Christmas Eve: 1872

Peace in the snowy breast,
O cloud from storm at rest!
Peace in the winds that sleep
Upon the deep.

Peace in the starry height:
Peace infinite,
Through all the worlds that move
Within His love.

O! all sad hearts, that be
On land or on the sea,
God’s peace with you rest light
This Christmas night!

And with the souls that stand
In that dear land
Where pain and all tears cease,
Most perfect peace!

At Rest (B. P. A.)

God rest thy soul!
O kind and pure,
Tender of heart, yet strong to wield control,
And to endure

Close the clear eyes:
No greater woe
Earth’s patient heart, than when a good man dies,
The ways are blest.

With us is night,
Toil without rest, -
But where thy gentle spirit walks in light,
The ways are blest.

God’s peace be thine!
God’s perfect peace!
Thy meed of faithful service, until time
And death shall cease.

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.

Mother’s Grief, The

So fair the sun rose, yester-morn,
The mountain-cliffs adoring!
The golden tassels of the corn
Danced in the breath of morning;
The cool, clear stream that runs before,
Such happy words was saying;
And in the open cottage door
My pretty babe was playing.
Aslant the sill a sunbeam lay-
I laughed, in carless pleasure,
To see his little hand essay
To grasp the shinning treasure.

To-day no shafts of golden flame
Across the sill are lying;
To-day I call my baby’s name,
And hear no lisped replying:
To-day-ah, baby mine, to-day-
God holds thee in his keeping!
And yet I weep, as one pale ray
Breaks in upon thy sleeping;
I weep to see its shining band
Reach, with a fond endeavor,
To where the little restless hands
Are crossed in rest forever!

Shut close the wearied eyes, O Sleep!
So close no dreams may come between,
Of all the sorrows they have seen;
Too long, too sad, their watch hath been.
Be faithful, Sleep:
Lest they should wake-remembering;
Lest they should wake, and waking weep,
O Sleep, sweet Sleep!

Clasp close the wearied hands, O Rest!
Poor hands, so thin and feeble grown
With all the tasks which they have done;
Now they are finished-every one.
O happy Rest,
Fold them at last from laboring,
In quiet on the quiet breast,
O Rest, sweet Rest!

Press close unto her heart, O Death!
So close, not any pulse may stir
The garments of her sepulcher:
Lo, life hath been so sad to her!
O kindest Death,
Within thy safest sheltering
Nor pain nor sorrow entereth-
O Death, sweet Death!

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.

Morning

As in a quiet dream
The mighty waters seem;
Scarcely a ripple shows
Upon their blue repose.

The sea-gulls smoothly ride
Upon the drowsy tide,
And a while sail doth sleep
Far out upon the deep.

A dreamy purple fills
The hollows of the hills;
A single cloud floats through
The sky’s serenest blue;

And far beyond the Gate
The massed vapors wait-
White as the walls that ring
The City of the King.

There is no sound, no word:
Only a happy bird
Trills to her nestling young
A little, sleepy song.

This is the holy calm;
The heavens dropping balm;
The Love made manifest,
And near; the perfect rest.

Evening

The day grows wan and cold.
In through the Gate of Gold
The restless vapors glide,
Like ghosts upon the tide.

The brown bird folds her wing,
Sad, with no song to sing.
Along the streets the dust
Blows sharp, with sudden gust.

The night comes, chill and gray.
Over the the sullen bay,
What mournful echoes pass
From lonely Alcatraz!

O bell, with solemn toll,
As for a passing soul-
As for a soul that waits,
In vain, at heaven’s gates!

This is the utter blight;
The sorrow infinite
Of earth; the closing wave;
The parting, and the grave.

From Russian Hill

Night and the hill to me!
Silence no sound that jars;
Above, of stars a sea;
Below, a sea of stars!

Tranced in slumber’s sway,
The city at its feet.
A tang of salty spray
Blends with the odors sweet

From garden-close and wall,
Where the madrona stood,
And tangled chaparral,
In the old solitude.

