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.The Poems of Celia Thaxter.
Edited by Sarah Orne JewettAppledore Edition. Boston and New York,
Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
The Riverside Press, Cambridge,
1896.
CONTENTS
LAND-LOCKED
OFF SHORE
EXPECTATION
THE WRECK OF THE POCAHONTAS
A THANKSGIVING.
THE MINUTE-GUNS
SEAWARD
ROCK WEEDS
THE SANDPIPER
TWILIGHT
THE SWALLOW
A GRATEFUL HEART
THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES
WATCHING
IN MAY
A SUMMER DAY
REGRET
BEFORE SUNRISE
BY THE ROADSIDE
SORROW
NOVEMBER
COURAGE
REMEMBRANCE
SONG: "WE SAIL TOWARD EVENING'S LONELY STAR"
A TRYST
IMPRISONED
PRESAGE
MIDSUMMER MIDNIGHT
APRIL DAYS
HEARTBREAK HILL
THE SONG-SPARROW
IN KITTERY CHURCHYARD
AT THE BREAKERS' EDGE
"FOR THOUGHTS"
WHEREFORE
GUENDOLEN
THE WATCH OF BOON ISLAND
BEETHOVEN
MOZART
SCHUBERT
CHOPIN
THE PIMPERNEL
BY THE DEAD
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND
A BROKEN LILY
MAY MORNING
ALL 'S WELL
THE SECRET
SEASIDE GOLDENROD
MARCH
SONG
THE WHITE ROVER
CONTRAST
A FADED GLOVE
PORTENT
SONG: "SING, LITTLE BIRD, OH SING'
RENUNCIATION
SONG: "OH THE FRAGRANCE OF THE AIR"
TWO SONNETS
DAYBREAK
SONG: "O LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!"
THE NESTLING SWALLOW
VESPER SONG
FLOWERS IN OCTOBER
WAIT
KAREN
A MUSSEL SHELL
TRUST
MODJESKA
SONG: "O SWALLOW, SAILING LIGHTLY"
LARS
SONG: "A RUSHING OF WINGS IN THE DAWN"
THORA
THE HAPPY BIRDS
SLUMBER SONG
STARLIGHT
SONG: "HARK, HOW SWEET THE THRUSHES SING"
REMONSTRANCE
MORNING SONG
BEETHOVEN
SONG: "WHAT GOOD GIFT CAN I BRING TREE, O THOU DEAREST"
WITH THE TIDE
"THE SUNRISE NEVER FAILED US YET"
ENTHRALLED
SONG: "ROLLS THE LONG BREAKER IN SPLENDOR, AND GLANCES"
TRANSITION
LEVIATHAN
TO A VIOLIN
PHILOSOPHY
MEDRICK AND OSPREY
ALONE
REVERIE
HEART'S-EASE
AUTUMN
SONG: "LOVE, ART THOU WEARY WITH THE SULTRY DAY?"
SUBMISSION
SONG: "I WORE YOUR ROSES, YESTERDAY"
SPRING AGAIN
SONNET: "AS HAPPY DWELLERS BY THE SEASIDE HEAR'"
SONG: "ABOVE IN HER CHAMBER HER VOICE I HEAR"
FOREBODING
HOMAGE
DISCONTENT
GUESTS
MUTATION
FAREWELL
DOUBT
SUNSET SONG
"LOVE SHALL SAVE US ALL"
THE CRUISE OF THE MYSTERY
SCHUMANN'S SONATA IN A MINOR
BECAUSE OF THEE
FLOWERS FOR THE BRAVE
EXPOSTULATION
PERSISTENCE
S. E.
POOR LISETTE
TO J. G. W.
IN TUSCANY
GOOD-BY, SWEET DAY
IN AUTUMN
WEST-WIND
IMPATIENCE
IN THE LANE
HER MIRROR
FOR CHRISTMAS
AT SET OF MOON
MY GARDEN
LOST AND SAVED
A ROSE OF JOY
IN SEPTEMBER
UNDER THE EAVES
NOVEMBER MORNING
IN DEATH AND DESPITE
A SONG OF HOPE
TWO
COMPENSATION
SONNET: "BACK FROM LIFE'S COASTS THE EBBING TIDE HAD DRAWN"
JOY
BELOVED
THE ANSWER
SONG: "PAST THE POINT AND BY THE BEACH"
AUGUST
SONG: "A BIRD UPON A ROSY BOUGH"
"OH TELL ME NOT OF HEAVENLY HALLS"
MIDSUMMER
NEW YEAR SONG
CAPTURED
FAITH
AT DAWN
IN A HORSE-CAR
A VALENTINE
WITHIN AND WITHOUT
BETROTHED
QUESTIONS
TYRE AND SIDEON
HJELMA
MY HOLLYHOCK
BENEDICTION
SONNET: "IF I DO SPEAK YOUR PRAISE, FORGIVE ME, SWEET!"
ON THE TRAIN
PEACE
AS LINNETS SING
RUTH
PETITION
APPEAL"Preface" to The Poems of Celia Thaxter.
Sarah Orne Jewett
Appledore Edition. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1896.In this new edition of the collected writings of Celia Thaxter, great care has been taken to keep to her own arrangement and to the order in which the poems were originally published. In this way they seem to make something like a journal of her daily life and thought, and to mark the constantly increasing power of observation which was so marked a trait in her character. As her eyes grew quicker to see the blooming of flowers and the flight of birds, the turn of the waves as they broke on the rocks of Appledore, so the eyes of her spirit read more and more clearly the inward significance of things, the mysterious sorrows and joys of human life. In the earliest of her poems there is much to be found of that strange insight and anticipation of experience which comes with such gifts of nature and gifts for writing as hers, but as life went on it seemed as if Sorrow were visible to her eyes, a shrouded figure walking in the daylight. Here I and Sorrow sit was often true to the sad vision of her imagination, yet she oftenest came hand in hand with some invisible dancing Joy to a friend's door.
Through the long list of these brief poems (beginning in the earliest book with Land-locked and following through the volumes called Driftweed and The Cruise of the Mystery; all reprinted here with some later verses found together among her papers), one walks side by side in intimate companionship with this sometimes sad-hearted but sincerely glad and happy woman and poet, and knows the springs of her life and the power of her great love and hope. In another volume all her delightful verses and stories for children have been gathered; but one poem, The Sandpiper, seemed to belong to one book as much as to the other, and this has been reprinted in both.
In the volume of her Letters will be found the records of Celia Thaxter's life and so far as it could be told the history of her literary work, while some personal notes by the hand of one of her dearest and oldest friends leave little to be said here. Yet those who have known through her writings alone the islands she loved so much, may care to know how, just before she died, she paid, as if with dim foreboding, a last visit to the old familiar places of the tiny world that was so dear to her. Day after day she called those who were with her to walk or sail; once to spend a long afternoon among the high cliffs of Star Island where we sat in the shade behind the old church, and she spoke of the year that she spent in the Gosport parsonage, and went there with us, to find old memories waiting to surprise her in the worn doorways, and ghosts and fancies of her youth tenanting all the ancient rooms. Once we went to the lighthouse on White Island, where she walked lightly over the rough rocks with wonted feet, and showed us many a trace of her childhood, and sang some quaint old songs, as we sat on the cliff looking seaward, with a touching lovely cadence in her voice, an unforgotten cadence to any one who ever heard her sing. We sat by the Spaniards' graves through a long summer twilight, and she repeated her poem as if its familiar words were new, and we talked of many things as we watched the sea. And on Appledore she showed us all the childish playgrounds dearest to her and her brothers, -- the cupboard in a crevice of rock, the old wells and cellars, the tiny stone-walled enclosures, the worn doorsteps of unremembered houses. We crept under the Sheep rock for shelter out of a sudden gust of rain, we found some of the rarer wild flowers in their secret places. In one of these it thrills me now to remember that she saw a new white flower, strange to her and to the island, which seemed to reach up to her hand. "This never bloomed on Appledore before," she said, and looked at it with grave wonder. "It has not quite bloomed yet," she said, standing before the flower; "I shall come here again;" and then we went our unreturning way up the footpath that led over the ledges, and left the new flower growing in its deep windless hollow on the soft green turf.
It was midsummer, and the bayberry bushes were all a bright and shining green, and we watched a sandpiper, and heard the plaintive cry that begged us not to find and trouble its nest. Under the very rocks and gray ledges, to the far nests of the wild sea birds, her love and knowledge seemed to go. She was made of that very dust, and set about with that sea, islanded indeed in the reserves of her lonely nature with its storms and calmness of high tides, but it seemed as if a little star dust must have been mixed with the ordinary dust of those coasts; there was something bright in her spirit that will forever shine, and light the hearts of those who loved her. It will pass on to a later time in these poems that she wrote of music, of spring and winter, of flower and birds, and of that northern sea which was her friend and fellow.
S.O.J.
NOTES
Celia Thaxter: (1835-1894) A popular American poet, best remembered perhaps for An Island Garden (1894), with its "pictures and illuminations" by Childe Hassam. For biographical information see: Sandpiper: The Life of Celia Thaxter, written by her granddaughter, Rosamond Thaxter, and published by Wake-Brook House, 1962; Poet on Demand: The Life, Letters and Works of Celia Thaxter by Jane E. Vallier. Camden, Maine, Down East Books, 1982; A Little Book of Friends by Harriet Prescott Spofford. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1917. Pp. 67-86.
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The first text is from Celia Thaxter, Stories and Poems for Children. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1895. The second preface is from The Poems of Celia Thaxter, the Appledore Edition, Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1896. If you see items needing correction or annotation, please contact the site manager.
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Appledore Island: The largest island of a cluster of nine islands 10 miles off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire known as the Isles of Shoals. Appledore is the island on which Celia Thaxter had a cottage and spent many summers. She buried on the island with her mother and father.
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collected writings: Vallier, p. 121, says: "When in 1935 on Celia Thaxter's centenary her brother Oscar Laighton published The Heavenly Guest, another chapter had to be written on the subject of Thaxter as a poet. Among the papers found after her death were some fine poems that Annie Fields, Rose Lamb and Sarah Orne Jewett chose not to include in the Appledore Edition of Thaxter's poems in 1896."
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Here I and sorrow sit: In Shakespeare's King John, Constance says early in Act 3 (Pelican Shakespeare):
My grief's so great
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up. Here I and sorrows sit.
