Dreams and Days: Poems

Strike hands, young men!
We know not when
Death or disaster comes,
Mightier than battle-drums
To summon us away.
Death bids us say farewell
To all we love, nor stay
For tears;—and who can tell
How soon misfortune's hand
May smite us where we stand,
Dragging us down, aloof,
Under the swift world's hoof?

Strike hands for faith, and power
To gladden the passing hour;
To wield the sword, or raise a song;—
To press the grape; or crush out wrong.
And strengthen right.
Give me the man of sturdy palm
And vigorous brain;
Hearty, companionable, sane,
'Mid all commotions calm,
Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire;—
Give me the man
Whose impulses aspire,
And all his features seem to say, "I can!"

Strike hands, young men!
'Tis yours to help rebuild the State,
And keep the Nation great.
With act and speech and pen
'Tis yours to spread
The morning-red
That ushers in a grander day:
To scatter prejudice that blinds,
And hail fresh thoughts in noble minds;
To overthrow bland tyrannies
That cheat the people, and with slow disease
Change the Republic to a mockery.
Your words can teach that liberty
Means more than just to cry "We're free"
While bending to some new-found yoke.
So shall each unjust bond be broke,
Each toiler gain his meet reward,
And life sound forth a truer chord.

Ah, if we so have striven,
And mutually the grasp have given
Of brotherhood,
To work each other and the whole race good;
What matter if the dream
Come only partly true,
And all the things accomplished seem
Feeble and few?
At least, when summer's flame burns low
And on our heads the drifting snow
Settles and stays,
We shall rejoice that in our earlier days
We boldly then
Struck hands, young men!

"O JAY!"

O jay—
Blue-jay!
What are you trying to say?
I remember, in the spring
You pretended you could sing;
But your voice is now still queerer,
And as yet you've come no nearer
To a song.
In fact, to sum the matter,
I never heard a flatter
Failure than your doleful clatter.
Don't you think it's wrong?
It was sweet to hear your note,
I'll not deny,
When April set pale clouds afloat
O'er the blue tides of sky,
And 'mid the wind's triumphant drums
You, in your white and azure coat,
A herald proud, came forth to cry,
"The royal summer comes!"

But now that autumn's here,
And the leaves curl up in sheer
Disgust,
And the cold rains fringe the pine,
You really must
Stop that supercilious whine—-
Or you'll be shot, by some mephitic
Angry critic.

You don't fulfill your early promise:
You're not the smartest
Kind of artist,
Any more than poor Blind Tom is.
Yet somehow, still,
There's meaning in your screaming bill.
What are you trying to say?

Sometimes your piping is delicious,
And then again it's simply vicious;
Though on the whole the varying jangle
Weaves round me an entrancing tangle
Of memories grave or joyous:
Things to weep or laugh at;
Love that lived at a hint, or
Days so sweet, they'd cloy us;
Nights I have spent with friends;—
Glistening groves of winter,
And the sound of vanished feet
That walked by the ripening wheat;
With other things.... Not the half that
Your cry familiar blends
Can I name, for it is mostly
Very ghostly;—
Such mixed-up things your voice recalls,
With its peculiar quirks and falls.

Possibly, then, your meaning, plain,
Is that your harsh and broken strain
Tallies best with a world of pain.

Well, I'll admit
There's merit in a voice that's truthful:
Yours is not honey-sweet nor youthful,
But querulously fit.
And if we cannot sing, we'll say
Something to the purpose, jay!

THE STAR TO ITS LIGHT

"Go," said the star to its light:
"Follow your fathomless flight!
Into the dreams of space
Carry the joy of my face.
Go," said the star to its light:
"Tell me the tale of your flight."

As the mandate rang
The heavens through,
Quick the ray sprang:
Unheard it flew,
Sped by the touch of an unseen spur.
It crumbled the dusk of the deep
That folds the worlds in sleep,
And shot through night with noiseless stir.

Then came the day;
And all that swift array
Of diamond-sparkles died.
And lo! the far star cried:
"My light has lost its way!"
Ages on ages passed:
The light returned, at last.

"What have you seen,
What have you heard—
O ray serene,
O flame-winged bird
I loosed on endless air?
Why do you look so faint and white?"—
Said the star to its light.

