Classic Poem

For days before, the wild-dove cooed for rain.
The sky had been too bright, the world too fair.
We knew such loveliness could not remain:
We heard its ruin by the flattering air
Foretold, that o'er the field so sweetly blew,
Yet came, at night, a banshee, moaning through
The chimney's throat, and at the window wailed:
We heard the tree-toad trill his piercing note:
The sound seemed near us, when, on farms remote,
The supper-horn the scattered workmen hailed:
Above the roof the eastward-pointing vane
Stood fixed: and still the wild-dove cooed for rain.

So, when the morning came, and found no fire
Upon her hearth, and wrapped her shivering form
In cloud, and rising winds in many a gyre
Of dust foreran the footsteps of the storm,
And woods grew dark, and flowery meadows chill,
And gray annihilation smote the hill,
I said to Ernest: “'Twas my plan, you see:
Two days to Nature, and the third to me.
For you must stay, perforce: the day is doomed,
No visitors shall yonder valley find,
Except the spirits of the rain and wind:
Here you must bide, my friends, with me entombed
In this dim crypt, where shelved around us lie
The mummied authors.” “Place me, when I die,”
Laughed Ernest, “in as fair a catacomb,
I shall not call posterity unjust,
That leaves my bones in Shakespeare's. Goethe's home,
Like king and beggar mixed in Memphian dust.
But you are right: this day we well may give
To you, dear Philip, and to those who stand
Protecting Nature with a jealous hand,
At once her subjects and her haughty lords;
Since, in the breath of their immortal words
Alone, she first begins to speak and live.”

I know not, if that day of dreary rain
Was not the happiest of the happy three.
For Nature gives, but takes away again:
Sound, odor, color—blossom, cloud, and tree
Divide and scatter in a thousand rays
Our individual being; but, in days
Of gloom, the wandering senses crowding come
To the close circle of the heart. So we,
Cosily nestled in the library,
Enjoyed each other and the warmth of home.
Each window was a picture of the rain:
Blown by the wind, tormented, wet, and gray,
Losing itself in cloud, the landscape lay;
Or wavered, blurred, behind the streaming pane;
Or, with a sudden struggle, shook away
Its load, and like a foundering ship arose
Distinct and dark above the driving spray,
Until a fiercer onset came, to close
The hopeless day. The roses writhed about
Their stakes, the tall laburnums to and fro
Rocked in the gusts, the flowers were beaten low,
And from his pygmy house the wren looked out
With dripping bill: each living creature fled,
To seek some sheltering cover for its head:
Yet colder, drearier, wilder as it blew
We drew the closer, and the happier grew.

She with her needle, he with pipe and book,
My guests contented sat: my cheerful dame,
Intent on household duties, went and came,
And I unto my childless bosom took
The little two-year Arthur, Ernest's child,
A darling boy, to both his parents true,—
With father's brow, and mother's eyes of blue,
And the same dimpled beauty when he smiled.
Ah me! the father's heart within me woke:
The child that never was, I seemed to hold:
The withered tenderness that bloomed of old
In vain, revived when little Arthur spoke
Of “Papa Philip!” and his balmy kiss
Renewed lost yearnings for a father's bliss.
And something glittered in the boy's bright hair:
I kissed him back, but turned away my head
To hide the pang I would not have thee share,
Dear wife! from whom the dearest promise fled.
God cannot chide so sacred a despair,
But still I dream that somewhere there must be
The spirit of a child that waits for me.

And evening fell, and Arthur, rosy-limbed
And snowy-gowned, in human beauty sweet,
Came pattering up with little naked feet
To kiss the good-night cup, that overbrimmed
With love two fathers and two mothers gave.
The steady rain against the windows drave,
And round the house the noises of the night
Mixed in a lulling music: dry old wood
Burned on the hearth in leaps of ruddy light,
And on the table purple beakers stood
Of harmless wine, from grapes that ripened on
The sunniest hillside of the smooth Garonne.
When Arthur slept, and doors were closed, and we
Sat folded in a sweeter privacy
Than even the secret-loving moon-bestows,
Spoke Ernest: “Edith, shall I read the rest?”
She, while the spirit of a happy rose
Visited her cheeks, consenting smiled, and pressed
The hand he gave. “With what I now shall read,”
He added, “Philip, you must be content.
No further runs my journal, nor, indeed,
Beyond this chapter is there further need;
Because the gift of Song was chiefly lent
To give consoling music for the joys
We lack, and not for those which we possess:
I now no longer need that gift, to bless
My heart.— your heart, my Edith, and your boy's!”

