Ina D. Coolbrith: Verses about Love

‘Love is so old, ’ I said, ‘no more
Of him be said or sung’...
But since Love entered at my door-
Love how forever young!

I did not seek for Love, Love came to me...
But now that Love is mine I would not give
One lightest breath of it for all earth, sea,
Air-Heaven, might hold! Not that my soul might live!

If I have never loved before
Yet love I now, indeed!
My lover’s will is as the wind
Wherein I am reed.

Yet know I well how firm and fair
The wind’s soft wooings are-
True as unto the day the sun,
Unto the night the star.

God made the world and found it ‘good’.
An Angel Him beside
Wept softly, and, to question, said
‘For what Thou hast denied.’

‘And that? ’ God asked him tenderly,
‘What is the lack thereof? ’
‘Its Soul’- the Angle made reply
And God created Love.

For a love with a light that can fashion
A glory that knows not eclipse,
What voice, when its uttermost passion
Sets of silence the seal on the lips?

Lo, here on the leaves of the blossom
Behold it, in symbol and sign,
And I send it, a throb from my bosom,
Beloved, to thine!

Nay, then, what can be done
When love is flown,
When love has passed away?
Sit in the twilight gray,
Thinking how near he was,
Thinking how dear he was,
That is no more, to-day!

How can the day be fair
Love may not share?
How day go by,
Hearing no fond words said,
With no dear kisses shed-
O, how can love be dead,
And yet not I!

Newly wedded, and happy quite,
Careless alike of wind and weather,
Two wee birds, from a merry flight,
Swing in the tree-top, sing together:
Love to them, in the wintry hour,
Summer and sunshine, bud and flower!

So, beloved, when skies are sad,
Love can render their somber golden;
A thought of thee, and the day is glad
As a rose in the dewy dawn unfolden;
And away, away, on passionate wings,
My heart like a bird at thy window sings!

A bird flies over the sea-
Over the golden sea,
With a message from me to thee,
O my beloved!

Swift to thy lattice bar,
My life, my beloved,
Under the morning-star
He shall rest where my soul-thoughts are,
O my beloved.

He shall ‘light in the viny rings;
At the window fastenings
He shall beat with his eager wings,
O my beloved.

And ah! for the wild, sweet note,
My dove, my beloved;
And O for the mad, sweet note
That shall float from his honeyed throat,
O love, my beloved!

Awake, beloved! my heart awakes, -
Though still in slumber lies
The world; the pearl of morning breaks
Along the eastern skies.
The moon, the stars, that rule the night,
And look on land and sea,
A pathway are of luring light
My spirit walks to thee.

‘Wake! ere between again shall lift
The day his lance of flame;
From the still shores of dreamland drift
One hour to love’s dear claim.
O love! My love! the shadows part, -
Thine eager arms I see, -
“As for the water-brook the hart, ”
So is my soul for thee!

O shining, sapphire sea!
From thy bosom put away
Every vexing thought to-day;
Smile through all thy dimpling spray:
All that earth contains for me,
Of love, and truth, and purity,
Trust I unto thee!

O foam-flecked, azure sea!
Let thy calm, untroubled waves,
By the softest gales caressed,
Rise and fall like love-beats in
Her timid maiden breast;
Let thy dreamiest melodies
Cradle her to rest.

O wild, white, mystic sea!
Let thy strong upholding arm
Tender as a lover’s be;
Let no breath of rude alarm
Mar her safe from every harm,
Once again to me!

(Song)

Love that came in with the morning
Is fled with the night!
Whither away?
Whither away?
Gone with nor word, with nor warning,
O lost, my Delight!

Into what soul-cleft or hollow
Art vanished from sight,
Out of the day,
Out of the day?
Where the feet of my dreams may not follow,
O lost, my Delight!

The joy, Love, the song and the laughter
Take wing with thy flight,
Forever and aye,
Forever and aye,
Where life, where not death may come after,
Lost, lost, my Delight!

So glide the days, dear! Dawn will not delay,
Noontide will come, nor linger in its flight;
And even-time in turn must pass away
Into the darkness of a dreamless night.
Hold fast, Beloved, thy season of delight:
Make merry while the morning gilds the sky,
And dews undried upon the roses lie;
Thy golden morn of May-time, brief as bright.
For labor waits; and cares thou canst not miss;
Grief for thy gladness, and for laughter, tears.
Ah, love! if only love might spare thee this-
Might hold a little farther off the years! -
A little longer bind thy winged feet,
O youth, -most swift in passing, and most sweet!