Here, from the Long Ago,
Rezanov’s sailors sleep;
There, the Presidio;
Beyond, the plumed steep;

The waters, mile on mile,
Foam-fringed with feathery white;
The beaconed fortress isle,
And Yerba Buena’s light.

O hill of Memories!
Thy scroll so closely writ
With song, that bough and breeze
And bird should utter it:

Hill of desire and dream,
Youth’s visions manifold,
That still in beauty gleam
From the sweet days of old!

Ring out thy solemn tone,
O far-off Mission bell!
I keep the tryst alone
With one who loved me well.

A voice I may not hear!
Face that I may not see,
Yet know a Presence near
To watch the hour with me. . .

How stately and serene
The moon moves up the sky!
How silvery between
The shores her footprints lie!

Peace, that no shadow mars!
Night and the hill to me!
Below, a sea of stars!
Above, of stars a sea!

Vision Of Saint Francis, The

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!

Under The Christmas Snow

Most lives lie more in the shadow, I think, than in the sun,
And the shadow from some is lifted only when life is done;
And so, though I wear mourning, I am glad at heart to know,
She rests in her still white slumber, under the Christmas snow.

She was to have married Philip. He sailed withhis ship in June.
How long they walked by the sea that night, under the waning moon!
“A year and a day of parting, and a lifetime, sweet, with you.”
Ah me, but we dream life bravely, if only our dreams came true!

She spoke of him very little: ‘twas never her way to talk;
But the restless nights, the restless days, the long, long tireless walk,
Forever beside the ocean. I fancied, almost, there grew
A picture of ocean within her eyes. O tend’rest eyes I knew!

Forever the ocean! Until her heart seemed even to time its beat
With the pulse and the throb of the waters that drifted to her feet;
She smiled when the sea was smiling, and her face in the tempest roar
Grew white as the fury of breakers, that beat on the rocky shore.

Again and again in dead of night, I wakened to find-ah me! -
The still, white form at the window that looked on the lonely sea.
Forever and ever the ocean! And I thought, with yearning pain,
“If only the year were over, and Philip were back again! ”

June passed into December. We were merry at Christmas-tide.
Berry and oak and holly, and folk from the country-side;
Music and feast and frolic, laughter and life and light-
I never missed poor Maggie, till far into the night.

Why should I think of the saying, somewhere that I had read:
“Pray for the one beloved, if he be living or dead,
In the hush of the Christmas midnight he will appear to thee.”
O Maggie, sister Maggie, down by the moaning sea! -

Still as a ghost in the moonlight; white as the drifted snow;
Cold as the pitiless waters, surging to and fro.
Why are your arms extended-what do your eyes behold?
O Maggie, sister Maggie, never your lips have told!

I do not like to speak it. You surely will understand.
She was always gentle and harmless; -nay, when the days are bland’
Quite happy, I think; but in winter, when winds and waves were high,
She would shudder at times, and utter a pitiful, moaning cry.

A Song Of The Summer Wind

Balmily, balmily, summer wind,
Sigh through the mountain-passes,
Over the sleep of the beautiful deep,
Over the woods’ green masses;
Ripple the grain of the valley and plain,
And the reeds and the river grasses!

How many songs, O summer wind,
How many songs you know,
Of fair, sweet things in your wanderings,
As over the earth you go-
To the Norland bare and bleak, from where
The red south roses blow.

Where the red south blossoms blow, O wind,
(Sing low to me, low and silly!)
And the golden green of the citrons lean
To the white of the saintly lily;
Where the sun-rays drowse in the orange-boughs,
(Sing, sing, for the heart grows chilly!)
And the belted bee hangs heavily
In rose and daffodilly.

I know a song, O summer wind,
A song of a willow-tree:
Soft as the sweep of its fringes deep
In languorous swoons of tropic noons,
But sad as sad can be!
Yet I would you might sing it, summer wind,
I would you might sing it me.

