MEMORIAL DAY
AND OTHER VERSE
(ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED)
BY
HELEN LEAH REED
AUTHOR OF SERBIA; A SKETCH
NAPOLEON'S YOUNG NEIGHBOR
THE BRENDA SERIES, ETC.
DE WOLFE AND FISKE CO.
20 FRANKLIN ST.
BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
HELEN LEAH REED
Entered at Stationers' Hall
This book is sold for the benefit of work for blinded soldiers
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A
TO THE MEMORY OF
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
SOLDIER, SCHOLAR, FRIEND
The author thanks the editors of the following publications for the right to reprint certain poems of hers that they first published:
Scribner's Magazine, Horace III-29. Collier's Weekly, Horace I-14. Poet Lore, Horace I-11. Chicago Interocean, The Fading Vision. The Christian Union, Jack Frost and the Flowers. New York Sun, The Rivals. Metropolitan Magazine, Strength Renewed. Christian Endeavor World, Town and Country. Boston Transcript, Summer in London; His Monument; Memorial Day. Boston Herald, The Cry of the Women. Ladies' Home Journal, The Christmas Letter. Woman's Home Companion, Frightened. The Delineator, The Victim; A Modern Grandmother. The Youth's Companion, A Curiosity.
CONTENTS
| I |
| PATRIOTIC AND SERIOUS |
| | PAGE |
| Memorial Day | 1 |
| Flowers for the Brave | 2 |
| His Monument | 3 |
| Your Country and Mine | 4 |
| The Grand Army Passes | 5 |
| The Harvard Regiment | 6 |
| Summer in London | 7 |
| Serbia | 8 |
| Canadian Trooper to His Horse | 9 |
| The Cry of the Women | 10 |
| Cassandra | 11 |
| Song of Spring | 12 |
| Life and Death | 12 |
| Man of Today | 13 |
| The Fading Vision | 14 |
| The Titanic | 15 |
| If Love were All | 16 |
| The Rover | 16 |
| Ah! Little Lake | 17 |
| Severus | 18 |
| Town and Country | 19 |
| Strength Renewed | 20 |
| At Miami | 20 |
| Which | 21 |
| The Blessed Dead | 22 |
| Oak Leaves | 22 |
| Self-satisfied | 23 |
| My Vigil | 23 |
| To Mrs. Julia Ward Howe | 24 |
| The Soarer | 24 |
| A Fancy | 25 |
| The Shrieking Woman | 25 |
| The Huguenot Lovers | 26 |
| To John Townsend Trowbridge | 27 |
| Weed or Flower | 27 |
| To Thomas Wentworth Higginson | 28 |
| | |
| II |
| LIGHTER VERSE |
| | PAGE |
| Frightened | 31 |
| The Christmas Letter | 32 |
| A Victim | 33 |
| Jack Frost | 34 |
| A Curiosity | 35 |
| The First Lie | 35 |
| The Parasol | 36 |
| A Modern Grandmother | 37 |
| Signs for the Serious | 38 |
| Trimming | 39 |
| The Annex | 40 |
| A Liberty Bond | 41 |
| A Hero | 42 |
| The Rivals | 44 |
| | |
| III |
| FROM THE ODES OF HORACE |
| | PAGE |
| To MÆcenas | 47 |
| To LeuconoË | 49 |
| Neobule | 49 |
| The Hardy Youth | 50 |
| To the State | 51 |
| To Apollo | 52 |
| To Diana | 52 |
| To Melpomene | 53 |
| Horace and Lydia | 54 |
| To Censorinus | 55 |
| To Thaliarchus | 56 |
| To Chloe | 56 |
| To Fuscus | 57 |
| To Venus | 57 |
| A Palinode | 58 |
| Lasting Fame | 59 |
| Religion | 59 |
PATRIOTIC AND SERIOUS
MEMORIAL DAY
No warrior he, a village lad,
needing nor words nor other prod
To point his duty; he was glad
to tread the path his fathers trod.
Week days he worked in wood and field;
with homely joys he decked his life;
The sword of hate he would not wield,
nor take a part in cankering strife.
On Sunday in the little choir
he sang of Peace and brotherly love,
And as his thoughts soared higher and higher,
they reached unmeasured heights above.
A cry for Freedom rent the Land—
"Our Country calls, come, come, 'tis War;
Together let us firmly stand;"
he answered, though his heart beat sore
At leaving home, and kin, and one
in whose fond eyes too late he read
That life for her had but begun
with the farewells he sadly said.
A half a century has passed—
and more—since all those myriads fell;
For he was one of those who cast
sweet life into a Battle's hell.
The village has become a town,
brick buildings the old graveyard gird;
Of him who fought not for renown,
no one now hears a spoken word,
But on the Monument his name
in gold is lettered with the rest.
Without a sordid thought of fame
he to his Country gave his best.
Strew flowers, then, Memorial Day
for him, for all who for us fought.
With speech and music honors pay;
teach what our brave defenders taught.
And now our sons are setting out;
the call for Right rings to the sky,
"Our Country! Freedom!" hear them shout,
re-echoing their Grandsires' cry.