Not more removed with the long years’increase,
Through hours when storms upon thy roof of clay
Have beat, or when the blossom of the May
Has to the fettered winter smiled release, -
Not from my heart one thought of thee could cease,
O loved and mourned to-day as on that day
When from my sight thy presence passed away,
Thou spirit of all gentleness and peace.
Nay, in the long, long ways I walk alone,
Still with me! On my brow thy touch is laid
Softly, - when all to great my burden grown . . .
And I shall go, serenly, unafraid,
Into the dark-well knowing what dear tone-
Whose hand to mine- O thou beloved shade!

Unto the earth the Summer comes again:
She has, to quench her thirst, the dews and rain;
She has glad light about her all life’s hour,
And love for gracious dower.

She makes the valleys pleasant for the herds;
Her seeds and berries ripen for the birds,
And cool about their nests she deftly weaves
A screen of tender leaves.

Her soft, delicious breath revives the land;
Her many flowers she feeds with lavish hand;
Clothes the bare hill, and to the rugged place
Gives comeliness and grace.

To all things else she cometh, once a year,
With strong, new life, with beauty and glad cheer-
To all things else: Ah, sometime, it must be
That she will come to me!

Her Raiment was of soft white thistledown,
And two great glowing topazes her eyes,
With depths of dusk, rare as the wondrous dyes
Of Tyre, of Persia-ancient of renown.
Perfect in beauty exquisite, from crown
Of the small head to feet, that, dainty-wise,
Trod, silken-fringed and sandaled; sorceries
Of sweetness hers, that knew nor fret nor frown.
Dear mystic ‘Egypt’! ** Of how tender wile!
My little comrade of the many years,
Who filled so small a space, and left so wide!
Who won from Sorrow’s self a tender smile-
Who paid back love with love that brought no tears,
And never caused a pang-until she died!

* A beautiful favorite Angora cat. ** A pet name.

Because the rose the bloom of blossoms is,
And queenliest in beauty and in grace,
The violet’s tender blue we love no less,
Or daisy, glancing up with shy, sweet face.

For all the music which the forest has,
The ocean waves, that crash upon the beach,
Still would we miss the whisper of the grass;
The hum of bees; the brooklet’s silver speech.

We would not have the timid wood-thrust mute
Because the bul-bul more divinely sings,
Nor lose the scarlet of dear robin’s throat,
For all the tropics’ flash of golden wings.

So do I think, though weak we be, and small,
Yet is there One whose care is none the less:
Who finds, perchance, some grain of worth in all,
Or loves us for our very humbleness!

What do I owe the years, that I should bring
Green leaves to crown the king?
Bloen, barren sands, the thistle, and the brier,
Dead hope, and mocked desire,
And sorrow, vast and pitiless as the sea:
These are their gifts to me.

What do I owe the years, that I should love
And sing the praise thereof?
Perhaps, the lark’s clear carol wakes with morn,
And winds amid the corn
Clash fairy cymbals; but I miss the joys,
Missing the tender voice-
Sweet as a throstle’s after April rain-
That may not sing again.

What do I owe the years, that I should greet
Their bitter, and not sweet,
With wine, and wit, and laughter? Rather thrust
The wine-cup to the dust!
What have they brought to me, these many years?
Silence and bitter tears.

White-limbed he lieth, dead youth, so strong, so fair, -
And O, for slumber that woke to happy days!
And O, the moonlights, the golden dreams that were,
And O, the glory of life’s long pleasant ways!

Fair were the faces his eyes have looked upon,
But these are haggared, and wan, and very sad.
Sweet the love-laughters, and red the lips he won, -
But here is silence of lips no longer glad.

So, part the branches, where light falls long between,
And plait the grasses about his feet and head;
Here his loved summer shall wear her softest green,
And winds just ruffle the fringes of his bed.

His were the roses washed sweeter in the dew,
And his the rapture life knoweth not again;
But ours the tempest, the skies no longer blue,
For tender sunlight, and tender, falling rain.

Clean winds sweep over it,
Blue sky to cover it,
The sun to give it light
And moon and stars of night;
Jeweled the floor is,
Golden the door is,
Hung all with ‘broideries,
Many-hued, many-wise.
Who would not covet,
Who would not love it?

I love it so-
I love it so
I would not care to know
Another space,
Another sphere,
However fair,
However dear,
Or far or near.
Each leaf my lover is,
Each flower a fragrant bliss;
No bird that wings through it,
No voice that sings to it-
Tree-note, bird, water, all-
But holds me thrall.