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Land-locked: Celia Thaxter's first poem, written in 1861 at the age of 26 and published in the March issue of the Atlantic Monthly magazine. Driftweed. (Drift-Weed) was Thaxter's second book of poems, published by Houghton, Osgood & Co. in 1878; The Cruise of the Mystery: (The Cruise of the Mystery, and other Poems). Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1886.
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The Sandpiper: Celia Thaxter's most famous and remembered poem written in 1872. See below for a copy of "The Sandpiper."
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Letters: (Letters of Celia Thaxter). Edited by Annie Fields and Rose Lamb. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1895.
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Star Island ... Gosport parsonage ... White Island: Celia Thaxter spent 1853 a young wife at the Gosport parsonage on Star Island where her husband Levi Thaxter had accepted a missionary position from the Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Indians and Others in North America. White Island, also one of the Isles of Shoals, has the lighthouse where Celia Thaxter spent her childhood. See also Jewett's poem, "Star Island" at this site in Poems.
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Spaniards' graves: This is the title of one of her poems; it is also the site of the graves, still visible today, of sailors shipwrecked on the Shoals in 1813.
[ Back ]Preface edited and annotated by Jean-Paul Michaud, New York Public Library.
Poems edited by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Poems
LAND-LOCKEDBLACK lie the hills; swiftly doth daylight flee;
And, catching gleams of sunset's dying smile,
Through the dusk land for many a changing mile
The river runneth softly to the sea.O happy river, could I follow thee!
O yearning heart, that never can be still!
O wistful eyes, that watch the steadfast hill,
Longing for level line of solemn sea!Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds,
Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight,
All summer's glory thine from morn till night,
And life too full of joy for uttered words.Neither am I ungrateful; but I dream
Deliciously how twilight falls to-night
Over the glimmering water, how the light
Dies blissfully away, until I seemTo feel the wind, sea-scented, on my cheek,
To catch the sound of dusky flapping sail
And dip of oars, and voices on the gale
Afar off, calling low, -- my name they speak!O Earth! thy summer song of joy may soar
Ringing to heaven in triumph. I but crave
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
That breaks in tender music on the shore.
OFF SHORE
ROCK, little boat, beneath the quiet sky;
Only the stars behold us where we lie, --
Only the stars and yonder brightening moon.On the wide sea to-night alone are we;
The sweet, bright summer day dies silently,
Its glowing sunset will have faded soon.Rock softly, little boat, the while I mark
The far off gliding sails, distinct and dark,
Across the west pass steadily and slow.But on the eastern waters sad, they change
And vanish, dream-like, gray, and cold, and strange,
And no one knoweth whither they may go.We are not, we, drifting with wind and tide,
While glad waves darken upon either side,
Save where the moon sends silver sparkles down,And yonder slender stream of changing light,
Now white, now crimson, tremulously bright,
Where dark the lighthouse stands, with fiery crown.Thick falls the dew, soundless on sea and shore:
It shines on little boat and idle oar,
Wherever moonbeams touch with tranquil glow.The waves are full of whispers wild and sweet;
They call to me, -- incessantly they beat
Along the boat from stern to curvèd prow.Comes the careering wind, blows back my hair,
All damp with dew, to kiss me unaware,
Murmuring "Thee I love," and passes on.Sweet sounds on rocky shores the distant rote;
Oh could we float forever, little boat,
Under the blissful sky drifting alone!
THROUGHOUT the lonely house the whole day long
The wind-harp's fitful music sinks and swells, --
A cry of pain, sometimes, or sad and strong,
Or faint, like broken peals of silver bells.Across the little garden comes the breeze,
Bows all its cups of flame, and brings to me
Its breath of mignonette and bright sweet-peas,
With drowsy murmurs from the encircling sea.In at the open door a crimson drift
Of fluttering, fading woodbine leaves is blown,
And through the clambering vine the sunbeams sift,
And trembling shadows on the floor are thrown.I climb the stair, and from the window lean
Seeking thy sail, O love, that still delays;
Longing to catch its glimmer, searching keen
The jealous distance veiled in tender haze.What care I if the pansies purple be,
Or sweet the wind-harp wails through the slow hours;
Or that the lulling music of the sea
Comes woven with the perfume of the flowers?Thou comest not! I ponder o'er the leaves,
The crimson drift behind the open door:
Soon shall we listen to a wind that grieves,
Mourning this glad year, dead forevermore.And, O my love, shall we on some sad day
Find joys and hopes low fallen like the leaves,
Blown by life's chilly autumn wind away
In withered heaps God's eye alone perceives?Come thou, and save me from my dreary thought!
Who dares to question Time, what it may bring?
Yet round us lies the radiant summer, fraught
With beauty: must we dream of suffering?Yea, even so. Through this enchanted land,
This morning-red of life, we go to meet
The tempest in the desert, hand in hand,
Along God's paths of pain, that seek his feet.But this one golden moment, -- hold it fast!
The light grows long: low in the west the sun,
Clear red and glorious, slowly sinks at last,
And while I muse, the tranquil day is done.The land breeze freshens in thy gleaming sail!
Across the singing waves the shadows creep:
Under the new moon's thread of silver pale,
With the first star, thou comest o'er the deep.
THE WRECK OF THE POCAHONTAS
I LIT the lamps in the lighthouse tower,
For the sun dropped down and the day was dead.
They shone like a glorious clustered flower, --
Ten golden and five red.Looking across, where the line of coast
Stretched darkly, shrinking away from the sea,
The lights sprang out at its edge, -- almost
They seemed to answer me!O warning lights! burn bright and clear,
Hither the storm comes! Leagues away
It moans and thunders low and drear, --
Burn till the break of day!Good-night! I called to the gulls that sailed
Slow past me through the evening sky;
And my comrades, answering shrilly, hailed
Me back with boding cry.A mournful breeze began to blow;
Weird music it drew through the iron bars;
The sullen billows boiled below,
And dimly peered the stars;The sails that flecked the ocean floor
From east to west leaned low and fled;
They knew what came in the distant roar
That filled the air with dread!Flung by a fitful gust, there beat
Against the window a dash of rain:
Steady as tramp of marching feet
Strode on the hurricane.It smote the waves for a moment still,
Level and deadly white for fear;
The bare rock shuddered, -- an awful thrill
Shook even my tower of cheer.Like all the demons loosed at last,
Whistling and shrieking, wild and wide,
The mad wind raged, while strong and fast
Rolled in the rising tide.And soon in ponderous showers, the spray,
Struck from the granite, reared and sprung
And clutched at tower and cottage gray,
Where overwhelmed they clungHalf drowning to the naked rock;
But still burned on the faithful light,
Nor faltered at the tempest's shock,
Through all the fearful night.Was it in vain? That knew not we.
We seemed, in that confusion vast
Of rushing wind and roaring sea,
One point whereon was castThe whole Atlantic's weight of brine.
Heaven help the ship should drift our way!
No matter how the light might shine
Far on into the day.When morning dawned, above the din
Of gale and breaker boomed a gun!
Another! We who sat within
Answered with cries each one.Into each other's eyes with fear
We looked through helpless tears, as still,
One after one, near and more near,
The signals pealed, untilThe thick storm seemed to break apart
To show us, staggering to her grave,
The fated brig. We had no heart
To look, for naught could save.One glimpse of black hull heaving slow,
Then closed the mists o'er canvas torn
And tangled ropes swept to and fro
From masts that racked forlorn.Weeks after, yet ringed round with spray
Our island lay, and none might land;
Though blue the waters of the bay
Stretched calm on either hand.And when at last from the distant shore
A little boat stole out, to reach
Our loneliness, and bring once more
Fresh human thought and speech,We told our tale, and the boatmen cried:
"'T was the Pocahontas, -- all were lost!
For miles along the coast the tide
Her shattered timbers tossed."Then I looked the whole horizon round, --
So beautiful the ocean spread
About us, o'er those sailors drowned!
"Father in heaven," I said, --A child's grief struggling in my breast, --
"Do purposeless thy children meet
Such bitter death? How was it best
These hearts should cease to beat?"Oh wherefore? Are we naught to Thee?
Like senseless weeds that rise and fall
Upon thine awful sea, are we
No more then, after all?"And I shut the beauty from my sight,
For I thought of the dead that lay below;
From the bright air faded the warmth and light,
There came a chill like snow.Then I heard the far-off rote resound,
Where the breakers slow and slumberous rolled,
And a subtile sense of Thought profound
Touched me with power untold.And like a voice eternal spake
That wondrous rhythm, and, "Peace, be still!"
It murmured, "bow thy head and take
Life's rapture and life's ill,"And wait. At last all shall be clear."
The long, low, mellow music rose
And fell, and soothed my dreaming ear
With infinite repose.Sighing I climbed the lighthouse stair,
Half forgetting my grief and pain;
And while the day died, sweet and fair,
I lit the lamps again.
HIGH on the ledge the wind blows the bayberry bright,
Turning the leaves till they shudder and shine in the light;
Yellow St. John's-wort and yarrow are nodding their heads,
Iris and wild-rose are glowing in purples and reds.Swift flies the schooner careering beyond o'er the blue;
Faint shows the furrow she leaves as she cleaves lightly through;
Gay gleams the fluttering flag at her delicate mast;
Full swell the sails with the wind that is following fast.Quail and sandpiper and swallow and sparrow are here:
Sweet sound their manifold notes, high and low, far and near;
Chorus of musical waters, the rush of the breeze,
Steady and strong from the south, -- what glad voices are these!O cup of the wild-rose, curved close to hold odorous dew,
What thought do you hide in your heart? I would that I knew!
O beautiful Iris, unfurling your purple and gold,
What victory fling you abroad in the flags you unfold?Sweet may your thought be, red rose, but still sweeter is mine,
Close in my heart hidden, clear as your dewdrop divine.
Flutter your gonfalons, Iris, the pæan I sing
Is for victory better than joy or than beauty can bring.Into thy calm eyes, O Nature, I look and rejoice;
Prayerful, I add my one note to the Infinite voice:
As shining and singing and sparkling glides on the glad day,
And eastward the swift-rolling planet wheels into the gray.