FLOWERS FOR BRAVE SOLDIERS
Flowers for brave soldiers,
Flowers for those who gave us
A Country undivided.
Flowers for the dead!
With flags we are marking
Their last earth-dwelling.
Our hearts are bending
In gratitude,
While we are praying
That this our Nation
Pass safe through peril,
Through deadly war.
Flowers for brave soldiers—
Flowers for those who loved us,
Flowers to their memory,
This fair spring day!
HIS MONUMENT
From top to pedestal you scan it lightly—
Capped head to lettered base—and you are smiling.
What see you there to set your lips a-quiver?
An awkward figure cut from ugly granite,
Aye, roughly hewn, as if unhelped by chisel,
This peaceful man of war, sculptured grotesquely.
Still—there is metal in the gun he is holding,
And in the cannon balls piled up before him—
The artist's symbols of a real soldier.
Yet jeer no longer!
Before you is a soldier of the Union,
Crowned with the tears and prayers of many mourners.
The Village set him here for all to honor,
Here, in the centre of their foot-worn common,
Where on long, summer evenings boys at baseball
May gaze and gaze, and make him an example;
A hero they would follow.
Beholding him I see no granite figure,
But face a man who fought to save his country,
Whose heart was pierced when wife, and child and mother
Clung to him closely in that tearful parting.
Yet brave he marched away while flags were fluttering,
Though in his soul he knew that never, never,
Might he again see those he loved so dearly,
Nor look again upon the old white steeple,
Upon the little streets and shabby buildings
Straggling unevenly toward the Common;
Or if he came back, he'd be maimed and battered,
Subject to hateful pity.
Therefore I smile not at the queer, gaunt figure,
The tilted cap—the wide and baggy trousers,
The long loose overcoat, the dangling knapsack,
This is the man who fought to save our country!
Who, in his millions, marched from every village,
From every city of our mighty Nation;
Who heard the drums and trumpets blithely playing—
"Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching."
So there it stands—thank-offering of a people—
Whether of rough-hewn stone, or bronze, or marble—
Proving our debt to those who saved the Union,
Pointing the way for those who'd like to follow—
Who to the death would fight were we in peril—
The Soldier's Monument!
YOUR COUNTRY AND MINE
Sing of America, sing of our Country!
Land of two oceans, of palm-tree and pine!
Firm as the rock of her towering mountains,
Free as her rivers from Heaven-born fountains,
Unafraid as her eagle,—as true to the line;
Sing of our Country,—your Country and mine!
Sing of America,—self-governed Country!
Dear Land, thou to tyranny never wilt bow;
Ever with thee the oppressed have had haven;
While Freedom droops, thy true sons are not craven;
Look! They are fighting to honor thee now,
With Victory and Peace to bejewel thy brow.
Sing of America,—loving humanity!
"Avenge ye the slaughtered!" Heed ye her decree;
Ye who have reaped of the father's brave sowing,
High hold your flag when the war winds are blowing!
Safe for all men keep the path of the sea;
Secure in their rights help small Nations to be.
Fight for America, noble America!
Liberty, Justice, and Truth—the divine,—
Carrying onward,—her lamp proudly burning—
Craving no empire, intrigue ever spurning,
Over the Earth shall her beacon-light shine!
Fight for our Country, your Country and mine!
THE GRAND ARMY PASSES
Behold a long procession passing proudly,
And yet no glittering pomp adorns its way,
Only the emblems of our States and Nation,
Only the flags that floated on the day
These men, our men, trod upon fields of glory;—
The tattered flags that this Grand Army bore
For the Republic—flags that furled and faded
To their old vividness our hearts restore.
The line of veterans once firm and crowded,
The long, long line is wavering and thin;
With faltering steps Old Age speaks mutely to them
Youth marched abreast when they were mustered in.
Oh, Comrades of the Campfire and the Council,
Oh, Comrades who in peril won your fight!
Honor to you and to your dead companions,
You risked your all for Liberty and Right!
Fraternity and Charity your watchwords,
And Loyalty to this our own dear Land!
Our flag you have, the brazen star, the eagle
Undying symbols for your gallant band.
Look at them, youths and maidens, as they pass you,
While old-time war-tunes break upon the air,
And staring crowds applaud; read ye the message
That from the past these veterans nobly bear,
"Our gift—the gift of Freedom to the Nation,
Our great Republic would entrust to you,
Cherish it fondly, keeping it untarnished,
That, in the Future, looming on our view,
You with the World may share your gift of Freedom."
This is the message that our youth must con,
While the Grand Army, answering its last roll-call
And laying down life's weapons, passes on.
THE HARVARD REGIMENT
We saw the Regiment, alert and strong,
In marching line, on Soldiers' Field today,
Ah! ready they to battle with the wrong;—
This flower of youth—eager and brave and gay.
And we, on-looking, cheered them as they passed,
And we, down-heartened, prayed a silent prayer,
Gazing upon them with a grim forecast,
And many a sad-eyed mother watched them there.
Proudly they turned, and at attention stood,
Or shouldered arms while war-like music thrilled.