(O, tremulous, musical murmur of leaves!
O mystical melancholy
Of waves that call from the far sea-wall! -
Shall I render your meaning wholly
Ere the day shall wane to the night again,
And the stars come, slowly, slowly?)

I would you might sing me, summer wind,
A song of a little chamber:
Sing soft, sing low, how the roses grow
And the starry jasmines clamber;
Through the emerald rifts how the moonlight drifts,
And the sulight’s wellow amber.

Sing of a hand in the fluttering leaves,
Like a wee white bird in its nest;
Of a white hand twined in the leaves to find
A bloom for the fair young breast.
Sing of my love, my little love,
My snow-white dove in her nest,
As she looks through the fragrant jasmine leaves
Into the wasting west.

Tenderly. Tenderly, summer wind,
With murmurous word-caresses,
O, wind of the south, to her beautiful mouth
Did you cling with your balmy kisses-
Flutter and float o’er the white, white throat,
And ripple the golden tresses?

“The long year growth from green to gold, ”
Saith the song of the willow-tree;
“My tresses cover, my roots enfold.”
O, summer wind, sing it me!
Lorn and dreary, sad and weary,
As lovers that parted be___
But sweet as the grace of a fair young face
I never again may see!

Gold Seekers, The *

Long weary leagues across the treacherous plain,
Long weary leagues across the treacherous sea,
Comrades with danger, clasping hands with pain,
Pathmakers, builders of the State to be.

Boys with their school texts still upon their lips,
And stalwart men in sinewy, bearded prime,
And feeble age-on, on where sunshine drips
Its golden splendors in a golden clime.

Gold! Gold! The glittering lure that beckoned them!
Not gold, as now, of fruit on hills and plains,
Fair, fragrant, luscious, upon bough and stem-
But Gold! The metal-blood of the earth’s grim veins.

Some, overmastered, laid them down and slept
The sleep unwakening in a prairie-grave;
And some restless tryst forever kept
With Death, beneath the unrecording wave.

And some like Israel of old, the Land
Of Promise reached, beheld and found it fair

Beyond the promise, and with greedy hand
Gathered great riches with its greater care-

And died, and passed forgotten to the grave;
And some, with nobler souls to think and feel
Gave back its treasures to the land which gave,
Building the pillars of the Commonweal.

But one there came, indeed, for Gold alone!
A gold which knew not tarnish nor alloy;
With luster bright as God’s own starry zone,
Unspoiled of time-that death might not destroy.

A gold he came to seek not, but to give;
The Gold of Knowledge. From the shattered spoils
Of all earth’s cares, ah, what alone may live
Of man’s achievements? Man’s unending toils?

Knowledge and Truth alone. All else is dust.
Treasure to ransom worlds but ruthless dross,
Swept by winds, fretted of mould and rust;
Thrones, empires, races-death, oblivion, loss.

And Knowledge is but Truth! A lighted way
Leading to heights supreme from lowest sod;
From morning twilight to immortal day-
From God’s creation to Creation’s God....

Long did he labor; knew the plenteous lack
Of that, the baser metal of man’s aim-
But wearied not, nor faltered, nor turned back,
And lo! at last fruition’s glory came.

He saw the humble School-Walls widen, grow,
And stand, proud halls upon the Berkley hills;
The tree-crowned slopes, the fields in emerald glow,
The throng that studious quietude that fills;

The Golden Gate by wave and sun caressed,
In outward look across the Bay’s blue floor,
And from those walls into the mighty west
Fair Science beckon from her open door.

His Gold had blossomed! Ah, what more for him
Could earth in folded days hold still concealed?
Happy, he passed beyond our Planet’s rim,
To where, in God, all Knowledge is revealed.


*In memory of Doctor Henry Durant, First president of the University of California.

WRITTEN FOR THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC,
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, DECORATION DAY,1881

The sea-tides ebb and flow;
The seasons come and go,
Summer and sun succeed the cloud and snow,
And April rain awakes the violet.
Earth puts away
Her somber robes, and cheeks with tear-drops wet
In some sad yesterday
Dimple again with smiles, and half forget
Their grief, as the warm rose
Forgets the night-dews when the noontide glows.