Yet He who builded,
Fashioned and gilded,
Guards it and tends it,
But only lends it.
Mine for a single day-
A day and night to stay . . .
If it might be always!

When the grass shall cover me,
Head to foot where I am lying;
When not any wind that blows,
Summer-blooms nor winter snows,
Shall awake me to your sighing:
Close above me as you pass,
You will say: 'How kind she was, '
You will say: 'How true she was, '
When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me,
Holden close to earth's warm bosom;
While I laugh, or weep, or sing,
Nevermore, for anything:
You will find in blade and blossom,
Sweet small voices, odorous,
Tender pleaders in my cause,
That shall speak me as I was -
When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me!
Ah, beloved, in my sorrow
Very patient, I can wait-
Knowing that, or soon or late,
There will dawn a clearer morrow:
When your heart will moan: 'Alas!
Now I know how true she was;
Now I know how dear she was' -
When the grass grows over me!

I: Palaces

A Wall of sod, a roof of thatch,
And naked turf the floor;
And winds, unchallenged and unbarred,
Go in and out the door;

But in the moonlight’s silver net,
The great star-sentries by,
No monarch of an Eastern throne
Is fairer housed then I.

II: Orchestra

The silence of my solitude
No rippling keyboard thrills;
No thunder-peal of organ vast
My soul of worship fills;

But ah, the woodland orchestra!
And from the lark on high
The rapture of the perfect note
Is dropped from God’s own sky.

III: The Alchemist

I Tread no web of Persian looms,
No silver decks my board;
I have not silks, nor diamonds,
Nor golden mint a hoard.

But O! what treasures are mine
Of tender touch and tone-
For Love beside the hearthstone sits,
And makes the world my own!

Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing) ,
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm!
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the spring.

Sweet, sweet, sweet! O skies serene and blue,
That shut the radiant (velvet) pastures in; that fold the mountain's crest!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew?
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest.

Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who leads (lives) the noblest life finds life the noblest gain,
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.

Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the field my mateling pipe and call.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss!
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!

The Daffodil sang: “Darling of the sun
Am I, am I, that wear
His color everwhere.”

The Violet pleaded soft, in undertone:
“Am I less perfect made?
Or hidden in the shade
So close and deep, that heaven may not see
Its own fair hue in me? ”

The Rose stood up, full-blown-
Right royal as a Queen upon her throne:
“Nay, but I reign alone, ”
She said, “with all the hearts for my very own.”

One whispered, with faint flush, not far away:
“I am the eye of the Day,
And all men love me; ” and, with drowsy sighs,
A Lotus, from the still pond where she lay,
Breathed: “I am precious balm for weary eyes.”

Only the fair Field-Lily, slim and tall,
Spake not. For all;
Spake not and did not stir,
Lapsed in some far and tender memory.
Softly I questioned her:
“And what of thee? ”
And the winds were lulled about the bended head,
And the warm sunlight swathed her as in flame,
While the awed answer came:
“Hath He not said? ”

Youth that is sweetest lies chill, lies still in death:
Close and clear eyelids upon the tender eyes;
And hush the pleadings on murmur answereth,
And still the kisses that wake no warm replies.

White-limbed he lieth, dead youth-so strong, so fair:
And O, for the slumber that woke to happy days!
And O, the moonlights-O, golden dreams that were!
And O, the glory of live’s long, pleasant ways!

Fair were the faces his eyes have looked upon;
But these are haggard, and wan, and very sad, \.
Sweet the love-laughters, and red lips he won;
But here is silence of lips no longer glad.

So, part the branches, where light falls long between,
And plait the grasses about his feet and head;
Here his loved summer shall wear her softest green,
And winds just ruffle the fringes of his bed.

His were the roses washed sweeter in the dew,
And his the rapture life knoweth not again;
But ours the tempest, the skies no longer blue,
For tender sunlight, and tender, falling rain.

Never a leaf is shorn
But the vine surely misses:
From ministering night-dew torn,
From the sun’s kisses;

Dozing the warm light in,
In cool winds rustling greenly-
A leaflet with its leafy kin
Dwelling serenely.

Not every bud doth fall
With blighted leaves yet folden-
Never to wear its coronal
Or white or golden-

But from the mother-stem
Flutters a far, faint sighing:
Is it a tender requiem
Above the dying?

Who knows what dear regrets
Cling to the blossom broken?
Who knows what voiceless longing frets,
What love unspoken?

So, through the summer-shine,
Your frail, brief lives securely
Keep, all ye tender blossoms mine,
Looking up purely.