"Alas!" we listened in unhappy mood!
"Why should these boys in martial ways be skilled?"
No comfort for our grieving was revealed,
Until we looked across the valiant line
To the old College, far beyond this Field
That honors men who fell at Freedom's shrine.
"Oh, ancient College, that so long hast bred
Son after son to heed his Country's call.
The answer to our questionings is read—
In yonder Tower of your Memorial Hall."
SUMMER IN LONDON
Oh, the noise of Piccadilly—its rumble and its roar!
A tide of life's broad ocean surging toward the shore.
Who once has listened, ever can hear its long refrain
With haunting echo drowning or dirge or flaunting strain.
Who heeds it, in his vision may see a world-throng pass—
And over there the Green Park with laughing lad and lass;
While weary men and women and careless youth go by,
Where windows glow and glitter, and in the evening sky
A crescent moon is watching the laughing lass and lad.
The long, warm London twilight! Happy they are, though sad.
With kiss and tear they are parting. 'Tis late—the rush and roar—
The life of Picadilly is waning—is no more.
Ah, the dark, the cold, the stillness of the trenches in the night,
Where freezing men are crouching in the lull before the fight.
Then for one the calm is broken by the rumble and the roar
Of far-off Picadilly, and in dreams, as oft before,
He sees her who wept at parting. What was that? A whining shell?
Once a man—that huddled horror! He was smiling as he fell.
Summer has returned to London. Now the Green Park gleams anew.
Cheers and tears together mingle—but the breaking heart beats true.
Blare of trumpet!—blood and fire!—so her hero marched away.
Happy lad and lass they parted—now the pitying sky is gray.
Blood and fire! Through its heroes shall a nation live again.
Blare of trumpet! But in silence aching hearts must bear their pain.
Ah, the stillness of the trenches! ah, the rumble and the roar!
Cheers and tears by England offered for the lads who come no more.
1915
SERBIA
Serbia, valiant daughter of the Ages,
Happiness and light should be thy portion!
Yet thy day is dimmed, thine heart is heavy;
Long hast thou endured—a little longer
Bear thy burden, for a fair to-morrow
Soon will gleam upon thy flower-spread valleys,
Soon will brighten all thy shadowy mountains;
Soon will sparkle on thy foaming torrents
Rushing toward the world beyond thy rivers.
Bulgar, Turk and Magyar long assailed thee.
Now the Teuton's cruel hand is on thee
Though he break thy heart and rack thy body,
'Tis not his to crush thy lofty spirit.
Serbia cannot die. She lives immortal,
Serbia—all thy loyal men bring comfort
Fighting, fighting, and thy far-flung banner
Blazons to the world thy high endeavor,
—This thy strife for brotherhood and freedom—
Like an air-free bird unknowing bondage,
Soaring far from carnage, smoke and tumult,
Serbia—thy soul shall live forever!
Serbia, undaunted is, immortal!
A CANADIAN TROOPER TO HIS HORSE
Rest here, my horse, the night is dull,—the blood-sick stars are gone,
Listen, for thou like me wert bred in far Saskatchewan.
And this September night at home, under a happier sky,
The bursting yellow sheaves upon the unbounded prairie lie.
Bread, bread—the staff and stay of life—'tis what the wheatlands yield;
But only death and agony are gathered from this field.
There's respite now, but ah! good friend, before another day,
Although our bodies may be here, we, we, how far away!
We've ridden many a weary mile, together we have fought
For Freedom, honor and the right, and anything we've wrought
Our Country to the Empire will still more closely bind.
Ah! where the reddened maple leaf is fluttering in the wind,
There is my heart, oh noble horse, and may we gallop free
Some day again in Canada, our Land of Liberty.
The night drags on toward the dawn, and far on yonder plain
I hear the throb of musketry, I feel its echoing pain.
I see the star-shells breaking, and nearer than their flare,
A wreath of deadly smoke points out that once a town was there.
Look, brother horse, the night is past, and glorious is the dawn,
Away with peril! We'll ride on for our Saskatchewan.
With day comes hope, and though again the sky with blood is red,
We'll ride against the enemy, for Victory lies ahead,
Aye! for the Empire—Victory that thou shalt help to bring.
And for the Allies Victory—on earth what greater thing!
THE CRY OF THE WOMEN
A new year dawning on a warring world!
And many fight, and many pray for peace;
But yet the roar of battle will not cease,
Still man against his brother man is hurled.
So we who wait—we women in our woe,
Who wait and work—who wait, and work, and weep—
For us there is no rest, for us no sleep,
As our sad thoughts are wandering grim and slow,
Across those dreary fields where far away
Our hero myriads bleed and burn and die,
We lift our hearts toward the pitying sky—
Dawns there no hope upon this New Year's day?
1915
CASSANDRA
Of all the luckless women ever born,
Or ever to be born here on our earth,
Most pitied be Cassandra, from her birth
Condemned to woes unearned by her. Forlorn,
She early read great Ilium's doom, and tried,
Clear-eyed, clear-voiced, her countrymen to warn.