Therewith he read: the fingers of the rain
In light staccatos on the window played,
Mixed with the flame's contented hum, and made
Low harmonies to suit the varied strain.

The Return of Spring

Have I passed through Death's unconscious birth,
 In a dream the midnight bare?
I look on another and fairer Earth:
 I breathe a wondrous air!

A spirit of beauty walks the hills,
 A spirit of love the plain;
The shadows are bright, and the sunshine fills
 The air with a diamond rain!

Before my vision the glories swim,
 To the dance of a tune unheard:
Is an angel singing where woods are dim,
 Or is it an amorous bird?

Is it a spike of azure flowers,
 Deep in the meadows seen,
Or is it the peacock's neck, that towers
 Out of the spangled green?

Is a white dove glancing across the blue,
 Or an opal taking wing?
For my soul is dazzled through and through,
 With the splendor of the Spring.

Is it she that shines, as never before,
 The tremulous hills above,—
Or the heart within me, awake once more
 To the dawning light of love?

Morning

A LONG the east, where late the dark impended,
 A dusky gleam is born:
The watches of the night are ended,
 And heaven foretells the morn!

The hills of home, no longer hurled together,
 In one wide blotch of night,
Lift up their heads through misty ether,
 Distinct in rising light.

Then, after pangs of darkness slowly dying,
 O'er the delivered world
Comes Morn, with every banner flying
 And every sail unfurled!

So long the night, so chill, so blank and dreary,
 I thought the sun was dead;
But yonder burn his beacons cheery
 On peaks of cloudy red:

And yonder fly his scattered golden arrows,
 And smite the hills with day,
While Night her vain dominion narrows
 And westward wheels away.

A sweeter air revives the new creation,
 The dews are tears of bliss,
And Earth, in amorous palpitation,
 Receives her bridegroom's kiss.

Bathed in the morning, let my heart surrender
 The doubts that darkness gave,
And rise to meet the advancing splendor—
 O Night! no more thy slave.

I breathe at last, thy gloomy reign forgetting,
 Thy weary watches done,
Thy last pale star behind me setting,
 The freedom of the sun!

The Vision
I

S HE came, long absent from my side,
 And absent from my dreams, she came,
The earthly and the heavenly bride,
In maiden beauty glorified:
She looked upon me, angel-eyed:
 She called me by my name.

II

But I, whose heart to meet her sprang
 And shook the fragile house of dreams,
Stood, smitten with a guilty pang:
In other groves and temples rang
The songs that once for her I sang,
 By woods and faery streams.

III

Her eyes had power to lift my head,
 And, timorous as a truant child,
I met the sacred light they shed,
The light of heaven around her spread;
She read my face; no word she said:
 I only saw she smiled.

IV

“Canst thou forgive me, Angel mine,”
 I cried; “that Love at last beguiled
My heart to build a second shrine?
See, still I kneel and weep at thine,
But I am human, thou divine!”
 Still silently she smiled.

V

“Dost undivided worship claim,
 To keep thine altar undefiled?
Or must I bear thy tender blame,
And in thy pardon feel my shame,
Whene'er I breathe another name?”
 She looked at me, and smiled.

VI

“Speak, speak!” and then my tears came fast,
 My troubled heart with doubt grew wild:
“Will 'tvex the love, which still thou hast,
To know that I have peace at last?”
And from my dream the vision passed,
 And still, in passing, smiled.

Love Returned

I

H E was a boy when first we met;
 His eyes were mixed of dew and fire,
And on his candid brow was set,
 The sweetness of a chaste desire.
But in his veins the pulses beat
 Of passion, waiting for its wing,
As ardent veins of summer heat
 Throb through the innocence of spring.