"O star," said the tremulous ray,
"Grief and struggle I found.
Horror impeded my way.
Many a star and sun
I passed and touched, on my round.
Many a life undone
I lit with a tender gleam:
I shone in the lover's eyes,
And soothed the maiden's dream.
But alas for the stifling mist of lies!
Alas, for the wrath of the battle-field
Where my glance was mixed with blood!
And woe for the hearts by hate congealed,
And the crime that rolls like a flood!
Too vast is the world for me;
Too vast for the sparkling dew
Of a force like yours to renew.
Hopeless the world's immensity!
The suns go on without end:
The universe holds no friend:
And so I come back to you."

"Go," said the star to its light:
"You have not told me aright.
This you have taught: I am one
In a million of million others—
Stars, or planets, or men;—
And all of these are my brothers.
Carry that message, and then
My guerdon of praise you have won!
Say that I serve in my place:
Say I will hide my own face
Ere the sorrows of others I shun.
So, then, my trust you'll requite.
Go!"—said the star to its light.

"THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES"

The sunshine of thine eyes,
(O still, celestial beam!)
Whatever it touches it fills
With the life of its lambent gleam.

The sunshine of thine eyes,
O let it fall on me!
Though I be but a mote of the air,
I could turn to gold for thee!

JESSAMINE

Here stands the great tree still, with broad bent head;
Its wide arms grown aweary, yet outspread
With their old blessing. But wan memory weaves
Strange garlands, now, amongst the darkening leaves.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Beneath these glimmering arches Jessamine
Walked with her lover long ago; and in
The leaf-dimmed light he questioned, and she spoke;
Then on them both, supreme, love's radiance broke.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Sweet Jessamine we called her; for she shone
Like blossoms that in sun and shade have grown,
Gathering from each alike a perfect white,
Whose rich bloom breaks opaque through darkest night.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

For this her sweetness Walt, her lover, sought
To win her; wooed her here, his heart o'er fraught
With fragrance of her being; and gained his plea.
So "We will wed," they said, "beneath this tree."
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Yet dreams of conquering greater prize for her
Roused his wild spirit with a glittering spur.
Eager for wealth, far, far from home he sailed;
And life paused;—while she watched joy vanish, veiled.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Ah, better at the elm-tree's sunbrowned feet
If he had been content to let life fleet
Its wonted way!—lord of his little farm,
In zest of joys or cares unmixed with harm.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

For, as against a snarling sea one steers,
He battled vainly with the surging years;
While ever Jessamine must watch and pine,
Her vision bounded by the bleak sea-line.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Then silence fell; and all the neighbors said
That Walt had married, faithless, or was dead:
Unmoved in constancy, her tryst she kept,
Each night beneath the tree, ere sorrow slept.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

So, circling years went by, till in her face
Slow melancholy wrought a mingled grace,
Of early joy with suffering's hard alloy—
Refined and rare, no doom could e'er destroy.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Sometimes at twilight, when sweet Jessamine
Slow-footed, weary-eyed, passed by to win
The elm, we smiled for pity of her, and mused
On love that so could live, with love refused.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

And none could hope for her. But she had grown
Too high in love, for hope. She bloomed alone,
Aloft in proud devotion; and secure
Against despair; so sweet her faith, so sure.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Her wandering lover knew not well her soul.
Discouraged, on disaster's changing shoal
Stranding, he waited; starved on selfish pride,
Long years; nor would obey love's homeward tide.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

But, bitterly repenting of his sin,
Deeper at last he learned to look within
Sweet Jessamine's true heart—when the past, dead,
Mocked him with wasted years forever fled.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Late, late, oh late, beneath the tree stood two;
In trembling joy, and wondering "Is it true?"—
Two that were each like some strange, misty wraith:
Yet each on each gazed with a living faith.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Even to the tree-top sang the wedding-bell:
Even to the tree-top tolled the passing knell.
Beneath it Walt and Jessamine were wed,
Beneath it many a year has she lain dead.
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

Here stands the great tree, still. But age has crept
Through every coil, while Walt each night has kept
The tryst alone. Hark! with what windy might
The boughs chant o'er her grave their burial-rite!
And the moon hangs low in the elm.

THE BOBOLINK

How sweetly sang the bobolink,
When thou, my love, wast nigh!
His liquid music from the brink
Of some cloud-fountain seemed to sink,
Far in the blue-domed sky.

How sadly sings the bobolink!
No more my love is nigh:
Yet rise, my spirit, rise, and drink
Once more from that cloud-fountain's brink,—
Once more before I die!

SAILOR'S SONG, RETURNING

The sea goes up; the sky comes down.
Oh, can you spy the ancient town,—
The granite hills so green and gray,
That rib the land behind the bay?
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
Fair winds, boys: send her home!
O ye ho!