But—she Apollo's passion in high scorn
Had once repelled, and of his injured pride
The God for her had bred this punishment,—
That good, or bad, all things she prophesied
Though true as truth, should ever be decried
And flouted by the people. As she went
Far from old Priam's gates among the crowd,
To save her country was her heart intent.
Pure, fearless, on an holy errand bent,
They called her "mad," who was a Princess proud.
"Alas, the City falls! Beware the horse!
Woe, woe, the Greeks!" Ah! why was she endowed
With this sad gift? Able to pierce the cloud
That veils the future,—in its wasting course
She could not stop the storm. Bitter the pain
When those she loved and trusted—weak resource—
Her prophecies believed not; when the force
Of all her pleading spent itself in vain.
Poor Maid! She knew no greater agony
When dragged a slave in Agamemnon's train.
And though she fell—by Clytemnestra slain—
She smiled on Death who eased her misery.
For oh—what grief to one of faithful heart
It is—to know the evils that must be.
Helpless their doom to make the imperilled see,
Unskilled to shield them from the fatal dart!
SONG OF SPRING
On every bush are roses blooming, everywhere the nightingale
To his love again is warbling plaintively his oft-told tale.
Now within our balmy garden dances the tall cypress tree,
And the poplar never ceases clapping his slim hands in glee.
From the height of every bough-tip you can hear the turtle sing,
With loud voice proclaiming gaily the glad coming of the spring.
On the head of the narcissus gleams as bright his diadem,
As the crown of China's Emperor decked with many a costly gem.
Here the west wind, there the north wind, in true token of their love,
At the feet of yonder rose lay treasure poured down from above.
All the earth with musk is scented, and musk-laden is the air.
Everything proclaims that daily now draws nearer spring the fair.
(Versified from a Persian paraphrase.)
LIFE AND DEATH
"Death after life" shall we sigh as we say it,
Sigh as if death were the end for us all,
Pale at the thought, as in silence we weigh it,
Yield our dull souls to it, bending in thrall?
"Life after death"—look ahead, weakling spirit—
Sure is the way to a world that is ours.
Death is fruition, why then should we fear it?
Death—the fruition of life's budding powers.
MAN OF TODAY
For thee he thought,
The Greek, who by the sea
Lay in his lithe-limbed grace, as dreamily
He gazed upon the sky begemmed with stars,
And pondered mysteries. Ah, few the bars
To stop that lofty spirit in its flight
Compared with those that lock our souls in night.
For thee he thought!
For thee he wrought,
The Tyrian, who of old
His rich web wove of purple dye and gold;
Whose little bark, outstanding many a storm,
To ruder lands the spirit and the form
Of Eastern culture bore. Ah! what we owe
To him today, let sage and poet show.
For thee he wrought!
For thee he fought!
The Saxon, who upheld
The freedom of our race; whose broad-ax felled
Imperial legions in the forest dim
Where loud his war-cry rang—a noble hymn
For manhood's victory over regal pride,
On the sad day when mighty Varus died.
For thee he fought!
For thee He taught!
The Nazarene who bore
The burden of the world, who by the shore
Of Galilee His words of wisdom spake
Whose life a pattern for our life we'd take,
Whose words, re-echoing to remotest time,
Shall lead us on toward a height sublime.
For thee He taught!
Man—man! thou heir of all the ages, thou,
Man of today! uplift thy drooping brow!
Think, work, fight, teach—thine heritage pass on
Tenfold increased. He'll reap who has foregone
Life's little, limited delights,—in measure
As selfless he has sown his earthly treasure.
THE FADING VISION
The vision fades—dome, pinnacle and tower,
All the white beauty of the lake-side dream,
The artist's ideal, the poet's theme
Vanish away. Yet for no fleeting hour
Was this proud fabric raised. The crumbling wall
Entombs not memory's treasure, and we hold
This truth dear as the miser his loved gold,
Dome, pinnacle and tower cannot fall.
No marvel this, that memory holds fast
Such beauty, passing beauty seen before,
The grace and charm of every clime and shore,
Strength of today, the glories of the past,
All met in one great whole—for not alone
Man's hand the wonder wrought, but soaring high
His spirit, like the bird that cleaves the sky,
Knew naught of obstacle from zone to zone.
Deathless his work. Age shall repeat to age
The story of the city by the Lake.
And as the waves that on the near sands break
Reach far-off shores, so on the pictured page
Throughout remotest time, serene in pride,
Wearing her crown of glory, shall be seen
Stately and fair, Chicago, Western queen,
With all the Nations gathered at her side.
Gladly they met, each teaching and each taught,
Light-skinned or dark-skinned from the West or East.
Peoples unlike, as at a loving feast,
Distant no more, united in a thought.
Columbia! this thy lesson, learn it well—
The comity of Nations; this the plan
Of God from time's first dawn, that man with man,
Bound in one brotherhood in peace should dwell.
Great Voyager, whose caravels outsped
Man's swiftest fancy in those earlier days!
If, looking far beyond the curving bays
Of this new world thy glowing spirit read
That here there stretched a mighty continent
Where a sure haven for mankind should be,
Small didst thou count thy peril on the sea,
Well knowing what thy sufferings had meant.