Enough to breath the air
Made sweet with your perfuming;
To see through golden days your fair
And perfect blooming;

The bees that round you hum,
The butterflies that woo you-
And happy, happy birds that come
And sing unto you.

I am a lowly grass-blade,
A fair green leaf is she;
Her little fluttering shadow
Falls daily over me.

She sets so high in sunshine,
I am so low in shade,
I do not think she ever
Has looked where I am laid.

She sings to merry music,
She frolics in the light;
The great moon plays the lover
With her through half the night.

The swift, sweet winds they flatter
And woo her all the day:
I tremble lest the boldest
Should carry her away.

Only a little grass-blade,
That dare not look so high;
Yet, O! not any love her
One-half so well as I.

My little love-so happy!
My love-so proud and fair!
Would she might dwell forever
In the sweet summer air.

But, ah! the days will darken,
The pleasant skies will pall,
And pale, and parched, and broken,
My little love down fall:

And yet the thought most bitter
Is not that she must die,
But that ev’n death should bring her
To lie so low as I.

AH! little flower, upspringing, azure-eyed,
The meadow-brook beside,
Dropping delicious balms
Into the tender palms
Of lover-winds, that woo with light caress,
In still contentedness,
Living and blooming thy brief summer-day: —
So, wiser far than I,
That only dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my listless life away.

Ah! sweetheart birds, a-building your wee house
In the broad-leavëd boughs,
Pausing with merry trill
To praise each other’s skill,
And nod your pretty heads with pretty pride;
Serenely satisfied
To trill and twitter love’s sweet roundelay: —
So, happier than I,
That, lonely, dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my lonely life away.

Brown-bodied bees, that scent with nostrils fine
The odorous blossom-wine,
Sipping, with heads half thrust
Into the pollen dust
Of rose and hyacinth and daffodil,
To hive, in amber cell,
A honey feasting for the winter-day: —
So, better far than I,
Self-wrapt, that dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my useless life away.

How looked the earth unto His eyes,
So lately closed on Paradise?
Clad all in purity
Of snowy raiment, as a bride
That waiteth for her lord to see-
That waiteth in her love and pride?

Was the snow white on fields and rocks,
Whereon the shepherds watched their flocks
In the mid-winter night?
And saw the angel clothed in white,
The heavenly gates that opened wide,
In midst whereof was One
They dared not gaze upon!
Snow hither, thither, and afar,
Beneath the new mysterious star?
Snow upon Lebanon,
Whose cedars stood, a crystal net
Of frost-work, beautiful to see?
Snow upon Olivet-
Snow upon awful Calvary?

Found He it fair to look upon,
Beneath the wooing of the sun?
The turf whereon He trod,
Did He not bend His glance to greet?
The daisy glancing from the sod,
The lily slim and tall,
The ferny banks of sheltered nooks,
The singing voice within the brooks,
Each slender blade of grass that sprang,
The tender shade of leafy ways,
Each little bird that sang
Its wee heart out in praise-
I think He found them sweet-
He knew and loved them all!

Pleasant as sound of falling rain among
The summer leaves, and the sweet as after rain
The moist earth is when the sun shines again,
The measure and the music of his song.
Not to his muse, most gentle, may belong
The throb of passion, the wild pulse of pain;
Upon his perfect purity no stain;
And the world’s turmoil would but do him wrong.
But with a tender ministry he glides
Into our hearts, and like an angel guest
That presence evermore with us abides
With healing, strength; with comforting and rest.
O, bard beloved! the blessed labor thine
To show thine art how pure, and how divine.

He sang the New World’s song unto the Old:
The fading story of a fading race
Revived upon his lips in numbers bold,
Art without art, and grace untaught of grace.
With master hand that wakened and controlled,
The lyres of other lands he made his own,
And gave the added magic of his tone,
Their golden legends touched with finer gold.
Well won thy bays-and not alone the bays,
O, poet! great as is thy meed of praise,
Greater the love that follows after thee
To that new life, new land; where, with calm eyes,
And brow serene, there greets thee lovingly,
Thy Dante, in the gates of Paradise!

“The song were sweeter and better
If only the thought were glad.”
Be hidden the chafe of the fetter,
The scars of the wounds you have had;
Be silent of strife and endeavor,
But shout of the victory won!
You may sit in the shadow forever,
If only you’ll sing of the sun.

There are hearts, you must know, over tender
With the wine of the joy-cup of years;
One might dim for a moment the splendor
Of eyes unaccustomed to tears:
So sing, if you must, with the gladness
That brimmed the lost heart of your youth,
Lest you breath, in the song and its sadness,
The secret of life at its truth.

