lashes him on at his rowing!
Yet it’s joyful to live, and it’s hard to be brave
When you watch the sun sink and the daylight is going.”
We are almost there—our last walk on this height—
I must bid you good-by at that cross on the mountain.
See the sun glowing red, and the pulsating light
Fill the valley, and rise like the flood in a fountain!
And it shines in your face and illumines your soul;
We are comrades as ever, right here at your going;
You may rest if you will within sight of the goal,
While I must return to my oar and the rowing.
We must part now? Well, here is the hand of a friend;
I will keep you in sight till the road makes its turning
Just over the ridge within reach of the end
Of your arduous toil—the beginning of learning.
You will call to me once from the mist, on the verge,
“Au revoir!” and “good night!” while the twilight is creeping
Up luminous peaks, and the pale stars emerge?
Yes, I hear your faint voice: “This is rest, and like sleeping!”
FROM ONE LONG DEAD What! You here in the moonlight and thinking of me?
Is it you, O my comrade, who laughed at my jest?
But you wept when I told you I longed to be free,
And you mourned for a while when they laid me at rest.
I’ve been dead all these years! and to-night in your heart
There’s a stir of emotion, a vision that slips—
It’s my face in the moonlight that gives you a start,
It’s my name that in joy rushes up to your lips!
Yes, I’m young, oh, so young, and so little I know!
A mere child that is learning to walk and to run;
While I grasp at the shadows that wave to and fro
I am dazzled a bit by the light of the Sun.
I am learning the lesson, I try to grow wise,
But at night I am baffled and worn by the strife;
I am humbled, and then there’s an impulse to rise,
And a voice whispers, “Onward and win! This is Life!”
And the Force that is drawing me up to the Height,
That inspires me and thrills me,—each day a new birth,—
Is the Force that to Chaos said, “Let there be Light!”
And it gave us sweet glimpses of Heaven on Earth.
It is Love! and you know it and feel it, my Soul!
For you love me in spite of the grave and its bars.
And it moves the whole Universe on to its goal,
And it draws frail Humanity up to the stars!
FATHER TO MOTHER This is our child, Dear—flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone;
Here is the end of our youth, and now we begin to atone.
Now we do feel what their love was—those who have reared us and taught;
Now do we know of the treasures that neither are sold nor bought.
Here is the joy of the Race—joy that must grow out of pain;
Here is the last of our Self—now we are links in the chain.
Body of yours and mine no more is the measure of grief—
All that he suffers is ours—and increased while we cry for relief;
Yea, for our boy, our Beloved, we’ll yearn through the beckoning years—
Toil for him, laugh with him, struggle, and pour out the fountain of tears!
THE CHILD TO THE FATHER Father, it’s your love that safely guides me,
Always it’s around me, night and day;
It shelters me, and soothes, but never chides me:
Yet, father, there’s a shadow in my way.
All the day, my father, I am playing
Under trees where sunbeams dance and dart—
But often just at night when I am praying
I feel this awful hunger in my heart.
Father, there is something—it has missed me;
I’ve felt it through my little days and years;
And even when you petted me and kissed me
I’ve cried myself to sleep with burning tears.
To-day I saw a child and mother walking;
I caught a gentle shining in her eye,
And music in her voice when she was talking—
Oh, father, is it that that makes me cry?
Oh, never can I put my arms around her,
Or never cuddle closer in the night;
Mother, oh, my mother! I’ve not found her—
I look for her and cry from dark to light!
A PRAYER OF OLD AGE O Lord, I am so used to all the byways
Throughout Thy devious world,
The little hill-paths, yea, and the great highways
Where saints are safely whirled!
And there are crooked ways, forbidden pleasures,
That lured me with their spell;
But there I lingered not, and found no treasures—
Though in the mire I fell.
And now I’m old and worn, and, scarcely seeing
The beauties of Thy work,
I catch faint glimpses of the shadows fleeing
Through valleys in the murk;
Yet I can feel my way—my mem’ry guides me;
I bear the yoke and smile.
I’m used to life, and nothing wounds or chides me;
Lord, let me live awhile!
And then, dear Lord, I still can feel the thrilling
Of Nature in the Spring—
The uplift of Thy hills, the song-birds trilling,
The lyric joy they bring.