THE MINUTE-GUNS
I STOOD within the little cove,
Full of the morning's life and hope,
While heavily the eager waves
Charged thundering up the rocky slope.The splendid breakers! How they rushed,
All emerald green and flashing white,
Tumultuous in the morning sun,
With cheer and sparkle and delight!And freshly blew the fragrant wind,
The wild sea wind, across their tops,
And caught the spray and flung it far
In sweeping showers of glittering drops.Within the cove all flashed and foamed
With many a fleeting rainbow hue;
Without, gleamed bright against the sky
A tender wavering line of blue,Where tossed the distant waves, and far
Shone silver-white a quiet sail;
And overhead the soaring gulls
With graceful pinions stemmed the gale.And all my pulses thrilled with joy,
Watching the winds' and waters' strife,
With sudden rapture, -- and I cried,
"Oh, sweet is life! Thank God for life!"Sailed any cloud across the sky,
Marring this glory of the sun's?
Over the sea, from distant forts,
There came the boom of minute-guns!War-tidings! Many a brave soul fled,
And many a heart the message stuns!
I saw no more the joyous waves,
I only heard the minute-guns.
SEAWARD
TO ------HOW long it seems since that mild April night,
When, leaning from the window, you and I
Heard, clearly ringing from the shadowy bight,
The loon's unearthly cry!Southwest the wind blew, million little waves
Ran rippling round the point in mellow tune,
But mournful, like the voice of one who raves,
That laughter of the loon!We called to him, while blindly through the haze
Uprose the meager moon behind us, slow,
So dim, the fleet of boats we scarce could trace,
Moored lightly just below.We called, and lo, he answered! Half in fear
We sent the note back. Echoing rock and bay
Made melancholy music far and near,
Sadly it died away.That schooner, you remember? Flying ghost!
Her canvas catching every wandering beam,
Aerial, noiseless, past the glimmering coast
She glided like a dream.Would we were leaning from your window now,
Together calling to the eerie loon,
The fresh wind blowing care from either brow,
This sumptuous night of June!So many sighs load this sweet inland air,
'T is hard to breathe, nor can we find relief, --
However lightly touched we all must share
This nobleness of grief.But sighs are spent before they reach your ear;
Vaguely they mingle with the water's rune,
No sadder sound salutes you than the clear,
Wild laughter of the loon.
ROCK WEEDS
SO bleak these shores, wind-swept and all the year
Washed by the wild Atlantic's restless tide,
You would not dream that flowers the woods hold dear
Amid such desolation dare abide.Yet when the bitter winter breaks, some day,
With soft winds fluttering her garments' hem,
Up from the sweet South comes the lingering May,
Sets the first wind-flower trembling on its stem;Scatters her violets with lavish hands,
White, blue, and amber; calls the columbine,
Till like clear flame in lonely nooks, gay bands
Swinging their scarlet bells, obey the sign;Makes buttercups and dandelions blaze,
And throws in glimmering patches here and there,
The little eyebright's pearls, and gently lays
The impress of her beauty everywhere.Later, June bids the sweet wild rose to blow;
Wakes from its dream the drowsy pimpernel;
Unfolds the bindweed's ivory buds, that glow
As delicately blushing as a shell.Then purple Iris smiles, and hour by hour,
The fair procession multiplies; and soon,
In clusters creamy white, the elder-flower
Waves its broad disk against the rising moon.O'er quiet beaches shelving to the sea
Tall mulleins sway, and thistles; all day long
Flows in the wooing water dreamily,
With subtile music in its slumberous song.Herb-robert hears, and princess'-feather bright,
And goldthread clasps the little skull-cap blue;
And troops of swallows, gathering for their flight,
O'er goldenrod and asters hold review.The barren island dreams in flowers, while blow
The south winds, drawing haze o'er sea and land;
Yet the great heart of ocean, throbbing slow,
Makes the frail blossoms vibrate where they stand;And hints of heavier pulses soon to shake
Its mighty breast when summer is no more,
And devastating waves sweep on and break,
And clasp with girdle white the iron shore.Close folded, safe within the sheltering seed,
Blossom and bell and leafy beauty hide;
Nor icy blast, nor bitter spray they heed,
But patiently their wondrous change abide.The heart of God through his creation stirs,
We thrill to feel it, trembling as the flowers
That die to live again, -- his messengers,
To keep faith firm in these sad souls of ours.The waves of Time may devastate our lives,
The frosts of age may check our failing breath,
They shall not touch the spirit that survives
Triumphant over doubt and pain and death.
THE SANDPIPER
ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I,
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit, --
One little sandpiper and I.Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach, --
One little sandpiper and I.I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry.
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
SEPTEMBER'S slender crescent grows again
Distinct in yonder peaceful evening red,
Clearer the stars are sparkling overhead,
And all the sky is pure, without a stain.Cool blows the evening wind from out the West
And bows the flowers, the last sweet flowers that bloom, --
Pale asters, many a heavy-waving plume
Of goldenrod that bends as if opprest.The summer's songs are hushed. Up the lone shore
The weary waves wash sadly, and a grief
Sounds in the wind, like farewells fond and brief.
The cricket's chirp but makes the silence more.Life's autumn comes; the leaves begin to fall;
The moods of spring and summer pass away;
The glory and the rapture, day by day,
Depart, and soon the quiet grave folds all.O thoughtful sky, how many eyes in vain
Are lifted to your beauty, full of tears!
How many hearts go back through all the years,
Heavy with loss, eager with questioning pain,To read the dim Hereafter, to obtain
One glimpse beyond the earthly curtain, where
Their dearest dwell, where they may be or e'er
September's slender crescent shines again!
THE SWALLOW
THE swallow twitters about the eaves;
Blithely she sings, and sweet and clear;
Around her climb the woodbine leaves
In a golden atmosphere.The summer wind sways leaf and spray,
That catch and cling to the cool gray wall;
The bright sea stretches miles away,
And the noon sun shines o'er all.In the chamber's shadow, quietly,
I stand and worship the sky and the leaves,
The golden air and the brilliant sea,
The swallow at the eaves.Like a living jewel she sits and sings;
Fain would I read her riddle aright,
Fain would I know whence her rapture springs,
So strong in a thing so slight!The fine, clear fire of joy that steals
Through all my spirit at what I see
In the glimpse my window's space reveals, --
That seems no mystery!But scarce for her joy can she utter her song;
Yet she knows not the beauty of skies or seas.
Is it bliss of living, so sweet and strong?
Is it love, which is more than these?O happy creature! what stirs thee so?
A spark of the gladness of God thou art.
Why should we seek to find and to know
The secret of thy heart?Before the gates of his mystery
Trembling we knock with an eager hand;
Silent behind them waiteth He;
Not yet may we understand.But thrilling throughout the universe
Throbs the pulse of his mighty will,
Till we gain the knowledge of joy or curse
In the choice of good or ill.He looks from the eyes of the little child,
And searches souls with their gaze so clear;
To the heart some agony makes wild
He whispers, "I am here."He smiles in the face of every flower;
In the swallow's twitter of sweet content
He speaks, and we follow through every hour
The way his deep thought went.Here should be courage and hope and faith;
Naught has escaped the trace of his hand;
And a voice in the heart of his silence saith,
One day we shall understand.
A GRATEFUL HEART
LAST night I stole away alone, to find
A mellow crescent setting o'er the sea,
And lingered in its light, while over me
Blew fitfully the grieving autumn wind.And somewhat sadly to myself I said,
"Summer is gone," and watched how bright and fast
Through the moon's track the little waves sped past, --
"Summer is gone! her golden days are dead."Regretfully I thought, "Since I have trod
Earth's ways with willing or reluctant feet,
Never did season bring me days more sweet,
Crowned with rare joys and priceless gifts from God."And they are gone: they will return to more."
The slender moon went down, all red and still:
The stars shone clear, the silent dews fell chill;
The waves with ceaseless murmur washed the shore.A low voice spake: "And wherefore art thou sad?
Here in thy heart all summer folded lies,
And smiles in sunshine though the sweet time dies:
'T is thine to keep forever fresh and glad!"Yea, gentle voice, though the fair days depart,
And skies grow cold above the restless sea,
God's gifts are measureless, and there shall be
Eternal summer in the grateful heart.
THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES
AT THE ISLES OF SHOALSO SAILORS, did sweet eyes look after you
The day you sailed away from sunny Spain?
Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew,
Melting in tender rain?Did no one dream of that drear night to be,
Wild with the wind, fierce with the stinging snow,
When on yon granite point that frets the sea,
The ship met her death-blow?Fifty long years ago these sailors died:
(None know how many sleep beneath the waves:)
Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side,
Point out their nameless graves, --Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me,
And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry,
And sadder winds, and voices of the sea
That moans perpetually.Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain
Questioned the distance for the yearning sail,
That, leaning landward, should have stretched again
White arms wide on the gale,To bring back their beloved. Year by year,
Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed,
And lustrous eyes grew dim and age drew near,
And hope was dead at last.Still summer broods o'er that delicious land,
Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow:
Live any yet of that forsaken band
Who loved so long ago?O Spanish women, over the far seas,
Could I but show you where your dead repose!
Could I send tidings on this northern breeze
That strong and steady blows!Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet
These you have lost, but you can never know
One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet
With thinking of your woe!
IN childhood's season fair,
On many a balmy, moonless summer night,
While wheeled the lighthouse arms of dark and bright
Far through the humid air;How patient have I been,
Sitting alone, a happy little maid,
Waiting to see, careless and unafraid,
My father's boat come in;Close to the water's edge
Holding a tiny spark, that he might steer
(So dangerous the landing, far and near)
Safe past the ragged ledge.I had no fears, -- not one;
The wild, wide waste of water leagues around
Washed ceaselessly; there was no human sound
And I was all alone.But Nature was so kind!
Like a dear friend I loved the loneliness;
My heart rose glad, as at some sweet caress,
When passed the wandering wind.Yet it was joy to hear,
From out the darkness, sounds grow clear at last
Of rattling rowlock, and of creaking mast,
And voices drawing near!"Is 't thou, dear father? Say!"
What well-known shout resounded in reply,
As loomed the tall sail, smitten suddenly
With the great lighthouse ray!I will be patient now,
Dear Heavenly Father, waiting here for Thee:
I know the darkness holds Thee. Shall I be
Afraid, when it is Thou?On thy eternal shore,
In pauses, when life's tide is at its prime,
I hear the everlasting rote of Time
Beating for evermore.Shall I not then rejoice?
Oh, never lost or sad should child of thine
Sit waiting, fearing lest there come no sign,
No whisper of thy voice!