O, violets, born of the valley,
You are sweet in the sun and the dew;
But your sisters, in yonder dim alley,
Are sweeter-and paler-than you!
O, birds, you are blith in the meadow,
But your mates of the forest I love;
And sweeter their songs in the shadow,
Though sadder the singing thereof!

To the weary in life’s wildernesses
The soul of the singer belongs.
Small need, in your green, sunny places,
Glad dwellers, have you of my songs.
For you the blith birds of the meadow
Trill silverly sweet, every one;
But I can not sit in the shadow
Forever, and sing of the sun.

O foolish wisdom sought in books!
O aimless fret of household tasks!
O chains that bind the hand and mind-
A fuller life my spirit asks.

For there the grand hills, summer-crown’d,
Slope greenly downward to the seas:
One hour of rest upon their breast
Were worth a year of days like these.

Their cool, soft green to ease the pain
Of eyes that ache o’er printed words;
This weary noise—the city’s voice,
Lulled in the sound of bees and birds.

For Eden’s life within me stirs,
And scorns the shackles that I wear.
The man-life grand: pure soul, strong hand,
The limb of steel, the heart of air!

And I could kiss, with longing wild,
Earth’s dear brown bosom, loved so much,
A grass-blade fanned across my hand,
Would thrill me like a lover’s touch.

The trees would talk with me; the flowers
Their hidden meanings each make known—
The olden lore revived once more,
When man’s and nature’s heart were one.

And as the pardoned pair might come
Back to the garden God first framed,
And hear Him call at even-fall,
And answer, “ Here am I, ” unashamed-

So I, from out these toils, wherein
The Eden-faith growns stained and dim,
Would walk, a child, through Nature’s wild,
And hear His voice and answer Him.

Most fair is Earth!
This side sweet Heaven, I think, no thing more fair
Than the still face
She turns to her white sisterhood of space-
The milky blossoms of the fields of air.
Ermined, or in rich guise
Of rainbow draperies,
And emerald crowned, and mystical-with wide
Flowing cloud-gossamer veiled, as is a bride-
Wondrous and beautiful beyond compare.

Most glad is Earth!
No sweeter sounds-save those the angels hear-
Ring through and clear
And vast expanse of ether, than the voices
Wherein my Earth rejoices.
Rustle of leaves and trees,
And water-lullabies,
And song of bird, untaught, and free and wild,
And lisp and laughter of the little child,
And, all glad things above,
The thought, and speech, and heart of perfect love.

Most sad is Earth!
So sad, the face her sisters look upon
Is pale and wan-
Is wan and pale with memory of the Sin
Whence Sorrow entered in;
Through which sweet questioning, and sweet reply,
And love’s sweet laughter die-
And jar and jangle of the wrong and pain
Clash in her sweet refrain,
And discord all the strain.

Most blest is Earth!
The gleaming pathway through the heavens spread,
That angels tread,
Thick sown with stars as is her breast with flowers
By April showers,
Holds none so blest! - because of One who came
To burden all the blame,
And turn aside
The curse of sin and death-in that He died.
Most blest is Earth
Of all the Word gave birth-
In that her God so loved her that He gave
His SON to save!

Aye, but my feet are light upon the hills!
Light as the leaping deer, light as the wind,
Light as the soaring bird-for winged with joy!
And my heart sings (hearken the voice of it!)
With all my forests in the song-the streams-
And the great Sea that rims my golden shores.
Nay, from the deeps of far Creation’s morn
The slumbering echoes that are never mute-
The primal throes of all the things that are-
God busy with His world in fashioning;
Through the long aeon days of change on change,
God busy with His world in fashioning still.

Aye, am I glad! For is not this fair land-
Fairest of all lands, wreathed and crowned to-day
As never in the ages gone before?
Past now the days of desert solitudes,
The summits lifted lonely to the stars,
First that but knew the padded moccasin,
And then the Hero-Saint who bore the Cross
To it, with Him, the Life, the Nazarene!
And then the livid lure and dross of gold;
Then-(from a weed so ill a bloom so fair!)
Vast fields of fruit and harvest; thronging homes;
Science with searching gaze demanding truth-
And Art to add new perfectness to Art-
And greater, sweeter, dearer far then all,
Across the mighty vastness of sea
The living voice of human Brotherhood,
And peal of the great bell of London town,
That rang from sacred walls to speak to mankind,
One heart, one home, one people and one God!