For it was thine to turn toward the West
The worn old-world, and westward as the star
Of Power moves, nor tyranny nor war
Its fires sustains—it shines for the oppressed.
The vision fades—dome, pinnacle and tower—
Yet fades not like the substance of a dream—
Nation to Nation, State to State shall seem
Drawn to each other closer through its power.
1893
THE TITANIC
Out of the misty North
A stealthy foeman stole;
Far from the haunted Pole
On the wide sea went he forth,
And he met a giant ship
As he scoured the sea for toll
It cannot reach its goal
Crushed in his icy grip.
"Of every four just three"
This was his deadly dole.
Unseen he called the roll
Ah! a cold grave is the Sea.
Yet the Sea is not the end,
And Life is not the whole.
Over each heroic soul
Shall Eternity extend.
IF LOVE WERE ALL
If Love were all, how dark the world!
What sorrow for the stricken heart!
If Love were all, with Love grown cold—
No tempest raging bleak and bold,
Its icy fury ever hurled
As madly as the storms that dart
Across the soul when Love is dead.
Poor soul, on bitter passion fed,
Seeing in Earth or Heaven—no bliss,
When Love has died in Love's last kiss.
If Love were all!
If Love were all, how fair the earth!
What joy in every heart-throb here!
If Love were all, and Love were kind,
Love's message, blown on every wind,
Thrilling the soul, would give small worth
To cringing caution, or the jeer
Of those who murmur "Love must die"
When Love's alight from eye to eye,
Life is a happy holiday.
"Where's Winter?" Ah, 'twere ever May,
If Love were all!
THE ROVER
That it be love, I dare not say,
I only know when he's away,
Dark as the night, so dark the day.
But still he'll rove, and still I'll try
Some light to see in yon grim sky.
For I will prove if power there be
To lead him through the night to me
In that soul-star,—fair Constancy.
AH! LITTLE LAKE
Ah! little lake, though fair thou art,
A sapphire flashing to the sky,
Thy charm is only for the eye,
Thy beauty cannot hold my heart.
Green hill-sides bending to thy shore
Gleam clear in the autumnal light,
While far above, Monadnock's height
Keeps rugged guard thy waters o'er.
And yet these very beauties cloy;
As in a prison I am bound,
Though fair the walls that gird me round,
My housemate is no longer joy.
Thy loveliness breeds discontent,
For far my foolish heart would be,
It longs for the unquiet sea,
And with desire is sorely rent.
Hateful the walls that me debar
From happier things that haunt me so,
Even my weary thoughts are slow
To reach the great, great world afar.
I half believe there is no world
Those cruel hill-tops there beyond.
Oh—for the wizard Merlin's wand!
That all these mountain curves uncurled.
I might behold the shore I love,
Might hear the roaring of the tide,
Might see the ocean, reaching wide
And boundless as the sky above.
One hour beside that sea-kissed beach
Quick throbbing to its love's caress,
Would yield to me more happiness
Than a whole life-time here could teach.
SEVERUS SPEAKS
"For nearly eighteen years upon my head
The crown of Empire heavily has set.
The burden on my shoulders I have borne
Of an estate encumbered far and wide
With debts I had to pay. Ah! everywhere
Murmurs, revolts, or wars assailed my throne.
Now quiet comes—even in Britain here,
The most disturbing Province of them all.
Yet I must go, the profits I must leave
To others to enjoy—to hold with ease
What I with bitter travail have obtained.
Peace there must be, and mutual amity,
The one support to hold the Empire firm,
To keep the Glory of the Empire bright.
Discord would be the ruin of the pile,
That my poor hands have built so painfully.
Only when Peace prevails may we behold
How small things grow to greatness.
—Now I die
And all the issue of the coming days
I leave to my successor, and my son,
Though he has been a cruel son to me.
Bassanius I name your Emperor,
The new-made Antoninus, who long tried
To get that title by the sword,
Who sought my death, the dangers knowing not
That always must surround a diadem,
Forgetting that the places of the great
Are guarded well by Envy and by Fear.
Blind is ambition, for it cannot see
That though a sovereign's power large may seem
To others, by himself the things possessed
Are counted small enough, aye small they are.
For titles cannot make a happy man.
While his thin thread of life must waver so,
His might is laid upon a weak support.
So men may point to me, and say 'Behold—
A man who once was all things in this world,
Yet now is nothing. For like meaner men
He paid his debt to nature. His exploits
He left behind.' Aye, friends I leave my deeds
For you to register. Reproach or praise
The shadowing pencil of oblivion
At last will blot. And yet that all the care
That I have taken for the general good
May bring forth happy fruits when I am dust,
This would I make my one, my last request,
—Assist my sons with counsel and with aid,
That they may rule according to the law,
And you obey according to the right.
So, through you both—my legions and my sons—
The Empire shall be held in high respect."
And then the dying Emperor feebly turned
Toward the urn wherein so soon must lie
His ashes—and he cried "So shalt thou hold
What the whole world one time could not contain."
Thus died Severus.
TOWN AND COUNTRY
About the country they may talk who will,
Who praise it ever to the town's despite.