IN MAY
THAT was a curlew calling overhead,
That fine, clear whistle shaken from the clouds:
See! hovering o'er the swamp with wings outspread,
He sinks where at its edge in shining crowds
The yellow violets dance as they unfold,
In the blithe spring wind, all their green and gold.Blithe south-wind, spreading bloom upon the sea,
Drawing about the world this band of haze
So softly delicate, and bringing me
A touch of balm that like a blessing stays;
Though beauty like a dream bathes sea and land,
For the first time Death holds me by the hand.Yet none the less the swallows weave above
Through the bright air a web of light and song,
And calling clear and sweet from cove to cove,
The sandpiper, the lonely rocks among,
Makes wistful music, and the singing sea
Sends its strong chorus upward solemnly.O Mother Nature, infinitely dear!
Vainly I search the beauty of thy face,
Vainly thy myriad voices charm my ear;
I cannot gather from thee any trace
Of God's intent. Help me to understand
Why, this sweet morn, Death holds me by the hand.I watch the waves, shoulder to shoulder set,
That strive and vanish and are seen no more.
The earth is sown with graves that we forget,
And races of mankind the wide world o'er
Rise, strive, and vanish, leaving naught behind,
Like changing waves swept by the changing wind."Hard-hearted, cold, and blind," she answers me,
"Vexing thy soul with riddles hard to guess!
No waste of any atom canst thou see,
Nor make I any gesture purposeless.
Lift thy dim eyes up to the conscious sky!
God meant that rapture in the curlew's cry."He holds his whirling worlds in check; not one
May from its awful orbit swerve aside;
Yet breathes He in this south-wind, bids the sun
Wake the fair flowers He fashioned, far and wide,
And this strong pain thou canst not understand
Is but his grasp on thy reluctant hand."
A SUMMER DAY
AT daybreak in the fresh light, joyfully
The fishermen drew in their laden net;
The shore shone rosy purple, and the sea
Was streaked with violet;And pink with sunrise, many a shadowy sail
Lay southward, lighting up the sleeping bay;
And in the west the white moon, still and pale,
Faded before the day.Silence was everywhere. The rising tide
Slowly filled every cove and inlet small;
A musical low whisper, multiplied,
You heard, and that was all.No clouds at dawn, but as the sun climbed higher,
White columns, thunderous, splendid, up the sky
Floated and stood, heaped in this steady fire,
A stately company.Stealing along the coast from cape to cape
The weird mirage crept tremulously on,
In many a magic change and wondrous shape,
Throbbing beneath the sun.At noon the wind rose, swept the glassy sea
To sudden ripple, thrust against the clouds
A strenuous shoulder, gathering steadily,
Drove them before in crowds;Till all the west was dark, and inky black
The level-ruffled water underneath,
And up the wind cloud tossed, -- a ghostly rack,
In many a ragged wreath.Then sudden roared the thunder, a great peal
Magnificent, that broke and rolled away;
And down the wind plunged, like a furious keel,
Cleaving the sea to spray;And brought the rain sweeping o'er land and sea
And then was tumult! Lighting sharp and keen,
Thunder, wind, rain, -- a mighty jubilee
The heaven and earth between!Loud the roused ocean sang, a chorus grand;
A solemn music rolled in undertone
Of waves that broke about, on either hand,
The little island lone;Where, joyful in his tempest as his calm,
Held in the hollow of that hand of his,
I joined with heart and soul in God's great psalm,
Thrilled with a nameless bliss.Soon lulled the wind, the summer storm soon died;
The shattered clouds went eastward, drifting slow;
From the low sun the rain-fringe swept aside,
Bright in his rosy glow,And wide a splendor streamed through all the sky;
O'er sea and land one soft, delicious blush,
That touched the gray rocks lightly, tenderly;
A transitory flush.Warm, odorous gusts blew off the distant land,
With spice of pine-woods, breath of hay new mown,
O'er miles of waves and sea scents cool and bland,
Full in our faces blown.Slow faded the sweet light, and peacefully
The quiet stars came out, one after one:
The holy twilight fell upon the sea,
The summer day was done.Such unalloyed delight its hours had given,
Musing, this thought rose in my grateful mind,
That God, who watches all things, up in heaven,
With patient eyes and kind,Saw and was pleased, perhaps, one child of his
Dared to be happy like the little birds,
Because He gave his children days like this,
Rejoicing beyond words;Dared, lifting up to Him untroubled eyes
In gratitude that worship is, and prayer,
Sing and be glad with ever new surprise,
He made his world so fair!
SOFTLY Death touched her, and she passed away
Out of this glad, bright world she made more fair,
Sweet as the apple-blossoms, when in May
The orchards flush, of summer grown aware.All that fresh, delicate beauty gone from sight,
That gentle, gracious presence felt no more!
How must the house be emptied of delight,
What shadows on the threshold she passed o'er!She loved me. Surely I was grateful, yet
I could not give her back all she gave me.
Ever I think of it with vague regret,
Musing upon a summer by the sea:Remembering troops of merry girls who pressed
About me -- clinging arms and tender eyes,
And love, like scent of roses. With the rest
She came, to fill my heart with new surprise.The day I left them all, and sailed away,
While o'er the calm sea, 'neath the soft gray sky,
They waved farewell, she followed me, to say
Yet once again her wistful, sweet "good-by."At the boat's bow she drooped; her light-green dress
Swept o'er the skiff in many a graceful fold;
Her glowing face, bright with a mute caress,
Crowned with her lovely hair of shadowy gold:And tears she dropped into the crystal brine
For me, unworthy -- as we slowly swung
Free of the mooring. Her last look was mine,
Seeking me still the motley crowd among.O tender memory of the dead I hold
So precious through the fret and change of years!
Were I to live till Time itself grew old,
The sad sea would be sadder for those tears.
BEFORE SUNRISE
THIS grassy gorge, as daylight failed last night,
I traversed toward the west, where, thin and young,
Bent like Diana's bow and silver bright,
Half lost in rosy haze, a crescent hung.I paused upon the beach's upper edge:
The violet east all shadowy lay behind;
Southward the lighthouse glittered o'er the ledge,
And lightly, softly blew the western wind.And at my feet, between the turf and stone,
Wild roses, bayberry, purple thistles tall,
And pink herb-robert grew, where shells were strown
And morning-glory vines climbed over all.I stooped the closely folded buds to note,
That gleamed in the dim light mysteriously,
While, full of whispers of the far-off rote,
Summer's enchanted dusk crept o'er the sea.And sights and sounds and sea-scents delicate,
So wrought upon my soul with sense of bliss,
Happy I sat as if at heaven's gate,
Asking on earth no greater joy than this.And now, at dawn, upon the beach again,
Kneeling I wait the coming of the sun,
Watching the looser-folded buds, and fain
To see the marvel of their day begun.All the world lies so dewy-fresh and still!
Whispers so gently all the water wide,
Hardly it breaks the silence: from the hill
Come clear bird-voices mingling with the tide.Sunset or dawn: which is the lovelier? Lo!
My darlings, sung to all the balmy night
By summer waves and softest winds that blow,
Begin to feel the thrilling of the light!Red lips of roses, waiting to be kissed
By early sunshine, soon in smiles will break.
But oh, ye morning-glories, that keep tryst
With the first ray of daybreak, ye awake!O bells of triumph, ringing noiseless peals
Of unimagined music to the day!
Almost I could believe each blossom feels
The same delight that sweeps my soul away.O bells of triumph! delicate trumpets, thrown
Heavenward and earthward, turned east, west, north, south,
In lavish beauty, who through you has blown
This sweet cheer of the morning with calm mouth?'T is God who breathes the triumph; He who wrought
The tender curves, and laid the tints divine
Along the lovely lines; the Eternal Thought
That troubles all our lives with wise design.Yea, out of pain and death his beauty springs,
And out of doubt a deathless confidence:
Though we are shod with leaden cares, our wings
Shall lift us yet out of our deep suspense!Thou great Creator! Pardon us who reach
For other heaven beyond this world of thine,
This matchless world, where thy least touch doth teach
Thy solemn lessons clearly, line on line.And help us to be grateful, we who live
Such sordid, fretful lives of discontent,
Nor see the sunshine nor the flower, nor strive
To find the love thy bitter chastening meant.
BY THE ROADSIDE
DROPPED the warm rain from the brooding sky
Softly all the summer afternoon;
Up the road I loitered carelessly,
Glad to be alive in blissful June.Though so gray the sky, and though the mist
Swept the hills and half their beauty hid;
Though the scattering drops the broad leaves kissed,
And no ray betwixt the vapor slid,Yet the daisies tossed their white and gold
In the quiet fields on either side,
And the green gloom deepened in the old
Walnut-trees that flung their branches wide;And the placid river wound away
Westward to the hills through meadows fair,
Flower-fringed and starred, while blithe and gay
Called the blackbirds through the balmy air.Right and left I scanned the landscape round;
Every shape, and scent, and wild bird's call,
Every color, curve, and gentle sound,
Deep into my heart I gathered all.Up I looked, and down upon the sod
Sprinkled thick with violets blue and bright;
"Surely, `Through his garden walketh God,'"
Low I whispered, full of my delight.Like a vision, on the path before,
Came a little rosy, sun-browned maid,
Straying toward me from her cottage door,
Paused, up-looking shyly, half afraid.Never word she spake, but gazing so,
Slow a smile rose to her clear brown eyes,
Overflowed her face with such a glow
That I thrilled with sudden, sweet surprise.Here was sunshine 'neath the cloudy skies!
Low I knelt to bring her face to mine;
Sweeter, brighter grew her shining eyes,
Yet she gave me neither word nor sign.But within her look a blessing beamed;
Meek I grew before it; was it just?
Was I worthy this pure light that streamed?
Such approval, and such love and trust!Half the flowers I carried in my hands
Lightly in her pretty arms Ilaid:
Silent, but as one who understands,
Clasped them close the rosy little maid.Fair behind the honeysuckle spray
Shone her innocent, delightful face!
Then I rose and slowly went my way,
Left her standing, lighting all the place.While her golden look stole after me,
Lovelier bloomed the violets where I trod;
More divine earth's beauty seemed to be:
"Through his garden visibly walked God."