O, land of mine-my land that is so loved-
‘Lift up thine eyes unto the hills’-nay, lift
Thine eyes unto the stars-make thou thy goal
As fair and great as thou art sweet and fair;
Make all of ill to die from out thy bounds
As dies the ill weed from the tended soil,
And thy fair bosom bloom as blooms the rose.
Peace brood with thee- a Dove with folded wings-
And Love thy Law as it was Christ’s one Law-
Wherewith no thing of wrong can ever dwell.
So shalt thou be, white as thy Shasta’s snows,
In thy divinest grace and purity
Evangel of the nations, speaking Man
God busy with His world of fashioning still.

Francis D’ Assisi, gentlest Saint of Saint’s,
Within his garden where the roses grew
That knew no thorn, slept from a weariness
Of overtoil, lulled by the the minstrelsy
Of leaf and bird; and thereto, as he slept,
From out the jungle-side a leopard crept
And at his feet crouched in soft-purring guard:
For all things loved Saint Francis- giving love
To all things-with a heart clean of all ill.
Sleeping, he dreamed a strange and wondrous dream
Of strange and wondrous seas, strange, wondrous shores,
And length of strange and wondrous wanderings
That burdened not; light labor, footways light,
And even pain an acstasy, for borne
For love of the dear Lord’s, Saviour’s sake
And with him walked a Fellowship of Love,
Unsandaled, bare of brow, gray-garmented-
The humble garb he knew since the far day
He doffed his princely robbing for the vow
Of toil and serviture and poverty.
And in the spaces which his footsteps trod
One land there was of great loveliness,
With mountain-summits white with trackless snow-
The living temples builded unto God-
And mighty forest trees that sought the skies-
Such dazzling skies! Beloved of the sun!
And Oh, to the Gray Brotherhood hoe dear
The land, responding with what bloom-
Whose white walls rose to worship, and who gave
Their God into its savage untaught Race.
One space was there where a great crystal lay-
A jewel set within a rim of gold-
Whose waters leaped and sparkled, laughed and sang
To its great City of the Seven Hills-
And lo! the city bore Saint Francis’ name! . . .
The Saint awoke, and trembling, turned to prayer:
‘Ah! blessed Christ.’ He saught, ’what is my fault
That even in a dream such pride be mine?
I seek no honor save Thy will to serve.
If this Thy will, yet grant me this alone,
That unto Thee I may reconsecrate.’

And long years passed, and the great City grew
Of all the earth the queenliest and most fair;
Leading in knowledge grew:
Teaching all truth as Truth was given to Man;
Aye, beautiful upon the hills and free,
To God, to Christ, divinely consecrate!

The World sweeps by! It is the end of Time!
Nay, not the end, for Time can have no end:
A cycle of the illimitable chain
That makes the circle Eternity.
It is the Day foretold: that Judgement Day!
Mountains have melted and the seas exhaled:
The Word, respoken healed the Universe,
And, perfected, the Golden Globe swings on,
See, how the great hills marshal their white peaks!
The forests lift their plumes! Fields laugh to flower!
And the vast waters of the firmament
Pour back the mighty seas, void of their dead!
‘Tis Earth reborn; Eden re-blossoming;
Life conquering Death-A new Dawn quickening Space.

I, only-I, who am that Lucifer-
‘Star of the Morning, ’ once-once Lucifer,
Of all God’s sons bright and most beautiful’-
I vanquished, lost, without His Heaven stand,
Without the Earth He framed, and named so fair;
That golden Earth into its orbit swung
Beheld beside Him in Cretion’s morn-
I, Lucifer, who knew its perfect ways,
The Serpent I, within the Paradise
By me dflowered, through me outcast and lost.
But yet I failed! O blessed that I failed!
In that He failed not in the love that gave
The Love that died to save! Joy, that I failed!
The one sole joy illuminating all
The deeps on deeps of my supremest Hell.
For this I thank Thee, Father! -that I failed.

And I-That He bow down and worship me
My Kingdom offered-I! my Kingdom, I,
The arch-usurper! -never Kingdom mine,
But His, ten-million-fold! His who redeemed,
And right of Love, All King, All Conqueror!

Now to my bondage! Bound a thousand years!
Fit Thou the sin with juster punishment!
Make it the eons-freedom nevermore.
And what the bonds? Chains, fetters, gives and gyres?
Walls that unclose not, and the weight of the worlds?
Ah, lighter these than breath of Eden-air!
Than petals of its roses softer far!
The least slight cry of Thy least creature, God,
Voicing its pain, outweighs, outbinds them all-
Bonds not the hosts of all Thy heaven could break.