I’m not too old to see the regal beauty
Of moon and stars and sun;
Nature can still reveal to me my duty
Till my long task is done.
O Lord, to me the pageant is entrancing—
The march of States and Kings!
I keenly watch the human race advancing
And see Man master Things:
From him who read the secret of the thunder
And made the lightning kind,
Down to this marvel—all the growing wonder
Of force controlled by Mind.
And this dear land of ours, the freeman’s Nation!
Lord, let me live and see
Fulfilment of our fathers’ aspiration,
When each man’s really free!
When all the strength and skill that move the mountains,
And pile up riches great,
Shall sweeten patriotism at its fountains
And purify the State!
But there are closer ties than these that bind me
And make me long to stay
And linger in the dusk where Death may find me
On Thine own chosen day;
There’s one who walks beside me in the gloaming
And holds my faltering hand—
Without her guidance I can make no homing
In any distant land.
Some day when we are tired, like children playing,
And wearied drop our toys—
When all the work and burden of our staying
Has mingled with our joys—
With those we love around—our eyelids drooping,
Too spent with toil to weep—
Like some kind nurse o’er drowsy children stooping,
Lord, take us home to sleep!
THE RHONE GLACIER—SUNSET Like the uncounted years of God it rolls
From out the sky. The light of heaven shines
Upon its wrinkled brow, that seems a part
Of that stupendous dome of boundless blue
Where, like a pebble in the ocean depths,
This little world is lost. The sparkling sun
Plays gently in the deep green, icy clefts
Like moonlight in the tender eyes of one
Who looks to heaven to find her lover’s face.
Silent, serene, implacable it stands—
A mighty symbol of the Force that moved
Across the surface of the youthful earth
And scored the continents with valleys deep,
As children write upon the yielding sand.
Back to the dawn of things its lineage runs—
Countless ages back to that bleak time
When frightful monsters played upon the hills—
Always the same, yet moving slowly onward,
In heaven its head, its feet upon the world.
The Rhone that trickles from the glacier’s edge—
Makes valleys smile with grain and flower and fruit
And turns the wheels that forge the tools of trade—
Is but the lash with which the giant plays
And spins the tops that swarm with struggling men.
“What is Man, that Thou art mindful of him?”—
This pleasure or this pain, this wealth or want,
This tragic comedy we call our life!
Across the meadows as the evening falls
A shepherd drives his sheep, and fondly bears
Above the rocky stream the weakling lamb;
The children hear the father’s kindly voice
And run to greet and cheer his late return,
While from his humble cottage gleams a light.
The sheep are nestled in their sheltering fold—
The door springs open to a welcome cry,
And all at last are safe within the Home.
In cold and awful majesty it stands
Against the darkening sky,—Force without warmth,
Strength without passion.
But at the touch
Of homely human ways its terrors flee
And Force is swallowed up in Life with Love.
JAMES McCOSH
1811-1894 Young to the end through sympathy with youth,
Gray man of learning—champion of truth!
Direct in rugged speech, alert in mind,
He felt his kinship with all humankind,
And never feared to trace development
Of high from low—assured and full content
That man paid homage to the Mind above,
Uplifted by the “Royal Law of Love.”
The laws of nature that he loved to trace
Have worked, at last, to veil from us his face;
The dear old elms and ivy-covered walls
Will miss his presence, and the stately halls
His trumpet-voice; while in their joys
Sorrow will shadow those he called “my boys”!
LE BONHEUR DE CE MONDE
(Copie d’un sonnet composÉ par Plantin au XVIe siÈcle.) Avoir une mai?on commode, propre & belle,
Un jardin tapi??É d’e?paliers odorans,
Des fruits, d’excellent vin, peu de train, peu d’enfans,
Po??eder ?eul, ?ans bruit, une femme fidÉle.
N’avoir dettes, amour, ni procÉs, ni querelle,
Ni de partage À faire avecque ?es parens,
Se contenter de peu, n’e?pÉrer rien des Grands,
RÉgler tous ?es de??eins sur un ju?te modÉle.
Vivre avecque franchi?e & ?ans ambition,
S’adonner ?ans ?crupule À la dÉvotion,
Domter ?es pa??ions, les rendre obÉi??antes.
Con?erver l’e?prit libre, & le jugement fort,
Dire ?on Chapelet en cultivant ?es entes,
C’e?t attendre chez ?oi bien doucement la mort.