II

As manhood came, his stature grew,
 And fiercer burned his restless eyes,
Until I trembled, as he drew
 From wedded hearts their young disguise.
Like wind-fed flame his ardor rose,
 And brought, like flame, a stormy rain:
In tumult, sweeter than repose,
 He tossed the souls of joy and pain.

III

So many years of absence change!
 I knew him not when he returned:
His step was slow, his brow was strange,
 His quiet eye no longer burned.
When at my heart I heard his knock,
 No voice within his right confessed:
I could not venture to unlock
 Its chambers to an alien guest.

IV

Then, at the threshold, spent and worn
 With fruitless travel, down he lay:
And I beheld the gleams of morn
 On his reviving beauty play.
I knelt, and kissed his holy lips,
 I washed his feet with pious care;
And from my life the long eclipse
 Drew off, and left his sunshine there.

V

He burns no more with youthful fire;
 He melts no more in foolish tears;
Serene and sweet, his eyes inspire
 The steady faith of balanced years.
His folded wings no longer thrill,
 But in some peaceful flight of prayer:
He nestles in my heart so still,
 I scarcely feel his presence there.
VI

O Love, that stern probation o'er,
 Thy calmer blessing is secure!
Thy beauteous feet shall stray no more,
 Thy peace and patience shall endure!
The lightest wind deflowers the rose,
 The rainbow with the sun departs,
But thou art centred in repose,
 And rooted in my heart of hearts!

A Woman

I

S HE is a woman: therefore, I a man,
 In so much as I love her. Could I more,
Then I were more a man. Our natures ran
 Together, brimming full, not flooding o'er
The banks of life, and evermore will run
In one full stream until our days are done.

II

She is a woman, but of spirit brave
 To bear the loss of girlhood's giddy dreams;
The regal mistress, not the yielding slave
 Of her ideal, spurning that which seems
For that which is, and, as her fancies fall,
Smiling; the truth of love outweighs them all.

III

She looks through life, and with a balance just
 Weighs men and things, beholding as they are
The lives of others: in the common dust
 She finds the fragments of the ruined star:
Proud, with a pride all feminine and sweet,
No path can soil the whiteness of her feet.

IV

The steady candor of her gentle eyes
 Strikes dead deceit, laughs vanity away;
She hath no room for petty jealousies,
 Where Faith and Love divide their tender sway.
Of either sex she owns the nobler part:
Man's honest brow and woman's faithful heart.

V

She is a woman, who, if Love were guide.
 Would climb to power, or in obscure content
Sit down: accepting fate with changeless pride—
 A reed in calm, in storm a staff unbent:
No pretty plaything, ignorant of life,
But Man's true mother, and his equal wife.

The Count of Gleichen

I READ that story of the Saxon knight,
 Who, leaving spouse and feudal fortress, made
The Cross of Christ his guerdon in the fight,
 And joined the last Crusade.

Whom, in the chase on Damietta's sands
 Estrayed, the Saracens in ambush caught,
And unto Cairo, to the Soldan's hands,
 A wretched captive brought:

Whom then the Soldan's child, a damsel brave,
 Saw, pitied, comforted, and made him free,
And with him flew, herself a willing slave
 In Love's captivity.

I read how he to bless her love was fain,
 To whom his renovated life he owed,
Yet with a pang the towers beheld again
 Where still his wife abode:

The wife whom first he loved: would she not scorn
 The second bride he could not choose but wed,
The second mother to his children, born
 In her divided bed?

Lo! at his castle's foot the noble dame
 With tears of blessing, holy, undefiled
By human pain, received him when he came,
 And kissed the Soldan's child!

My tears were on the pages as I read
 The touching close: I made the story mine,
Within whose heart, long plighted to the dead,
 Love built his living shrine.

I too had dared, a captive in the land,
 To pay with love the love that broke my chain:
Would she, who waited, stretch the pardoning hand,
 When I returned again?

Would she, my freedom and my bliss to know,
 With my disloyalty be reconiled,
And from her bower in Eden look below,
 And bless the Soldan's child?