Yet-grant me one last ray of my lost Star-
My Syar! my Star! my Star, Thou God, my Star! -
Before the darkness whelm and cover me.
Stand forth, my Angels and Archangels, mine,
Once glorious host, so fallen, so wronged through me-
Yet not so wronged as I by Lucifer,
Mad with the supreme crime, the lust of power.
Mercy, Jehovah! Mercy, Thou, for these!
Their pardon-mine alone the punishment!
Is their an anguish deeper? make it mine! ...
Aye! -unto this I bow, this last, supreme-
His tender smile! His Love-my Brother, Christ!

What wizardry is this? What necromance?
These forest-aisles, these mountains grim and vast?
These shadowy forms and faces that advance
From out of the misty past?

The old familiar faces, how they crowd!
Like ghosts returning from the farther shore!
These Beings without Being, yet endowed
With life for evermore.

Each in my own life-weft has woven part,
Whether or grave or gay; unkempt or shorn;
This one, ‘The Luck’ they call him, stole my heart
The day that he was born.

With these I sat beside the camp-fire’s glow
And heard, through untaught lips, old Homer tell
The Tale of Troy, till with the falling snow
God’s last white silence fell.

I knew the cabin in the lone ravine
Where she, the Fallen, far from mart and men,
Watched by the stricken and, unknown, made clean
Her garment’s hem again.

And these, the Partners in world-storm and stress,
With faithful love, unknowing selfish aim;
The friendship pure that grew not cold nor less
Through good or evil fame.

These, too (I loved them!) , reckless, debonair,
That life and fortune staked upon a cast;
The soul itself held lightly as the air,
To win or lose at last.

I tracked the mountain trail with them; the sweet
Cool smell of pines I breathed beneath the stars;
The laugh, the song I heard; the rhythmic feet
To tinkle of guitars.

I knew the Mission’s fragrant garden-close,
Heavy with blooms the wind might scarcely stir,
Its little laughing maid-Castilian rose! -
And saucy speech of her.

I knew them all-but best of all I knew
(Who in himself had something of all these)
The Man, within whose teeming fancy grew
These wondrous histories.

I see him often, with the brown hair half
Tossed from the leaning brow, the soft yet keen
Gray eyes uplifted with a tear or laugh
From the pen-pictured scene.

And hear the voice that read to me his dear
World-children-and I listen till I seem
Back in the olden days; they are the near
And these are but a dream.

O Prince of Song and Story! Thee we claim,
The first and dearest, still our very own!
We will not yield the glory of thy name
Nor share thy laureled throne!

Altho beneath a gray and alien sky,
Across long leagues of land and leagues of wave,
We may not reach thy dust with tear and sigh,
Nor deck thy lonely grave.

* Written for the Bret Harte Memorial Jinks of the Bohemian Club,
San Francisco, California; on which occasion the Jinks Room was
Transformed into a mining camp in the Sierras, and the chief
characters in Bret Hart’s works were represented by the club
members.

In Memory of Celia Thaxter.

There is a shadow on the sea!
And a murmur, and a moan,
In its muffed monotone,
Like a solemn threnody;
And the sea-gulls, on their white
Pinions, moving to and fro,

Are like phantoms, in their flight;
As they sweep from off the gray,
Misty headlands, far away,
And about the Beacon Light,
Wheel in circles, low and slow,
Wheel and circle, peer and cry,
As though seeling, restlessly,
Something vanished from their sight.
As though listening for the clear
Tones they never more may hear, -
Music missing from the day,
Music, missing from the night, -
Through the years, that wax and wane,
That may never sound again.

She, who ever loved the sea,
Loved and voiced its minstrelsy, -
Sang its white-caps, tossing free,
Sang the ceasless breaker-shocks,
Dashing, crashing, on the rocks,
Sang itsmoon-drawn tides, its speech,
Silver-soft, upon the beach,
Walks the margin’s golden floor, -
Floats upon its breast no more,

Nay! how know we this to be?
That the forms we may not see,
Passed from mortal touch and ken,

Never come to earth again?
When the brittle house of clay
From the spirit breaks away,
Does the mind forego its will?
Is the voice’s music still?
Do the hands forget their skill?
From the harp-great homer’s heart, -
Do not mighty numbers come?
Lost, divinest Raphael’s art,
And the lips of Shakespeare dumb?
All the years of joy and pain
That are lived, but lived in vain;
Memory’s graven page a blot,
Unrecorded and forgot!