SORROW
UPON my lips she laid her touch divine,
And merry speech and careless laughter died;
She fixed her melancholy eyes on mine,
And would not be denied.I saw the west wind loose his cloudlets white
In flocks, careering through the April sky;
I could not sing though joy was at its height,
For she stood silent by.I watched the lovely evening fade away;
A mist was lightly drawn across the stars;
She broke my quiet dream, I heard her say,
"Behold your prison bars!"Earth's gladness shall not satisfy your soul,
This beauty of the world in which you live;
The crowning grace that sanctifies the whole,
That, I alone can give."I heard and shrank away from her afraid;
But still she held me and would still abide;
Youth's bounding pulses slackened and obeyed,
With slowly ebbing tide."Look thou beyond the evening star," she said,
"Beyond the changing splendors of the day;
Accept the pain, the weariness, the dread,
Accept and bid me stay!"I turned and clasped her close with sudden strength,
And slowly, sweetly, I became aware
Within my arms God's angel stood at length,
White-robed and calm and fair.And now I look beyond the evening star,
Beyond the changing splendors of the day,
Knowing the pain He sends more precious far,
More beautiful, than they.
THERE is no wind at all to-night
To dash the drops against the pane;
No sound abroad, nor any light,
And sadly falls the autumn rain;There is no color in the world,
No lovely tint on hill or plain;
The summer's golden sails are furled,
And sadly falls the autumn rain.The earth lies tacitly beneath,
As it were dead to joy or pain:
It does not move, it does not breathe, --
And sadly falls the autumn rain.And all my heart is patient too,
I wait till it shall wake again;
The songs of spring shall sound anew,
Though sadly falls the autumn rain.
BECAUSE I hold it sinful to despond,
And will not let the bitterness of life
Blind me with burning tears, but look beyond
Its tumult and its strife;Because I lift my head above the mist,
Where the sun shines and the broad breezes blow,
By every ray and every raindrop kissed
That God's love doth bestow;Think you I find no bitterness at all?
No burden to be borne, like Christian's pack?
Think you there are no ready tears to fall
Because I keep them back?Why should I hug life's ills with cold reserve,
To curse myself and all who love me? Nay!
A thousand times more good than I deserve
God gives me every day.And in each one of these rebellious tears,
Kept bravely back, He makes a rainbow shine;
Grateful I take his slightest gift, no fears
Nor any doubts are mine.Dark skies must clear, and when the clouds are past,
One golden day redeems a weary year;
Patient I listen, sure that sweet at last
Will sound his voice of cheer.Then vex me not with chiding. Let me be.
I must be glad and grateful to the end.
I grudge you not your cold and darkness, -- me
The powers of light befriend.
FRAGRANT and soft the summer wind doth blow.
Weary I lie, with heavy, half-shut eyes,
And watch, while wistful thoughts within me rise,
The curtain idly swaying to and fro.There comes a sound of household toil from far,
A woven murmur: voices shrill and sweet,
Clapping of doors, and restless moving feet,
And tokens faint of fret, and noise, and jar.Without, the broad earth shimmers in the glare,
Through the clear noon high rides the blazing sun,
The birds are hushed; the cricket's chirp alone
With tremulous music cleaves the drowsy air.I think, -- "Past the gray rocks the wavelets run;
The gold-brown seaweed drapes the ragged ledge;
And brooding, silent, at the water's edge
The white gull sitteth, shining in the sun."
SONG Song#1
WE sail toward evening's lonely star
That trembles in the tender blue;
One single cloud, a dusky bar,
Burnt with dull carmine through and through,
Slow smouldering in the summer sky,
Lies low along the fading west.
How sweet to watch its splendors die,
Wave-cradled thus and wind-caressed!The soft breeze freshens, leaps the spray
to kiss our cheeks, with sudden cheer;
Upon the dark edge of the bay
Lighthouses kindle, far and near,
And through the warm deeps of the sky
Steal faint star-clusters, while we rest
In deep refreshment, thou and I,
Wave-cradled thus and wind-caressed.How like a dream are earth and heaven,
Star-beam and darkness, sky and sea;
Thy face, pale in the shadowy even,
Thy quiet eyes that gaze on me!
Oh, realize the moment's charm,
Thou dearest! we are at life's best,
Folded in God's encircling arm,
Wave-cradled thus and wind-caressed.
A TRYST
FROM out the desolation of the North
An iceberg took its way,
From its detaining comrades breaking forth,
And traveling night and day.At whose command? Who bade it sail the deep
With that resistless force?
Who made the dread appointment it must keep?
Who traced its awful course?To the warm airs that stir in the sweet South,
A good ship spread her sails;
Stately she passed beyond the harbor's mouth,
Chased by the favoring gales;And on her ample decks a happy crowd
Bade the fair land good-by;
Clear shone the day, with not a single cloud
In all the peaceful sky.Brave men, sweet women, little children bright,
For all these she made room,
And with her freight of beauty and delight
She went to meet her doom.Storms buffeted the iceberg, spray was swept
Across its loftiest height;
Guided alike by storm and calm, it kept
Its fatal path aright.Then warmer waves gnawed at its crumbling base,
As if in piteous plea;
The ardent sun sent slow tears down its face,
Soft flowing to the sea.Dawn kissed it with her tender rose tints, Eve
Bathed it in violet,
The wistful color o'er it seemed to grieve
With a divine regret.Whether Day clad its clefts in rainbows dim
And shadowy as a dream,
Or Night through lonely spaces saw it swim
White in the moonlight's gleam,Ever Death rode upon its solemn heights,
Ever his watch he kept;
Cold at its heart through changing days and nights
Its changeless purpose slept.And where afar a smiling coast it passed,
Straightway the air grew chill;
Dwellers thereon perceived a bitter blast,
A vague report of ill.Like some imperial creature, moving slow,
Meanwhile, with matchless grace,
The stately ship, unconscious of her foe,
Drew near the trysting place.For still the prosperous breezes followed her,
And half the voyage was o'er;
In many a breast glad thoughts began to stir
Of lands that lay before.And human hearts with longing love were dumb,
That soon should cease to beat,
Thrilled with the hope of meetings soon to come,
And lost in memories sweet.Was not the weltering waste of water wide
Enough for both to sail?
What drew the two together o'er the tide,
Fair ship and iceberg pale?There came a night with neither moon nor star,
Clouds draped the sky in black;
With fluttering canvas reefed at every spar,
And weird fire in her track,The ship swept on; a wild wind gathering fast
Drove her at utmost speed.
Bravely she bent before the fitful blast
That shook her like a reed.O helmsman, turn thy wheel! Will no surmise
Cleave through the midnight drear?
No warning of the horrible surprise
Reach thine unconscious ear?She rushed upon her ruin. Not a flash
Broke up the waiting dark;
Dully through wind and sea one awful crash
Sounded, with none to mark.Scarcely her crew had time to clutch despair,
So swift the work was done:
Ere their pale lips could frame a speechless prayer,
They perished, every one!
LIGHTLY she lifts the large, pure, luminous shell,
Poises it in her strong and shapely hand.
"Listen," she says, "it has a tale to tell,
Spoken in language you may understand."Smiling, she holds it at my dreaming ear:
The old, delicious murmur of the sea
Steals like enchantment through me, and I hear
Voices like echoes of eternity.She stirs it softly. Lo, another speech!
In one of its dim chambers, shut from sight,
Is sealed the water that has kissed the beach
Where the far Indian Ocean leaps in light.Those laughing ripples, hidden evermore
In utter darkness, plaintively repeat
Their lapsing on the glowing tropic shore,
In melancholy whispers low and sweet.O prisoned wave that may not see the sun!
O voice that never may be comforted!
You cannot break the web that Fate has spun;
Out of your world are light and gladness fled.The red dawn nevermore shall tremble far
Across the leagues of radiant brine to you;
You shall not sing to greet the evening star,
Nor dance exulting under heaven's clear blue.Inexorably woven is the weft
That shrouds from you all joy but memory;
Only this tender, low lament is left
Of all the sumptuous splendor of the sea.
IF, some day, I should seek those eyes
So gentle now, -- and find the strange,
Pale shadow of a coming change,
To chill me with a sad surprise;Shouldst thou recall what thou hast given,
And turn me slowly cold and dumb,
And thou thyself again become
Remote as any star in heaven;Would the sky ever seem again
Perfectly clear? Would the serene,
Sweet face of nature steal between
This grief and me, to dull its pain?Oh not for many a weary day
Would sorrow soften to regret,
And many a sun would rise and set
Ere I, with cheerful heart, could say:"All undeserved it came. To-day,
God takes it back again, because
Too beautiful a thing it was
For such as I to keep for aye."And ever, through the coming years,
My star, remote in happy skies,
Would seem more heavenly fair through eyes
Yet tremulous with unfallen tears.
MIDSUMMER MIDNIGHT
THE wide, still, moonlit water miles away
Stretches in lonely splendor. Whispers creep
About us from the midnight wind, and play
Among the flowers that breathe so sweet in sleep;
A soft touch sways the milk-white, stately phlox,
And on its slender stem the poppy rocks.Fair faces turn to watch the dusky sea,
And clear eyes brood upon the path of light
The white moon makes, the while deliciously,
Like some vague, tender memory of delight,
Or like some half remembered, dear regret,
Rises the odor of the mignonette.Midsummer glories, moonlight, flowers asleep,
And delicate perfume, mystic winds that blow
Soft-breathing, full of balm, and the great deep
In leagues of shadow swaying to and fro;
And loving human thought to mark it all,
And human hearts that to each other call;Needs the enchantment of the summer night
Another touch to make it perfect? Hark!
What sudden shaft of sound, like piercing light,
Strikes on the ear athwart the moonlit dark?
Like some keen shock of joy is heard within
The wondrous music of the violin.It is as if dumb Nature found a voice,
And spoke with power, though in an unknown tongue.
What kinship has the music with the noise
Of waves, or winds, or with the flowers, slow-swung
Like censers to and fro upon the air,
Or with the shadow, or the moonlight fair?And yet it seems some subtile link exists,
We know not how. And over every phase
Of thought and feeling wandering as it lists,
Playing upon us as the west-wind plays
Over the wind-harp, the subduing strain
Sweeps with resistless power of joy and pain.Slow ebbs the golden tide, and all is still.