Let him extol the charms of wood and hill
Who finds them peerless. None disputes his right.
For me the town! Each well-worn footway old
To me is dearer than your grass-grown lane.
Not all who struggle here contend for gold;
Green-growing things quit not the soul of pain.
"God made the country." Ay, and God made man.
Working through man His power He displays,
And in the city's mazes His great plan
Is writ as clear as in calm country ways.
STRENGTH RENEWED
AntÆus, as the ancient poets sing,
Though in his contest with the God of Power
Doomed to be conquered, stayed the fatal hour,
And the onlookers set to wondering.
For overborne, to Earth he'd closely cling,
Until he rose again, a mighty tower.
Thus could the Earth with strength her lover dower,
And very near to victory could bring.
So when I feel thy tender hand in mine,
I, too, dear love, against the world could stand,
Courage divine comes with thy lightest touch.
Afar from thee AntÆus-like I pine,
But strength returns now as I clasp thy hand.
Ah! that so slight a thing should mean so much.
AT MIAMI
Here, where the proud hibiscus blooms in flame,
Where swaying palms nod lightly to the sea,
Where each azalea towers—a stately tree—
And orange blossoms charm, today I came
Upon a little flower unknown to fame,
Half hid in the scant sward, white as this shell
From yonder beach, and I can hardly tell
What drew me to it, murmuring its name.
"Bred in cool meadows, vagrant from the North,
Fair Dewberry, what art thou doing here?
Or chance, or purpose started thee to roam?
And yet whatever power sent thee forth,
Still it is thine to call the sudden tear,
To stir the trembling heart with thoughts of home."
WHICH
Who then is rich, who poor? I'll tell you now
Of one, a meagre life who had to live,
Wear dingy garb, and scarcely could allow
Himself what men call comfort; yet to give
Was his delight,—to give full-heartedly.
Though Fate had hampered him, he always knew
Some one still poorer. In humility
He thus gave hope to him who had small view
Of happier things;—solace to him who wept;—
And to the beaten courage to endure.
He shared his little with the starved, and kept
His best for those who needed most. Though poor,
By giving he grew richer day by day
In all that brightens life's uncertain way.
There was another who had never known
A wish unsatisfied. For everything
That luxury could offer was his own.
Thus all that learning, all that wealth could bring
Adorned his life. The many him would praise,—
For this world loves the prosperous,—and still
Close to himself he hugged his all. To raise
A helping hand he never had the will.
He never heard the cries of men in need.
Of all he had he would not give a part.
For "I" and "mine" was ever his one creed.
No balm had he for any aching heart.
Mean was his life (as was the other's great)
Despite the splendor of his high estate.
And now in yonder world I wonder which—
For both are dead—is counted poor—or rich.
THE BLESSED DEAD
They loved life, even as we, who went away
From their dear dwelling-place to one unknown
To us who linger here. They could not stay,
Nor we go with them, so they went alone.
Although their beating hearts with ours kept time,
Although their clinging hands we fondly held,
We could not walk the path they had to climb,
Hardly we heard the death-call when it knelled.
Trustful, or fearful of the way ahead,
They had to journey from this throbbing life,
And we—we know they are the blessed dead,
For they have gone away from pain and strife.
We cannot see the land where they have gone.
Our eyes are dim, and they are hid in light,
But we are following them toward the dawn,
Who knows when it will break upon our sight!
OAK-LEAVES
Crinkled oak-leaves, twinkling in the sun,
Splashed by midday showers, dripping cold—
Serrate oak-leaves, silvered by the sun
That has brushed yon dull brown grass with gold.
Green and crinkled oak leaves, tremble now—
Strong you would be, strong would be and bold,
Ah! green oak-leaves, you are trembling now—
By the saucy wind deceived—cajoled!
Trembling oak leaves—you are soon to fall,
Soon to hide the earth with yellowing mould
Twinkling, crinkling oak-leaves, soon you'll fall
For the autumn sun is shining cold.
SELF-SATISFIED
Well satisfied with all his own, he stands
Holding a trembling balance in his hands;
On one scale—wealth and ease, men's praises, too—
Whatever charms the soul, and keeps it true.
But on the other scale—lo—the foul street
Where pallid children play, where poor folk greet,
And crowded houses dirty, dimly lit,
On whose dull walls all misery is writ,
Houses wherein the herded cannot fight
The ambushed evil lurking day and night.
Has he—contented one—who counts his gain,
Balanced the cost—the wretchedness and pain
Of those who help him hoard his heap of gold?
Ah, human life may be too dearly sold!
For see, the one scale weighs the other down.
His gold, his ease, his honors—by Heaven's frown
Withered to nothing, now, behold he stands—
Broken his scales—reaching imploring hands.
MY VIGIL
Companioned by the lonely hours,
My vigil with the stars I keep,—
The happy stars that never weep,—
The wakeful stars that never sleep,
Spirit of me that frets and cowers,
Ah, what am I, that I should be
And breathe in this Infinity?