Oh, believe, believe it not!
Man is God’s incarnate thought:
Life, with all the gifts He gave,
All the wondrous powers He wrought,
Finds not ending at the grave.
Part, himself, of Deity,
Man, the spirit, can not die.
“In my Father’s house are
Many mansions.” Did Christ say
Whether near, or whether far?
It may be beside us still
Bide these forms invisible;
Or, if passed to realms away,
Beyond sight’s remotest star,

Does that bind the soul to stay, -
Never, never, to retrace
The golden passage-ways of space? -
As a parted child might yearn
For the mothers arms, and turn,
Fain to look on Earth’s dear face.
‘Twixt the heart that loves and her
Space could place no barrier:
Thought, that swifter is than light,
Leaps a universe in flight.

So I love to think, indeed,
That this singing spirit, free
From her lesser, lower height-

Soaring to the Infinite, -
Turns with loving eyes, and a smile,
Still Sees the tower’s beacon-light,
Shining safely through the night;
Sees the white surf as it rolls
Round her treasured Isle of Shoals, -
Looking from that vaster sea,
Which we name Eternity.

Commencement poem, written for the
University of California, June,1876.

“Into the balm of the clover,
Into the dawn and the dew,
Come, O my poet, my lover,
Single of spirit and true!

“ Sweeter the song of the throstle
Shall ring from its nest in the vine,
And the lark, my beloved apostle,
Shall chant thee a gospel divine.

“Ah! not to the dullard, the schemer,
I of my fullness may give,
But thou, whom the world calleth dreamer,
Drink of my fountains and live! ”

O, and golden in the sun did the river waters run,
O, and golden in its shinning all the mellow land-
scape lay;
And the poet’s simple rhyme blended softly with
the chime
Of the bells that rang the noontide, in the city,
far away.

And the gold and amethyst of the thin. Trans-
parent mist,
Lifted, drifted from the ocean to the far hori-
zon’s rim,
Where the white, transfigured ghost of some ves-
sel, long since lost,
Half in cloud and half in billow, trembled on
its utmost brim.

And I said, “Most beautiful, in the noontide
dream and lull,
Art thou, Nature, sweetest mother, in thy sum-
mer raiment drest;
Aye, in all thy moods and phases, lovingly I
name thy praises,
Yet through all my love and longing chafeth
still the old unrest.”

“Art thou a-worn and a-weary,
Sick with the doubts that perplex,
Come from thy wisdom most dreary,
Less fair than the faith which it wrecks.”

“Not in the tomes of the sages
Lieth the word to thy need;
Truer my blossomy pages,
Sweeter their lessons to read.”

“Aye, ” I said, “but con it duly, who may read
the lesson truly;
Who may grasp the mighty meaning, hidden
past our finding out?
From the weary search unsleeping, what is yielded
to our keeping?
All our knowledge, peradventure; all our wisdom
merely doubt!

“O my earth, to know thee fully! I that love
thee, singly, wholly!
In the beauty thou art veiled; in thy melody
art dumb.
Once, unto my perfect seeing give this mystery
of being;
Once, thy silence breaking, tell me, whither go
we? whence we come? ”

And I heard the rustling leaves, and the sheaves
against the sheaves
Clashing lightly, clashing brightly, as they rip-
ened in the sun;
And the gracious air astir with the insect hum
and whirr,
And the merry plash and ripple where the river
waters run:
Heard the anthem of the sea-that most mighty
melody-
Only these; yet something deeper than to own
my spirit willed.
Like a holy calm descending, with my inmost
being blending-
Like the “Peace” to troubled waters, that are
pacified and stilled.

And I said: “Ah, what are we? Children at the
Master’s knee-
Little higher than these grasses glancing upward
from the sods!
Just the few first pages turning in His mighty
book of learning-
We, mere atoms of beginning, that would wres-
tle with the gods! ”

“In the least one of my daisies
Deeper a meaning is set,
Than the seers ye crown with your praises,
Have wrung from the centuries yet.

“Leave them their doubt and derision;
Lo, to the knowledge I bring,
Clingeth no dimness of vision!
Come, O my chosen, my king!

“Out from the clouds that cover,
The night that would blind and betray,
Come, O my poet, my lover,
Into the golden day! ”

O, and deeper through the calm rolled the cease-
less ocean psalm;
O, and brighter in the sunshine all the meadows
stretched away;
And a little lark sang clear from the willow
branches near,
And the glory and the gladness closed about me
where I lay.

And I said: “Aye, verily, waiteth yet the mas-
ter key,
All these mysteries that shall open, though to
surer hand than mine;
All these doubts of our discerning, to the peace
of knowledge turning,
All our darkness, which is human, to the light,
Which is devine! ”