For she is lost: but she, the later bride,
 Who came my ruined fortune to restore,
Back from the desert wanders at my side,
 And leads me home once more.

If human love, she sighs, could move a wife
 The holiest sacrifice of love to make,
Then the transfigured angel of thy life
 Is happier for thy sake!

Before the Bridal

N OW the night is overpast,
 And the mist is cleared away:
On my barren life at last
 Breaks the bright, reluctant day.

Day of payment for the wrong
 I was doomed so long to bear;
Day of promise, day of song,
 Day that makes the future fair!

Let me wake to bliss alone:
 Let me bury every fear:
What I prayed for, is my own;
 What was distant, now is near.

For the happy hour that waits
 No reproachful shade shall bring,
And I hear forgiving Fates
 In the happy bells that ring.

Leave the song that now is mute,
 For the sweeter song begun:
Leave the blossom for the fruit,
 And the rainbow for the sun!

Possession

I

“I T was our wedding-day
A month ago,” dear heart, I hear you say.
If months, or years, or ages since have passed,
I know not: I have ceased to question Time.
I only know that once there pealed a chime
Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast,
And all stood back, and none my right denied,
And forth we walked: the world was free and wide
Before us. Since that day
I count my life: the Past is washed away.

II

It was no dream, that vow:
It was the voice that woke me from a dream,—
A happy dream, I think; but I am waking now,
And drink the splendor of a sun supreme
That turns the mist of former tears to gold.
Within these arms I hold
The fleeting promise, chased so long in vain:
Ah, weary bird! thou wilt not fly again:
Thy wings are clipped, thou canst no more depart,—
Thy nest is builded in my heart!

III

I was the crescent; thou
The silver phantom of the perfect sphere,
Held in its bosom: in one glory now
Our lives united shine, and many a year—
Not the sweet moon of bridal only—we
One lustre, ever at the full, shall be:
One pure and rounded light, one planet whole,
One life developed, one completed soul!
For I in thee, and thou in me,
Unite our cloven halves of destiny.

IV

God knew His chosen time:
He bade me slowly ripen to my prime,
And from my boughs withheld the promised fruit,
Till storm and sun gave vigor to the root.
Secure, O Love! secure
Thy blessing is: I have thee day and night:
Thou art become my blood, my life, my light:
God's mercy thou, and therefore shalt endure!

Under the Moon

I

F ROM you and home I sleep afar,
Under the light of a lonely star,
Under the moon that marvels why
Away from you and home I lie.
Ah! love no language can declare,
The hovering warmth, the tender care,
The yielding, sweet, invisible air
That clasps your bosom, and fans your cheek
With the breath of words I cannot speak,—
Such love I give, such warmth impart:
The fragrance of a blossomed heart.

II

The moon looks in upon my bed,
Her yearning glory rays my head,
And round me clings, a lonely light,
The aureole of the winter night;
But in my heart a gentle pain,
A balmier splendor in my brain,
Lead me beyond the frosty plane,—
Lead me afar, to mellower skies,
Where under the moon a palace lies;
Where under the moon our bed is made,
Half in splendor and half in shade.

III

The marble flags of the corridor
Through open windows meet the floor,
And Moorish arches in darkness rise
Against the gleam of the silver skies:
Beyond, in flakes of starry light,
A fountain prattles to the night,
And dusky cypresses, withdrawn
In silent conclave, stud the lawn;
While mystic woodlands, more remote,
In seas of airy silver float,
So hung in heaven, the stars that set
Seem glossy leaves the dew has wet
On topmost boughs, and sparkling yet.

IV

In from the terraced garden blows
The spicy soul of the tuberose,
As if 't were the odor of strains that pour
From the nightingale's throat as never before;
For he sings not now of wounding thorn,
He sings as the lark in the golden morn,—
A song of joy, a song of bliss,
Passionate notes that clasp and kiss,
Perfect peace and perfect pride,
Love rewarded and satisfied,
For I see you, darling, at my side.