Three years? Is it so long that we
Have lived upon the lonely sea?
Oh, often I thought we'd see the town,
When the sea went up, and the sky came down.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Even the winter winds would rouse
A memory of my father's house;
For round his windows and his door
They made the same deep, mouthless roar.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

And when the summer's breezes beat,
Methought I saw the sunny street
Where stood my Kate. Beneath her hand
She gazed far out, far out from land.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Farthest away, I oftenest dreamed
That I was with her. Then it seemed
A single stride the ocean wide
Had bridged, and brought me to her side.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

But though so near we're drawing, now,
'T is farther off—I know not how.
We sail and sail: we see no home.
Would that we into port were come!
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

At night, the same stars o'er the mast:
The mast sways round—however fast
We fly—still sways and swings around
One scanty circle's starry bound.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Ah, many a month those stars have shone,
And many a golden morn has flown,
Since that so solemn, happy morn,
When, I away, my babe was born.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

And, though so near we're drawing, now,
'T is farther off—I know not how:—
I would not aught amiss had come
To babe or mother there, at home!
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

'T is but a seeming: swiftly rush
The seas, beneath. I hear the crush
Of foamy ridges 'gainst the prow.
Longing outspeeds the breeze, I know.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Patience, my mates! Though not this eve
We cast our anchor, yet believe,
If but the wind holds, short the run:
We'll sail in with to-morrow's sun.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
Fair winds, boys: send her home!
O ye ho!

FIRST GLANCE

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; and laughing hair,—
So ruddy was its rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;

These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring;—
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.

BRIDE BROOK

Wide as the sky Time spreads his hand,
And blindly over us there blows
A swarm of years that fill the land,
Then fade, and are as fallen snows.

Behold, the flakes rush thick and fast;
Or are they years, that come between,—
When, peering back into the past,
I search the legendary scene?

Nay. Marshaled down the open coast,
Fearless of that low rampart's frown,
The winter's white-winged, footless host
Beleaguers ancient Saybrook town.

And when the settlers wake they stare
On woods half-buried, white and green,
A smothered world, an empty air:
Never had such deep drifts been seen!

But "Snow lies light upon my heart!
An thou," said merry Jonathan Rudd,
"Wilt wed me, winter shall depart,
And love like spring for us shall bud."

"Nay, how," said Mary, "may that be?
No minister nor magistrate
Is here, to join us solemnly;
And snow-banks bar us, every gate."

"Winthrop at Pequot Harbor lies,"
He laughed. And with the morrow's sun
He faced the deputy's dark eyes:
"How soon, sir, may the rite be done?"

"At Saybrook? There the power's not mine,"
Said he. "But at the brook we'll meet,
That ripples down the boundary line;
There you may wed, and Heaven shall see't."

Forth went, next day, the bridal train
Through vistas dreamy with gray light.
The waiting woods, the open plain,
Arrayed in consecrated white,

Received and ushered them, along.
The very beasts before them fled,
Charmed by the spell of inward song
These lovers' hearts around them spread.

Four men with netted foot-gear shod
Bore the maid's carrying-chair aloft;
She swayed above, as roses nod
On the lithe stem their bloom-weight soft.

At last beside the brook they stood,
With Winthrop and his followers;
The maid in flake-embroidered hood,
The magistrate well cloaked in furs,

That, parting, showed a glimpse beneath
Of ample, throat-encircling ruff
As white as some wind-gathered wreath
Of snow quilled into plait and puff.

A few grave words, a question asked;
Eyelids that with the answer fell
Like falling petals;—form that tasked
Brief time;—and so was wrought the spell!

Then "Brooklet," Winthrop smiled and said,
"Frost's finger on thy lip makes dumb
The voice wherewith thou shouldst have sped
These lovers on their way. But, come,

"Henceforth forever be thou known
By memory of this day's fair bride:
So shall thy slender music's moan
Sweeter into the ocean glide!"

Then laughed they all, and sudden beams
Of sunshine quivered through the sky.
Below the ice, the unheard stream's
Clear heart thrilled on in ecstasy;

And lo, a visionary blush
Stole warmly o'er the voiceless wild;
And in her rapt and wintry hush
The lonely face of Nature smiled.

Ah, Time, what wilt thou? Vanished quite
Is all that tender vision now;
And, like lost snow-flakes in the night,
Mute are the lovers as their vow.

And O thou little, careless brook,
Hast thou thy tender trust forgot?
Her modest memory forsook,
Whose name, known once, thou utterest not?