THE HAPPINESS OF THIS WORLD
FROM THE FRENCH OF PLANTIN To have a home, convenient for thy life,
With fragrant fruit-walls in a garden fine,
Some children, some retainers, and rare wine;
To live serenely with thy faithful wife;
To have no debts, nor quarrels, nor legal strife,
Nor separation from dear kin of thine;
Expecting nothing from the Great, to shine
With modest light and just, where greed is rife.
To live with freedom, yet to be devout,
Ruling thy well-curbed passions—and without
Ambition’s scourge to thwart thy regnant will;
Truly to worship God with ardent breath
Among His shrubs and trees on plain and hill—
Thus pleasantly shalt thou at home wait Death.
R. L. S. “Where hath fleeting Beauty led?
To the doorway of the dead.”
All the way you followed her
Tripping through the palms and fir;
All the way around you flew
Splendid spirits from the blue—
Dreams and visions lightly caught
In the meshes of your thought.
What a glorious retinue
Made that arduous chase with you!
Half the world stood still to see
Song and Fancy follow free
At the waving of your wand—
While the echoing hills respond
To your voice.
And now the race
Ends with your averted face;
At full effort you have sped
Through that doorway of the dead—
But the hills and woods remain
Peopled from your teeming brain!
All that stately company
Linger where their eyes may see
Beauty fling the laurel o’er,
At the closing of the door!
From Suppressed Chapters. McGIFFEN
THE HERO COMING HOME His body was clad in his uniform of Captain in the Chinese Navy,
and sent home to his mother at Washington, Pennsylvania. Associated Press. I lent him to my country,
And he wore the Navy blue;
I bade him do his duty,
And he said he would be true.
It’s home they say you’re coming—
And it’s home you came to me
When you wore your first blue jacket
At the old Academy.
And the neighbors said, “How handsome!
What a sailor he will be!”
But I only drew him closer
In my coddling mother’s joy,
And said, “Well, what’s a sailor?
He’s my brave boy!”
And then they told the story
Of his courage in the fight—
How he ruled a heathen war-ship
And fought it with his might.
It’s home he wrote his mother
When the smoke had cleared away:
“I can see—so don’t you worry—
Though I’m riddled by the fray.”
And the neighbors said, “How glorious!
What a Hero is your son!
The world is all a-talking
Of the battle that he won!”
I said, “Well, what’s a Hero?
He’s my brave son!”
And now to me he’s coming,
And he wears a Captain’s bars;
It’s a foreign nation’s uniform,
But wrapped in Stripes and Stars.
It’s home at last you’re coming,
And it’s home at last to me.
You’re a hero and immortal,
And you fought to make men free.
But your heart is cold within you
And your dear eyes cannot see!
They say, “Be strong, O mother;
Proud laurels crown his head!”
Alas, what’s left of glory?
My boy, my boy is dead!
AT THE FARRAGUT STATUE
NEWS FROM A MISSING LINER
TO A CONVALESCENT Crawling back to port again, half her cargo shifted,
Just enough of fuel left to steam her to the pier;
Plunging through an icy gale when the fog has lifted,
Battered by the breakers, but her lights a-burning clear!
Hope almost abandoned, days and nights she floundered—
Nights when not a star was out and no sea-lights were near;
All the world believed her lost; men despaired, but wondered
How the liner could be wrecked and Kipling there to steer!
Now she makes her harbor-lights, glides through seas enchanted—
Whistles shrieking gayly and thousands at the pier;
On the bridge the Captain, pale and worn—undaunted!
“Welcome back to life again!” Hear the people cheer!
FOR A CLASSMATE DEAD AT SEA
(W. F. STOUTENBURGH) His voice was gentle and his eyes were kind;
No one among us but did call him friend;
Fond woman’s heart and student’s thoughtful mind
Together in him did with fitness blend:
And now he is no more!
We blindly murmur at the bitter Fate
That summoned him in other lands to roam;
And when upon him Sickness wrought its hate
Half round the world, it brought him almost home,
To die when near our shore.
We blindly murmur—but we only know
Calm rests his body in old Ocean’s deeps;
While we are groping in the mists below,
Serene his soul on other, cloudless steeps—
Forever—evermore.
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