Unburdened of the weight of self,
Toward the highest heights I am borne,
Below lies Earth, begrimed and worn,
Far, far from me her praise, her scorn,
Her joys, her woes, her loss, her pelf,
One with the happy stars am I!
Our limits the unbounded sky!
TO MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE
Dear Lady of Tranquillity, Ah! lightly have the years
Their music on thy heart-strings played, and all the smiles and tears
That mark the joy of living, that sound the depths of pain
For thee make one great harmony—a happy heart's refrain.
(On her eighty-sixth birthday.)
THE SOARER
There soars a warbler toward high Heaven,
His course seems sure and straight;—
So speeds an arrow from the bow-string,
Yet who can read his fate!
For while he carols like a seraph
Bound for a radiant star
Mayhap the fowler's eye, relentless,
Has doomed him from afar.
A longer life the crawling snail hath
Than thou—O wanderer bright—
Ah, let the sluggard crawl in safety,
Thine is the realm of light!
Like thee a soaring soul's in peril,
Yet its one hour is worth
A whole Eternity of grovelling
Closer to grimy earth.
A FANCY
The world of dreams is all my own,
Wherein I wander—free, alone;—
And each weird, fervid fantasy
Is dearer than earth's joys to me.
The waking world I share with you;
And yours, as mine, is the ocean's blue.
For us both spring's early flowers are fair,
Or the cold stars gleam through the frosty air.
But in the world of dreams I rove
Over sunny fields, or in shaded grove,—
Such beauty your eyes never saw—
And all is mine without let or law.
Ah! the hopes and fears that come and go
With my flying fancy, none may know;
Though unsubstantial, it seems
My real world—this world of dreams.
THE SHRIEKING WOMAN AT MARBLEHEAD
'Twas a Spanish galleon sailed the seas,—
Two centuries since have rolled—
Laden with silver and gems to please
Gay dames and gallants bold.
But villainous pirates seized the ship
As homeward she was bound;
Ah, she has made her last long trip
For they ran her soon aground.
From Oakum Bay into Marblehead
They brought one lady fair,—
Her husband, alas, and his crew are dead,
And her they will not spare.
Loud, loud she shrieked in the pirates' arms,
"Oh, save me—Jesu, save!"
Cruel echo mocked at her wild alarms,
As they dug her a nameless grave.
Yet once a year when the night has come
That saw her dreadful death,
You can hear her above the ocean's boom
Shriek out with her dying breath.
THE HUGUENOT LOVERS
Sorrowful pleading on her face is written
With love commingled, and my heart throbs fast,
Flooded with currents of a deep emotion
Stirred by the memory of that awful past.
Note the sad gaze of him who bends above her,
What say his eyes in answer to her own?
What did he think as tenderly he kissed her?
What was the meaning of his whispered tone?
Spoke he of honor's claim poor love's outweighing,
Or did her circling arms so well enfold
That the white kerchief wearing-badge of safety—
He passed the lurking foe with spirit bold.
Ah, they are vanished now—the maid and lover,
Their history the wisest cannot tell.
Mayhap upon that night of cruel slaughter,
Eager to meet the zealot's hate he fell.
Mayhap in some fair corner of the Kingdom,
Under the gentler rule of brave Navarre,
They showed the kerchief to their children's children,
And told the story of the unholy war.
TO JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE
Gay Summer sees the flowering
Of buds that were the gift of Spring;
And Winter counts the ripened sheaves
That Autumn harvested. Who grieves
When he at length has won the race,
Or backward then his way would trace?
Oh, honored Poet, Wit, and Sage,
This birthday marks an open page,
And here before its record's writ,
These words we would inscribe on it.
"Thou, upon whom thy years fourscore
So lightly sit, thou hast a store
Of memories such as they alone
May have whose hearts all truth have known.
Now may this year bring thee no less
Than all the past of happiness!"
(On his eightieth birthday.)
WEED OR FLOWER
"'Tis but a common thing," one coldly said,
"Nay, call it not a flower—this little weed,
If plucking it, I kill it, root and seed—
Better the world were if it lay there dead."
"Ah—rather let it live!" a second cried,
"Weed it may be, and yet it has its use,
Here in its healing essence its excuse
For blooming lies, and here its only pride."
"Destroy it not!" another pled, "Behold
This tapering leaf—this soft and tender green,
Upon my canvas it shall bloom serene—
This tiny chalice-fleck of living gold."
Then one bent over it, "Ah, flowret bright!
For only flowers in this garden grow,—
His earth, His sunshine made thee, o'er thee blow
His winds, frail thing! In thee He shows His might."
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON (IN MEMORY)
Sage of the silver pen!
Wherever thy thought was heard,
Thou wert a leader of men.
Poet of honored word!
Knight of the eagle glance,
Piercing the depths of wrong,
"Justice" thy cry, and thy lance
True in its aim, and strong.
Man of the ruddy heart
Beating warm for our kind!
Thine was the hero's part;
Eyes wert thou to the blind:
Thou a staff to the weak,
Here we our tribute lay—
Homage thou didst not seek—
Twined with a wreath of bay,
A garland woven of love,
Woven of love and tears,
Pure as the note of a dove,
Voicing thy peaceful years.