Spring wakes the rill's blithe minstrelsy;
In willow bough or alder bush
Birds sing, o'er golden filigree
Of pebbles 'neath the flood's clear gush;

But none can tell us of that name
More than the "Mary." Men still say
"Bride Brook" in honor of her fame;
But all the rest has passed away.

MAY-ROSE

[FOR A BIRTHDAY: MAY 20]

On this day to life she came—
May-Rose, my May-Rose!
With scented breeze, with flowered flame,
She touched the earth and took her name
Of May, Rose.

Here, to-day, she grows and flowers—
May-Rose, my May-Rose.
All my life with light she dowers,
And colors all the coming hours
With May, Rose!

THE SINGING WIRE

Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It rose and fell and murmuring sang
Aeolian harmonies!

I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung
From off the wire, came shaped in words;
And thus meseemed, they sung:

"I, messenger of many fates,
Strung to the tones of woe or weal,
Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates
With all men know or feel,—

"Is it so strange that I should wail?
Leave me my tearless, sad refrain,
When in the pine-top wakes the gale
That breathes of coming rain.

"There is a spirit in the post;
It, too, was once a murmuring tree;
Its withered, sad, imprisoned ghost
Echoes my melody.

"Come close, and lay your listening ear
Against the bare and branchless wood.
Can you not hear it crooning clear,
As though it understood?"

I listened to the branchless pole
That held aloft the singing wire;
I heard its muffled music roll,
And stirred with sweet desire:

"O wire more soft than seasoned lute,
Hast thou no sunlit word for me?
Though long to me so coyly mute,
Her heart may speak through thee!"

I listened, but it was in vain.
At first, the wind's old wayward will
Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain.
That ceased; and all was still.

But suddenly some kindling shock
Struck flashing through the wire: a bird,
Poised on it, screamed and flew; the flock
Rose with him; wheeled and whirred.

Then to my soul there came this sense:
"Her heart has answered unto thine;
She comes, to-night. Go, speed thee hence:
Meet her; no more repine!"

Perhaps the fancy was far-fetched;
And yet, perhaps, it hinted true.
Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched
In mine, that gave me—you!

And so more dear to me has grown
Than rarest tones swept from the lyre,
The minor movement of that moan
In yonder singing wire.

Nor care I for the will of states,
Or aught beside, that smites that string,
Since then so close it knit our fates,
What time the bird took wing!

THE HEART OF A SONG

Dear love, let this my song fly to you:
Perchance forget it came from me.
It shall not vex you, shall not woo you;
But in your breast lie quietly.

Only beware, when once it tarries
I cannot coax it from you, then.
This little song my whole heart carries,
And ne'er will bear it back again.

For if its silent passion grieve you,
My heart would then too heavy grow;—
And it can never, never leave you,
If joy of yours must with it go!

SOUTH-WIND

Soft-throated South, breathing of summer's ease
(Sweet breath, whereof the violet's life is made!)
Through lips moist-warm, as thou hadst lately stayed
'Mong rosebuds, wooing to the cheeks of these
Loth blushes faint and maidenly:—rich breeze,
Still doth thy honeyed blowing bring a shade
Of sad foreboding. In thy hand is laid
The power to build or blight the fruit of trees,
The deep, cool grass, and field of thick-combed grain.

Even so my Love may bring me joy or woe,
Both measureless, but either counted gain
Since given by her. For pain and pleasure flow
Like tides upon us of the self-same sea.
Tears are the gems of joy and misery.

THE LOVER'S YEAR

Thou art my morning, twilight, noon, and eve,
My summer and my winter, spring and fall;
For Nature left on thee a touch of all
The moods that come to gladden or to grieve
The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve
From lagging sameness. So do these forestall
In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall
Too swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave.

Scenes that I love to me always remain
Beautiful, whether under summer sun
Beheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain.
So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet one:
Doubt not I love thee well in each, who see
Thy constant change is changeful constancy.

NEW WORLDS

With my beloved I lingered late one night.
At last the hour when I must leave her came:
But, as I turned, a fear I could not name
Possessed me that the long sweet evening might
Prelude some sudden storm, whereby delight
Should perish. What if death, ere dawn, should claim
One of us? What, though living, not the same
Each should appear to each in morning-light?

Changed did I find her, truly, the next day:
Ne'er could I see her as of old again.
That strange mood seemed to draw a cloud away,
And let her beauty pour through every vein
Sunlight and life, part of me. Thus the lover
With each new morn a new world may discover.