Change follows upon change
Swift as the hours; and far away, and strange
As the dim memory of night’s troubled dream
In dawn’s returning beam,
Seem the dark, troubled years,
The sad, but glorious years,
Writ on the nation’s heart in blood and tears.

Ah, God! and yet we know
It was no dream in those days, long ago:
It was no dream, the beat
To arms, the steady tramp along the street
Of answering thousands, quick with word and deed
Unto their country’s need;
No dream the banners, flinging, fresh and fair
Their colors on the air-
Not stained and worn like these
Returning witnesses,
With sad, dumb lips, most eloquent of those
Returning nevermore!
Of those on many a hard-fought battlefield,
From hand to hand that bore
Their starry folds, and, knowing not to yield,
Fell, with a brave front steady to their foes.

Year after year the spring steals back again,
Bringing the bird and blossom in her train,
Beauty and melody,
But they return no more!
Borne on what tides of pain,
Over the unknown sea,
Unto the unknown shore:
Amid the pomp and show
Of glittering ranks, the cannon’s smoke and roar,
Tossed in the rock and reel
Of the wild waves of battle to and fro,
Amid the roll of drums, the ring of steel,
The clash of sabre, and the fiery hell
Of bursting shot and shell,
The scream of wounded steeds, the thunder tones
Of firm command, the prayers, the cheers, the groans, -
War’s mingled sounds of triumph and despair.
Blending with trumpet-blast and bugle-blare.

But not alone amid the battle wrack
They died, - our brave true men.
By southern glade and glen,
In dark morass, within whose pathless deeps,
The serpent coils and creeps,
They fell, with the fierce bloodhound on their track.
Amid the poisonous breath
Of crowded cells, and the rank, festering death
Of the dread prison-pen;
From dreary hospital,
And the dear, sheltering wall
Of home, that claimed them but to lose again,
They passed away, - the army of our slain!

O leader! Tried and true,
What words may speak of thee?
Last sacrifice divine,
Upon our country’s shrine!
O man, that toward above
Thy follow-men, with heart the tenderest,
And “whitest soul the nation ever knew! ”
Bravest and kingliest!
We lay our sorrow down
Before thee, as a crown;
We fold thee with our love
In silence: where are words to speak of thee?

For us the budded laughter of the May
Is beautiful to-day,
Upon the land, but nevermore for them,
Our heroes gone the rose upon its stem
Unfolds, or the fair lily blooms to bless
Their living eyes, with its pure loveliness;
No song-bird at the morn
Greets them with gladness of a day new-born;
No kiss of a child or wife
Warms their cold lips again to love and life,
Breaking sweet slumbers with as sweet release.
They may not wake again!
But from the precious soil,
Born of their toil-
Nursed with what crimson rain-
We pluck to-day the snow-white flower of peace.

He does not die, who in a noble cause
Renders his life: immortal as the laws
By which God rules the universe is he.
Silence his name may hold,
His fame untold
In all the annals of earth’s great may be,
But, bounded by no span
Of years which rounds the common lot of man,
Lo! he is one
Henceforward, with the work which he has done,
Whose meed and measure is Eternity.

They are not lost to us, they still are ours,
They do not rest. Cover their graves with flowers-
Earth’s fairest treasures, fashioned with skill,
Which makes the daisy’s disk a miracle
No less than man. On monument and urn,
Let their rich fragrance burn,
Like incense on a altar; softly spread
A royal mantle o’er each unmarked bed,
And, as a jeweled-rain,
Drop their bright petals for the nameless dead
And lonely, scattered wide
On plain and mountain-side,
Beneath the wave, and by the river-tide.
So let them rest
Upon their country’s breast.
They have not died in vain:
Through them she lives, with head no longer bowed
Among the nations, but erect and proud-
Washed clean of wrong and shame,
Her freedom never more an empty name,
Her all her scattered stars as one again.