Ask the magician at whose touch awoke
That mighty, penetrating, prisoned will,
The matchless voice that so divinely spoke,
Kindling to fresher life the listening soul,
What daring thought such fire from heaven stole?He cannot tell us how the charm was wrought,
Though in his hand he holds the potent key,
Nor read the spell that to the sweet night brought
This crown of rapture and of mystery,
And lifted every heart, and drew away
All trace of worldliness that marred the day.But every head is bowed. We watch the sea
With other eyes, as if some hint of bliss
Spoke to us, through the yearning melody,
Of glad new worlds, of brighter lives than this;
While still the milk-white, stately phlox waves slow,
And drowsily the poppy rocks below.
APRIL DAYS
OH the sweet, sweet lapsing of the tide,
Through the still hours of the golden afternoon!
Oh the warm, red sunshine, far and wide,
Falling soft as in the crowning days of June!Calls the gray sandpiper from the quiet shore,
Weave the swallows light and music through the air,
Chants the sparrow all his pleasure o'er and o'er,
Sings and smiles the Spring, and sparkles everywhere.Well I know that death and pain to all are near,
That, save sorrow, naught is certain this world gives;
Yet my heart stirs with the budding of the year,
And rejoices still with everything that lives.Fold me then, O south-wind! God is good.
Gladly, gratefully I take thy sweet caress.
Call, sandpiper, from thy solitude,
Every sight and sound has power to bless.Oh the sweet, sweet lapsing of the tide,
Through the still hours of the golden afternoon!
Nor death, nor pain, nor sorrow shall abide,
For God blesses all his children, late or soon.
HEARTBREAK HILL
IN Ipswich town, not far from the sea,
Rises a hill which the people call
Heartbreak Hill, and its history
Is an old, old legend, known to all.The selfsame dreary, worn-out tale
Told by all peoples in every clime,
Still to be told till the ages fail,
And there comes a pause in the march of Time.It was a sailor who won the heart
Of an Indian maiden, lithe and young;
And she saw him over the sea depart,
While sweet in her ear his promise rung;For he cried, as he kissed her wet eyes dry,
"I'll come back, sweetheart; keep your faith!"
She said, "I will watch while the moons go by:"
Her love was stronger than life or death.So this poor dusk Ariadne kept
Her watch from the hilltop rugged and steep;
Slowly the empty moments crept
While she studied the changing face of the deep,Fastening her eyes upon every speck
That crossed the ocean within her ken;
Might not her lover be walking the deck,
Surely and swiftly returning again?The Isles of Shoals loomed, lonely and dim,
In the northeast distance far and gray,
And on the horizon's uttermost rim
The low rock heap of Boon Island lay.And north and south and west and east
Stretched sea and land in the blinding light,
Till evening fell, and her vigil ceased,
And many a hearth-glow lit the night,To mock those set and glittering eyes
Fast growing wild as her hope went out.
Hateful seemed earth, and the hollow skies,
Like her own heart, empty of aught but doubt.Oh, but the weary, merciless days,
With the sun above, with the sea afar, --
No change in her fixed and wistful gaze
From the morning-red to the evening star!Oh, the winds that blew, and the birds that sang,
The calms that smiled, and the storms that rolled,
The bells from the town beneath, that rang
Through the summer's heat and the winter's cold!The flash of the plunging surges white,
The soaring gulls' wild, boding cry, --
She was weary of all; there was no delight
In heaven or earth, and she longed to die.What was it to her though the Dawn should paint
With delicate beauty skies and seas?
But the sweet, sad sunset splendors faint
Made her soul sick with memories:Drowning in sorrowful purple a sail
In the distant east, where shadows grew,
Till the twilight shrouded it, cold and pale,
And the tide of her anguish rose anew.Like a slender statue carved of stone
She sat, with hardly motion or breath.
She wept no tears and she made no moan,
But her love was stronger than life or death.He never came back! Yet faithful still,
She watched from the hilltop her life away.
And the townsfolk christened it Heartbreak Hill,
And it bears the name to this very day.
THE SONG-SPARROW
IN this sweet, tranquil afternoon of spring,
While the low sun declines in the clear west,
I sit and hear the blithe song-sparrow sing
His strain of rapture not to be suppressed;
Pondering life's problem strange, while death draws near,
I listen to his dauntless song of cheer.His shadow flits across the quiet stone;
Like that brief transit is my space of days;
For, like a flower's faint perfume, youth is flown
Already, and there rests on all life's ways
A dimness; closer my beloved I clasp,
For all dear things seem slipping from my grasp.Death touches all; the light of loving eyes
Goes out in darkness, comfort is withdrawn;
Lonely, and lonelier still the pathway lies,
Going toward the fading sunset from the dawn:
Yet hark! while those fine notes the silence break,
As if all trouble were some grave mistake!Thou little bird, how canst thou thus rejoice,
As if the world had known nor sin nor curse?
God never meant to mock us with that voice!
That is the key-note of the universe,
That song of perfect trust, of perfect cheer,
Courageous, constant, free of doubt or fear.My little helper, ah, my comrade sweet,
My old companion in that far-off time
When on life's threshold childhood's wingèd feet
Danced in the sunrise! Joy was at its prime
When all my heart responded to thy song,
Unconscious of earth's discords harsh and strong.Now, grown aweary, sad with change and loss,
With the enigma of myself dismayed;
Poor, save in deep desire to bear the cross
God's hand on his defenseless creatures laid,
With patience, -- here I sit this eve of spring,
And listen with bowed head, while thou dost sing.And slowly all my soul with comfort fills,
And the old hope revives and courage grows;
Up the deserted shore a fresh tide thrills,
And like a dream the dark mood melts and goes,
And with thy joy again will I rejoice:
God never meant to mock us with that voice!
IN KITTERY CHURCHYARD
"Mary, wife of Charles Chauncy, died April 23, 1758, in the 24th year of her age."CRUSHING the scarlet strawberries in the grass,
I kneel to read the slanting stone. Alas!
How sharp a sorrow speaks! A hundred years
And more have vanished, with their smiles and tears,
Since here was laid, upon an April day,
Sweet Mary Chauncy in the grave away, --
A hundred years since here her lover stood
Beside her grave in such despairing mood,
And yet from out the vanished past I hear
His cry of anguish sounding deep and clear,
And all my heart with pity melts, as though
To-day's bright sun were looking on his woe.
"Of such a wife, O righteous Heaven! bereft,
What joy for me, what joy on earth is left?
Still from my inmost soul the groans arise,
Still flow the sorrows ceaseless from mine eyes."
Alas, poor tortured soul! I look away
From the dark stone, -- how brilliant shines the day!
A low wall, over which the roses shed
Their perfumed petals, shuts the quiet dead
Apart a little, and the tiny square
Stands in the broad and laughing field so fair,
And gay green vines climb o'er the rough stone wall,
And all about the wild birds flit and call,
And but a stone's throw southward, the blue sea
Rolls sparkling in and sings incessantly.
Lovely as any dream the peaceful place,
And scarcely changed since on her gentle face
For the last time on that sad April day
He gazed, and felt, for him, all beauty lay
Buried with her forever. Dull to him
Looked the bright world through eyes with tears so dim!
"I soon shall follow the same dreary way
That leads and opens to the coasts of day."
His only hope! But when slow time had dealt
Firmly with him and kindly, and he felt
The storm and stress of strong and piercing pain
Yielding at last, and he grew calm again,
Doubtless he found another mate before
He followed Mary to the happy shore!
But none the less his grief appeals to me
Who sit and listen to the singing sea
This matchless summer day, beside the stone
He made to echo with his bitter moan,
And in my eyes I feel the foolish tears
For buried sorrow, dead a hundred years!
AT THE BREAKERS' EDGE
THROUGH the wide sky thy north wind's thunder roars
Resistless, till no cloud is left to flee,
And down the clear, cold heaven unhindered pours
Thine awful moonlight on the winter sea.The vast, black, raging spaces, torn and wild,
With an insensate fury answer back
To the gale's challenge; hurrying breakers, piled
Each over each, roll through the glittering track.I shudder in the terror of thy cold,
As buffeted by the fierce blast I stand,
Watching that shining path of bronzèd gold,
With solemn, shadowy rocks on either hand;While at their feet, ghastly and white as death,
The cruel, foaming billows plunge and rave.
O Father! where art Thou? My feeble breath
Cries to Thee through the storm of wind and wave.The cry of all thy children since the first
That walked thy planets' myriad paths among;
The cry of all mankind whom doubt has cursed,
In every clime, in every age and tongue.Thou art the cold, the swift fire that consumes;
Thy vast, unerring forces never fail;
And Thou art in the frailest flower that blooms,
As in the breath of this tremendous gale.Yet, though laws are clear as light, and prove
Thee changeless, ever human weaknI heard the medricks screaming loud and shrill across the bay;
And I wondered to behold all the sky in ruddy gold,
Flashing into fire and flame where the clouds like billows rolled.Red the sea ran east and west, burning broke each tumbling crest,
Where the waves, like shattered rubies, leaped and fell and could not rest;
Every rock was carmine-flushed, every sail like roses blushed,
Flying swift before the wind from the south that roared and rushed."Is it judgment day?" I said, gazing out o'er billows red,
Gazing up at crimson vapors, crowding, drifting overhead,
Listening to the great uproar of the waters on the shore,
To the wild sad-crying sea-birds, buffeted and beaten sore."Is the end of time at hand? is this pageant, strange and grand,
A portent of destruction blazing fierce o'er sea and land?"
Then the scarlet ebbed, and slow, sky above and earth below,
Drowned in melancholy purple, seemed with grief to overflow.And while thus I gazed, the day, growing stronger, turned to gray;
All the transitory splendor and the beauty passed away;
And I recognized the sign of the color poured like wine
In this morn of late October as from clusters of the vine.'T was the ripeness of the year; soon, I knew, must disappear
All the warmth and light and happiness that made the time so dear;
And again our souls must wait while the bare earth, desolate,
Bore in patience and in silence all the winter's wrath and hate.
"FOR THOUGHTS"
A PANSY on his breast she laid,
Splendid, and dark with Tyrian dyes;
"Take it, 't is like your tender eyes,
Deep as the midnight heaven," she said.The rich rose mantling in her cheek,
Before him like the dawn she stood,
Pausing upon Life's height, subdued,
Yet triumphing, both proud and meek.And white as winter stars, intense
With steadfast fire, his brilliant face
Bent toward her with an eager grace,
Pale with a rapture half suspense."You give me then a thought, O Sweet!"