NIGHT IN NEW YORK

Haunted by unknown feet—
Ways of the midnight hour!
Strangely you murmur below me,
Strange is your half-silent power.
Places of life and of death,
Numbered and named as streets,
What, through your channels of stone,
Is the tide that unweariedly beats?
A whisper, a sigh-laden breath,
Is all that I hear of its flowing.
Footsteps of stranger and foe—
Footsteps of friends, could we meet—
Alike to me in my sorrow;
Alike to a life left alone.
Yet swift as my heart they throb,
They fall thick as tears on the stone:
My spirit perchance may borrow
New strength from their eager tone.

Still ever that slip and slide
Of the feet that shuffle or glide,
And linger or haste through the populous waste
Of the shadowy, dim-lit square!
And I know not, from the sound,
As I sit and ponder within,
The goal to which those steps are bound,—
On hest of mercy, or hest of sin,
Or joy's short-measured round;
Yet a meaning deep they bear
In their vaguely muffled din.

Roar of the multitude,
Chafe of the million-crowd,
To this you are all subdued
In the murmurous, sad night-air!
Yet whether you thunder aloud,
Or hush your tone to a prayer,
You chant amain through the modern maze
The only epic of our days.

Still as death are the places of life;
The city seems crumbled and gone,
Sunk 'mid invisible deeps—
The city so lately rife
With the stir of brain and brawn.
Haply it only sleeps;
But what if indeed it were dead,
And another earth should arise
To greet the gray of the dawn?
Faint then our epic would wail
To those who should come in our stead.
But what if that earth were ours?
What if, with holier eyes,
We should meet the new hope, and not fail?

Weary, the night grows pale:
With a blush as of opening flowers
Dimly the east shines red.
Can it be that the morn shall fulfil
My dream, and refashion our clay
As the poet may fashion his rhyme?
Hark to that mingled scream
Rising from workshop and mill—
Hailing some marvelous sight;
Mighty breath of the hours,
Poured through the trumpets of steam;
Awful tornado of time,
Blowing us whither it will!

God has breathed in the nostrils of night,
And behold, it is day!

THE SONG-SPARROW

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket
Close beside my garden gate,
Where, so light, from post to picket
Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;
Who, with meekly folded wing,
Comes to sun himself and sing.

It was there, perhaps, last year,
That his little house he built;
For he seems to perk and peer,
And to twitter, too, and tilt
The bare branches in between,
With a fond, familiar mien.

Once, I know, there was a nest,
Held there by the sideward thrust
Of those twigs that touch his breast;
Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust
Caught it, over-full of snow,—
Bent the bush,—and stole it so.

Thus our highest holds are lost,
In the ruthless winter's wind,
When, with swift-dismantling frost,
The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd
Of their leafage, grow too cold
For frail hopes of summer's mold.

But if we, with spring-days mellow,
Wake to woeful wrecks of change,
And the sparrow's ritornello
Scaling still its old sweet range;
Can we do a better thing
Than, with him, still build and sing?

Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed
Thought in me beyond all telling;
Shootest through me sunlight, seed,
And fruitful blessing, with that welling
Ripple of ecstatic rest
Gurgling ever from thy breast!

And thy breezy carol spurs
Vital motion in my blood,
Such as in the sap-wood stirs,
Swells and shapes the pointed bud
Of the lilac; and besets
The hollow thick with violets.

Yet I know not any charm
That can make the fleeting time
Of thy sylvan, faint alarm
Suit itself to human rhyme:
And my yearning rhythmic word
Does thee grievous wrong, blithe bird.

So, however thou hast wrought
This wild joy on heart and brain,
It is better left untaught.
Take thou up the song again:
There is nothing sad afloat
On the tide that swells thy throat!

I LOVED YOU, ONCE—

And did you think my heart
Could keep its love unchanging,
Fresh as the buds that start
In spring, nor know estranging?
Listen! The buds depart:
I loved you once, but now—
I love you more than ever.

'T is not the early love;
With day and night it alters,
And onward still must move
Like earth, that never falters
For storm or star above.
I loved you once; but now—
I love you more than ever.

With gifts in those glad days
How eagerly I sought you!
Youth, shining hope, and praise:
These were the gifts I brought you.
In this world little stays:
I loved you once, but now—
I love you more than ever.

A child with glorious eyes
Here in our arms half sleeping—
So passion wakeful lies;
Then grows to manhood, keeping
Its wistful, young surprise:
I loved you once, but now—
I love you more than ever.

When age's pinching air
Strips summer's rich possession,
And leaves the branches bare,
My secret in confession
Still thus with you I'll share:
I loved you once, but now—
I love you more than ever.

Clyx.com

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STRIKE HANDS, YOUNG MEN!