(Read at the Memorial Meeting Nov. 20, 1911.)
LIGHTER VERSE
FRIGHTENED
Today I had the awfulest time,
Dear mother, in the wood.
That hill out there we were to climb,
And we'd been very good.
But nurse was walking up the hill,
When little Anne and I,
We had to stop and stand quite still,
And Anne began to cry.
For something moved behind the trees,
We felt so all alone—
Said I to Anne, "Stop crying, please,
I'll hit it with a stone."
Cried Anne, "Oh, listen, hear it growl."
Said I, "I'm not afraid
Of bears or lions." "Now don't scowl.
You look so cross," she said.
So then I had to smile and smile, for Anne was crying all the while.
And if we didn't hear a bear, I'm sure, dear mother, one was there.
Boys always must take care of girls,
You see you've told me so.
That's why I tried to pat Anne's curls,
And walked with her real slow.
But when we heard nurse calling out,
"Come, children, come along!"
"Come, Nurse," you should have heard me shout—
Anne says my voice is strong.
"Run, Anne," I cried, "I'm almost five, and I'll kill any bear alive."
And if we didn't see a bear, I truly think that one was there.
How glad I was when Nurse turn'd round,
For everything seemed queer.
The trees looked strange, and then that sound
We didn't like to hear.
Nurse laughed when we had told her all
About the bear we saw.
"I came as quick's I heard you call,
And it's against the law
For bears to live where people stay. They are five hundred miles away."
But if we didn't meet a bear, I'm sure that almost one was there.
THE CHRISTMAS LETTER
I'm always glad when Christmas comes, and yet I'd like it better;
If mother wouldn't bother me to write a Christmas letter
To uncle John and Cousin Kate and dear old Grand-aunt Gray,
And all whose presents come to me from places far away.
Of course I love my presents, and if givers should forget her,
No little girl, my mother says, need write a Christmas letter.
For oh! my ink makes awful blots, though I try to do real well,
And when you write them out of school, all words are hard to spell.
I mean to mind my mother, she's so kind I would not fret her,
But when she says, "Stop playing, dear. Come, write this Christmas letter,"
That's just the thing I hate to hear, and if I dared, I wouldn't
Remember how to hold a pen, I'd make believe I couldn't.
A VICTIM
My Auntie has a camera, and when I'm out at play
And see her coming with it, I try to hide away.
For oh, it is so bothersome to hear her, with a laugh,
Call, "Stand just were you are, dear; I'll take a photograph."
Sometimes, an angry lion, I have just begun to roar,
And all the children run from me to sneak behind the door,
When Auntie to our forest comes—why does she stop our fun?
I'd like to shoot that camera there with my wooden gun.
Perhaps, a fire engine, I am rushing to a fire,
While people loudly call for help as flames rise higher and higher.
I hurry toward the hydrant here, for oh! the flames are hot!
When Auntie with her camera cries, "What a fine snapshot!"
But then it doesn't seem to snap, so I must be polite,
And when she says, "Oh please, stand still, the sun is not just right,"
I have to pull up where I am, and see that house burn down,
For Auntie doesn't understand, even when I twist and frown.
She only says, "Don't squirm, my pet! Oh, what a cunning pose!
Your scowl is better than a smile,"—so that's the way it goes—
A p'liceman or an admiral, no matter what I am,
I have to face that camera as quiet as a lamb.
JACK FROST
Oh! it is little Margery who has a garden-bed,
Wherein grow purple pansies and geraniums white and red,
With feverfew and dahlias, and delicate pink phlox,
And grandmother's fair favorites, old-fashioned hollyhocks.
One night we feared Jack Frost might come to blight the tender flowers—
We almost felt his cruel breath in the early evening hours;
So Margery took coverings and spread them, thick and warm,
To shield the flowers, as blankets wrap a sleeping baby's form.
Then in the morning, when we looked across the dewy grass,
And saw the traces Jack Frost leaves where he is wont to pass—
For each spreading tree and slender bush had felt his chill caress,
And some had drooped, and some had blushed in crimson loveliness—
We hastened to the garden-bed, and there, in bright array,
The little flowers looked blithely up to greet the smiling day.
Safe hid from Jack Frost's piercing breath, he never saw them there,
And the flowers still bloom for Margery, to thank her for her care.
A CURIOSITY
I knew a little boy, not very long ago,
Who was as bright and happy as any boy you know.
He had an only fault, and you will all agree
That from a fault like this a boy himself might free.
"I wonder who is there, oh, see! now, why is this?"
And "Oh, where are they going?" and "Tell me what it is?"
Ah! "which" and "why" and "who," and "what" and "where" and "when,"
We often wished that never need we hear those words again.
He seldom stopped to think; he almost always knew
The answer to the questions that around the world he threw.
To children seeking knowledge a quick reply we give,
But answering what he asked was pouring water through a sieve.
Yet you'll admit his fate was as sad as it was strange.
Our eyes we hardly trusted, who slowly saw him change.
More curious grew his head, stemlike his limbs, and hark!
He was at last a mere interrogation-mark!