He cried, and kissed the purple flower,
And bowed by Love's resistless power,
Trembling he sank before her feet.She crowned his beautiful bowed head
With one caress of her white hand;
"Rise up, my flower of all the land,
For all my thoughts are yours," she said.
WHEREFORE
BLACK sea, black sky! A ponderous steamship driving
Between them, laboring westward on her way,
And in her path a trap of Death's contriving
Waiting remorseless for its easy prey.Hundreds of souls within her frame lie dreaming,
Hoping and fearing, longing for the light:
With human life and thought and feeling teeming,
She struggles onward through the starless night.Upon her furnace fires fresh fuel flinging,
The swarthy firemen grumble at the dust
Mixed with the coal -- when suddenly upspringing,
Swift through the smoke-stack like a signal thrust,Flares a red flame, a dread illumination!
A cry, -- a tumult! Slowly to her helm
The vessel yields, 'mid shouts of acclamation,
And joy and terror all her crew o'erwelm;For looming from the blackness drear before them
Discovered is the iceberg -- hardly seen,
Its ghastly precipices hanging o'er them,
Its reddened peaks, with dreadful chasms between,Ere darkness swallows it again! and veering
Out of its track the brave ship onward steers,
Just grazing ruin. Trembling still, and fearing,
Her grateful people melt in prayers and tears.Is it a mockery, their profound thanksgiving?
Another ship goes shuddering to her doom
Unwarned, that very night, with hopes as living
With freight as precious, lost amid the gloom,With not a ray to show the apparition
Waiting to slay her, none to cry "Beware!"
Rushing straight onward headlong to perdition,
And for her crew no time vouchsafed for prayer.Could they have stormed Heaven's gate with anguished praying,
It would not have availed a feather's weight
Against their doom. Yet were they disobeying
No law of God, to beckon such a fate.And do not tell me the Almighty Master
Would work a miracle to save the one,
And yield the other up to dire disaster,
By merely human justice thus outdone!Vainly we weep and wrestle with our sorrow --
We cannot see his roads, they lie so broad:
But his eternal day knows no to-morrow,
And life and death are all the same with God.
SHE is so fair, I thought, so dear and fair!
Maidenly beautiful from head to feet,
With pensive profile delicate and sweet,
And Titian's color in her sunny hair.So fair, I thought, rejoicing even to note
The little flexible, transparent wrist,
The purple of the gold-clasped amethyst
That glittered at her white and slender throat;The tiny ear, curled like a rosy shell;
The gentle splendor of the wide brown eyes,
Deep, lustrous, tender, clear as morning skies;
The full, sad lips, -- the voice that like a bellRang thrilling with a music sweet and wild,
High, airy-pure as fluting of the fays,
Or bird-notes in the early summer days,
And joyous as the laughter of a child.Dearest, has Heaven aught to give thee more?
I thought, the while I watched her changing face, --
Heard her fine tones, and marked her gestures' grace, --
Yea, one more gift is left, all gifts before.We go our separate ways on earth, and pain,
God's shaping chisel, waits us as the rest,
With nobler charm thy beauty to invest,
And make thee lovelier ere we meet again.
THE WATCH OF BOON ISLAND
THEY crossed the lonely and lamenting sea;
Its moaning seemed but singing. "Wilt thou dare,"
He asked her, "brave the loneliness with me?"
"What loneliness," she said, "if thou art there?"Afar and cold on the horizon's rim
Loomed the tall lighthouse, like a ghostly sign;
They sighed not as the shore behind grew dim,
A rose of joy they bore across the brine.They gained the barren rock, and made their home
Among the wild waves and the sea-birds wild;
The wintry winds blew fierce across the foam,
But in each other's eyes they looked and smiled.Aloft the lighthouse sent its warnings wide,
Fed by their faithful hands, and ships in sight
With joy beheld it, and on land men cried,
"Look, clear and steady burns Boon Island light!"And, while they trimmed the lamp with busy hands,
"Shine far and through the dark, sweet light!" they cried;
"Bring safely back the sailors from all lands
To waiting love, -- wife, mother, sister, bride!"No tempest shook their calm, though many a storm
Tore the vexed ocean into furious spray;
No chill could find them in their Eden warm,
And gently Time lapsed onward day by day.Said I no chill could find them? There is one
Whose awful footfalls everywhere are known,
With echoing sobs, who chills the summer sun,
And turns the happy heart of youth to stone;Inexorable Death, a silent guest
At every hearth, before whose footsteps flee
All joys, who rules the earth, and, without rest,
Roams the vast shuddering spaces of the sea.Death found them; turned his face and passed her by,
But laid a finger on her lover's lips,
And there was silence. Then the storm ran high,
And tossed and troubled sore the distant ships.Nay, who shall speak the terrors of the night,
The speechless sorrow, the supreme despair?
Still like a ghost she trimmed the waning light,
Dragging her slow weight up the winding stair.With more than oil the saving lamp she fed,
While lashed to madness the wild sea she heard.
She kept her awful vigil with the dead,
And God's sweet pity still she ministered.O sailors, hailing loud the cheerful beam,
Piercing so far the tumult of the dark,
A radiant star of hope, you could not dream
What misery there sat cherishing that spark!Three times the night, too terrible to bear,
Descended, shrouded in the storm. At last
The sun rose clear and still on her despair,
And all her striving to the winds she cast,And bowed her head and let the light die out,
For the wide sea lay calm as her dead love.
When evening fell, from the far land, in doubt,
Vainly to find that faithful star men strove.Sailors and landsmen look, and women's eyes,
For pity ready, search in vain the night,
And wondering neighbor unto neighbor cries,
"Now what, think you, can ail Boon Island light?"Out from the coast toward her high tower they sailed;
They found her watching, silent, by her dead,
A shadowy woman, who nor wept, nor wailed,
But answered what they spake, till all was said.They bore the dead and living both away.
With anguish time seemed powerless to destroy
She turned, and backward gazed across the bay, --
Lost in the sad sea lay her rose of joy.
BEETHOVEN beet#1
I
O SOVEREIGN Master! stern and splendid power,
That calmly dost both Time and Death defy;
Lofty and lone as mountain peaks that tower,
Leading our thoughts up to the eternal sky:
Keeper of some divine, mysterious key,
Raising us far above all human care,
Unlocking awful gates of harmony
To let heaven's light in on the world's despair;
Smiter of solemn chords that still command
Echoes in souls that suffer and aspire,
In the great moment while we hold thy hand,
Baptized with pain and rapture, tears and fire,
God lifts our saddened foreheads from the dust,
The everlasting God, in whom we trust!II
O stateliest! who shall speak thy praise, who find
A fitting word to utter before thee?
Thou lonely splendor, thou consummate mind,
Who marshalest they hosts in majesty;
Thy shadowy armies of resistless thought,
Thy subtile forces drawn from Nature's heart,
Thy solemn breathing, mighty music, wrought
Of life and death -- a miracle thou art!
The restless tides of human life that swing
In stormy currents, thou dost touch and sway;
Deep tones within us answer, shuddering,
At thy resounding voice -- we cast away
All our unworthiness, made strong by thee,
Thou great uplifter of humanity!III
And was it thus the master looked, think you?
Is this the painter's fancy? Who can tell!
These strong and noble outlines should be true:
On the broad brow such majesty should dwell.
Yea, and these deep, indomitable eyes
Are surely his. Lo, the imperial will
In every feature! Mighty purpose lies
About the shut mouth, resolute and still.
Observe the head's pathetic attitude,
Bent forward, listening, -- he that might not hear!
Ah, could the world's adoring gratitude,
So late to come, have made his life less drear!
Hearest thou, now, great soul beyond our ken,
Men's reverent voices answering thee, "Amen"?
MOST beautiful among the helpers thou!
All heaven's fresh air and sunshine at thy voice
Flood with refreshment many a weary brow,
And sad souls thrill with courage and rejoice
To hear God's gospel of pure gladness sound
So sure and clear in this bewildered world,
Till the sick vapors that our sense confound
By cheerful winds are into nothing whirled.
O matchless melody! O perfect art!
O lovely, lofty voice, unfaltering!
O strong and radiant and divine Mozart,
Among earth's benefactors crowned a king!
Loved shalt thou be while time may yet endure,
Spirit of health, sweet, sound, and wise, and pure.
AT the open window I lean;
Flowers in the garden without
Faint in the heat and the drought;
What does the music mean?For here, from the cold keys within,
Is a tempest of melody drawn;
Doubts, passionate questions, the dawn
Of high hope, and a triumph to win;While out in the garden, blood-red
The poppy droops, faint in the heat
Of the noon, and the sea-wind so sweet
Caresses its delicate head.And still the strong music goes on
With its storming of beautiful heights,
With its sorrow that heaven requites,
And the victory fought for is won!High with thy gift didst thou reach,
Schubert, whose genius superb
Nothing could check or could curb:
Thou liftest the heart with thy speech!
CALM is the close of the day,
All things are quiet and blest;
Low in the darkening west
The young moon sinks slowly away.Without, in the twilight, I dream:
Within it is cheerful and bright
With faces that bloom in the light,
And the cold keys that silently gleam.Then a magical touch draws near,
And a voice like a call of delight
Cleaves the calm of the beautiful night,
And I turn from my musing to hear.Lo! the movement too wondrous to name!
Agitation and rapture, the press
As of myriad waves that caress,
And break into vanishing flame.Ah! but the exquisite strain,
Sinking to pathos so sweet!
Is life then a lie and a cheat?
Hark to the hopeless refrain!Comes a shock like the voice of a soul
Lost to good, to all beauty and joy,
Led alone by the powers that destroy,
And fighting with fiends for control.Drops a chord like the grave's first clod.
Then again toss the waves of caprice,
Wild, delicate, sweet, with no peace,
No health, and no yielding to God.O Siren, that charmest the air
With this potent and passionate spell,
Sad as songs of the angels that fell,
Thou leadest alone to despair!What troubles the night? It grows chill --
Let the weird, wild music be;
Fronts us the infinite sea
And Nature is holy and still.
THE PIMPERNEL
SHE walks beside the silent shore,
The tide is high, the breeze is still;
No ripple breaks the ocean floor,
The sunshine sleeps upon the hill.The turf is warm beneath her feet,
Bordering the beach of stone and shell,
And thick about her path the sweet
Red blossoms of the pimpernel."Oh, sleep not yet, my flower!" she cries,
"Nor prophesy of storm to come;
Tell me that under steadfast skies
Fair winds shall bring my lover home."She stoops to gather flower and shell,
She sits, and, smiling, studies each;
She hears the full tide rise and swell,
And whisper softly on the beach.Waking, she dreams a golden dream,
Remembering with what still delight,
To watch the sunset's fading gleam,
Here by the waves they stood last night.She leans on that encircling arm,
Divinely strong with power to draw
Her nature, as the moon doth charm
The swaying sea with heavenly law.All lost in bliss the moments glide;
She feels his whisper, his caress;
The murmur of the mustering tide
Brings her no presage of distress.What breaks her dream? She lifts her eyes
Reluctant to destroy the spell;
The color from her bright cheek dies,--
Close folded is the pimpernel.
With rapid glance she scans the sky;
Rises a sudden wind, and grows,
And charged with storm the cloud-heaps lie.
Well may the scarlet blossoms close!A touch, and bliss is turned to bale!
Life only keeps the sense of pain;
The world holds naught save one white sail
Flying before the wind and rain.Broken upon the wheel of fear
She wears the storm-vexed hour away;
And now in gold and fire draws near
The sunset of her troubled day.But to her sky is yet denied
The sun that lights the world for her;
She sweeps the rose-flushed ocean wide
With eager eyes the quick tears blur;And lonely, lonely all the space
Stretches, with never sign of sail,
And sadder grows her wistful face,
And all the sunset splendors fail.And cold and pale, in still despair,
With heavier grief than tongue can tell,
She sinks,-- upon her lips a prayer,
Her cheek against the pimpernel.Bright blossoms wet with showery tears
On her shut eyes their droplets shed.
Only the wakened waves she hears,
That, singing, drown his rapid tread."Sweet, I am here!" Joy's gates swing wide,
And heaven is theirs, and all is well,
And left beside the ebbing tide,
Forgotten, is the pimpernel.
BY THE DEAD
O POVERTY! til now I never knew
The meaning of the word! What lack is here!
O pale mask of a soul great, good, and true!
O mocking semblance stretched upon a bier!Each atom of this devastated face
Was so instinct with power, with warmth and light;
What desert is so desolate! No grace
Is left, no gleam, no change, no day, no night.Where is the key that locked these gates of speech,
Once beautiful, where thought stood sentinel,
Where sweetness sat, where wisdom passed, to teach
Our weakness strength, our homage to compel?Despoiled at last, and waste and barren lies
This once so rich domain. Where lives and moves,
In what new world, the splendor of these eyes
That dauntless lightened like imperial Jove's?Annihilated, do you answer me?
Blown out and vanished like a candle flame?
Is nothing left but this pale effigy,
This silence drear, this dread without a name?Has it been all in vain, our love and pride,
This yearning love that still pursues our friend
Into the awful dark, unsatisfied,
Bereft, and wrung with pain? Is this the end?Would God so mock us? To our human sense
No answer reaches through the doubtful air;
Yet with a living hope, profound, intense,
Our tortured souls rebel against despair;As bowing to the bitter fate we go
Drooping and dumb as if beneath a curse;
But does not pitying Heaven answer "No!"
With all the voices of the universe?
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND
LAZILY, through the warm gray afternoon,
We sailed toward the land;
Over the long sweep of the billows, soon,
We saw on either hand
Peninsula and cape and silver beach
Unfold before our eyes,
Lighthouse and roof and spire and wooded reach
Grew clear beyond surmise.
Behind us lay the islands that we loved,
Touched by a wandering gleam,
Melting in distance, where the white sails moved
Softly as in a dream.
Drifting past buoy and scarlet beacon slow,
We gained the coast at last,
And up the harbor, where no wind did blow,
We drew, and anchor cast.
The lovely land! Green, the broad fields came down
Almost into the sea;
Nestled the quiet homesteads warm and brown,
Embraced by many a tree;
The gray above was streaked with smiling blue,
The snowy gulls sailed o'er;
The shining goldenrod waved, where it grew,
A welcome to the shore.
Peaceful the whole, and sweet. Beyond the sand
The dwelling-place I sought
Lay in the sunshine. All the scene I scanned,
Full of one wistful thought;
Saw any eyes our vessel near the shore
From vine-draped windows quaint?
Waited my bright, shy darling at the door,
Fairer than words could paint?
I did not see her gleaming golden head,
Nor hear her clear voice call;
As up the beach I went with rapid tread,
Lonely and still was all.
But on the smooth sand printed, far and near,
I saw her footsteps small;
Here had she loitered, here she hastened, here
She climbed the low stone wall.
Such pathos in those little footprints spoke,
I paused and lingered long;
Listening as far away the billows broke
With the old solemn song.
"The infinite hoary spray of the salt sea,"
In yet another tide,
Should wash away these traces utterly;
And in my heart I cried, --
"O thou Creator, when thy waves of Time,
The infinite hoary spray
That sweeps life from the earth at dawn and prime,
Have swept her soul away,
How shall I know it is not even as these
Light footprints in the sand,
That vanish into naught? For no man sees
Clearly what Thou hast planned."
And sadly musing, up the slope I pressed,
And sought her where she played,
By breeze and sunshine flattered and caressed,
A merry little maid.
And while I clasped her close and held her fast,
And looked into her face,
Half shy, half smiling, wholly glad at last
To rest in my embrace,
From the clear heaven of her innocent eyes
Leaped Love to answer me;
Divinely through the mortal shape that dies
Shone immortality!
What the winds hinted, what the awful sky
Held in its keeping, -- all
The vast sea's prophesying suddenly
Grew clear as clarion call.
The secret nature strives to speak, yet hides,
Flashed from those human eyes
To slay my doubt: I felt that all the tides
Of death and change might rise
And devastate the world, yet I could see
This steady shining spark
Should live eternally, could never be
Lost in the unfathomed dark!
And when beneath a threatening sunset sky
We trimmed our sails and turned
Seaward again, with many a sweet good-by,
A quiet gladness burned
Within me, as I watched her tiny form
Go dancing up and down,
Light as a sandpiper before the storm,
Upon the beach-edge brown,
Waving her little kerchief to and fro
Till we were out of sight,
Sped by a wild wind that began to blow
Out of the troubled night;
And while we tossed upon an angry sea,
And round the lightening ran,
And muttering thunder rolled incessantly
As the black storm began,
I knew the fair and peaceful landscape lay
Safe hidden in the gloom,
Waiting the glad returning of the day
To smile again and bloom;
And sure as that to-morrow's sun would rise,
And day again would be,
Shone the sweet promise of those childish eyes
Wherein God answered me.
A BROKEN LILY
O LILY, dropped upon the gray sea-sand,
What time my fair love through the morning land
Led the rejoicing children, singing all
In happy chorus, to their festival,
Under green trees the flowery fields among;
Now, when the noon sun blazes o'er the sea,
And echo tells not of the song they sung,
And all thy silver splendor silently
Thou yieldest to the salt and bitter tide,
I find thee, and, remembering on whose breast
Thy day began in thy fresh beauty's pride,
Though of thy bloom and fragrance dispossessed,
Thou art to me than all June's flowers more sweet,
Fairer than Aphrodite's foam-kissed feet!
MAY MORNING may#2
WARM, wild, rainy wind, blowing fitfully,
Stirring dreamy breakers on the slumberous May sea,
What shall fail to answer thee? What thing shall withstand
The spell of thine enchantment, flowing over sea and land?All along the swamp-edge in the rain I go;
All about my head thou the loosened locks dost blow;
Like the German goose-girl in the fairy tale,
I watch across the shining pool my flock of ducks that sail.Redly gleam the rose-haws, dripping with the wet,
Fruit of sober autumn, glowing crimson yet;
Slender swords of iris leaves cut the water clear,
And light green creeps the tender grass, thick spreading far and near.Every last year's stalk is set with brown or golden studs;
All the boughs of bayberry are thick with scented buds;
Islanded in turfy velvet, where the ferns uncurl,
Lo! the large white duck's egg glimmers like a pearl!Softly sing the billows, rushing, whispering low;
Freshly, oh! deliciously, the warm, wild wind doth blow!
Plaintive bleat of new-washed lambs comes faint from far away;
And clearly cry the little birds, alert and blithe and gay.O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place!
O warm sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face!
O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all my care away,
That I may be a child again this blissful morn of May.
ALL'S WELL
WHAT dost thou here, young wife, by the water-side,
Gathering crimson dulse?
Know'st thou not that the cloud in the west glooms wide,
And the wind has a hurrying pulse?Peaceful the eastern waters before thee spread,
And the cliffs rise high behind,
While thou gatherest sea-weeds, green and brown and red,
To the coming trouble blind.She lifts her eyes to the top of the granite crags,
And the color ebbs from her cheek,
Swift vapors skurry the black squall's tattered flags,
And she hears the gray gull shriek.And like a blow is the thought of the little boat
By this on its homeward way,
A tiny skiff, like a cockle-shell afloat
In the tempest-threatened bay;With husband and brother who sailed away to the town
When fair shone the morning sun,
To tarry but till the tide in the stream turned down,
Then seaward again to run.
Homeward she flies; the land-breeze strikes her cold;
A terror is in the sky;
Her little babe with his tumbled hair of gold
In her mother's arms doth lie.She catches him up with a breathless, questioning cry:
"O mother, speak! Are thy near?"
"Dear, almost home. At the western window high
Thy father watches in fear."She climbs the stair: "O father, must they be lost?"
He answers never a word;
Through the glass he watches the line the squall has crossed
As if no sound he heard.And the Day of Doom seems come in the angry sky,
And a low roar fills the air;
In an awful stillness the dead-black waters lie,
And the rocks gleam ghastly and bare.Is it a snow-white gull's wing fluttering there,
In the midst of that hush of dread?
Ah, no, 't is the narrow strip of canvas they dare
In the face of the storm to spread.A moment more and all the furies are loose,
The coast line is blotted out,
The skiff is gone, the rain-cloud pours its sluice,
And she hears her father shout,"Down with your sail!" as if through the tumult wild,["]
And the distance, his voice might reach;
And, stunned, she clasps still closer her rosy child,
Bereft of the power of speech.But her heart cries low, as writhing it lies on the rack,
"Sweet, art thou fatherl