V

I see you, darling, at my side:
I clasp you closer, in sacred pride.
I shut my eyes, my senses fail,
Becalmed by Night's ambrosial gale.
Softer than dews the planets weep,
Descends a sweeter peace than sleep;
All wandering sounds and motions die
In the silent glory of the sky;
But, as the moon goes down the West,
Your heart, against my happy breast,
Says in its beating: Love is Rest.

The Mystic Summer

'T IS not the dropping of the flower,
 The blush of fruit upon the tree,
Though summer ripens, hour by hour,
 The garden's sweet maternity:

'Tis not that birds have ceased to build,
 And wait their brood with tender care;
That corn is golden in the field,
 And clover balm is in the air;—

Not these the season's splendor bring,
 And crowd with life the happy year,
Nor yet, where yonder fountains sing,
 The blaze of sunshine, hot and clear.

In thy full womb, O Summer! lies
 A secret hope, a joy unsung,
Held in the hush of these calm skies,
 And trembling on the forest's tongue.

The lands of harvest throb anew
 In shining pulses, far away;
The Night distils a dearer dew,
 And sweeter eyelids has the Day.

And not in vain the peony burns,
 In bursting globes, her crimson fire,
Her incense-dropping ivory urns
 The lily lifts in many a spire:

And not in vain the tulips clash
 In revelry the cups they hold
Of fiery wine, until they dash
 With ruby streaks the splendid gold!

Send down your roots the mystic charm
 That warms and flushes all your flowers,
And with the summer's touch disarm
 The thraldom of the under powers,

Until, in caverns buried deep,
 Strange fragrance reach the diamond's home,
And murmurs of the garden sweep
 The houses of the frighted gnome!

For, piercing through their black repose,
 And shooting up beyond the sun,
I see that Tree of Life, which rose
 Before the eyes of Solomon:

Its boughs, that, in the light of God,
 Their bright, innumerous leaves display,—
Whose hum of life is borne abroad
 By winds that shake the dead away.

And, trembling on a branch afar,
 The topmost nursling of the skies,
I see my bud, the fairest star
 That ever dawned for watching eyes.

Unnoticed on the boundless tree,
 Its fragrant promise fills the air;
Its little bell expands, for me,
 A tent of silver, lily-fair.

All life to that one centre tends;
 All joy and beauty thence outflow;
Her sweetest gifts the summer spends,
 To teach that sweeter bud to blow.

So, compassed by the vision's gleam,
 In trembling hope, from day to day,
As in some bright, bewildering dream,
 The mystic summer wanes away.

The Father

T HE fateful hour, when Death stood by
 And stretched his threatening hand in vain,
Is over now, and Life's first cry
 Speaks feeble triumph through its pain.

But yesterday, and thee the Earth
 Inscribed not on her mighty scroll:
To-day she opes the gate of birth,
 And gives the spheres another soul.

But yesterday, no fruit from me
 The rising winds of Time had hurled:
To-day, a father,—can it be
 A child of mine is in the world?

I look upon the little frame,
 As helpless on my arm it lies:
Thou giv'st me, child, a father's name,
 God's earliest name in Paradise.

Like Him, creator too I stand:
 His Power and Mystery seem more near:
Thou giv'st me honor in the land,
 And giv'st my life duration here.

But love, to-day, is more than pride;
 Love sees his star of triumph shine,
For Life nor Death can now divide
 The souls that wedded breathe in thine:

Mine and thy mother's, whence arose
 The copy of my face in thee;
And as thine eyelids first uncrose,
 My own young eyes look up to me.

Look on me, child, once more, once more,
 Even with those weak, unconscious eyes;
Stretch the small hands that help implore;
 Salute me with thy wailing cries!

This is the blessing and the prayer
 A father's sacred place demands:
Ordain me, darling, for thy care,
 And lead me with thy helpless hands!

The Mother

P ALER , and yet a thousand times more fair
 Than in thy girlhood's freshest bloom, art thou:
A softer sun-flush tints thy golden hair,
 A sweeter grace adorns thy gentle brow.

Lips that shall call thee “mother!” at thy breast
 Feed the young life, wherein thy nature feels
Its dear fulfilment: little hands are pressed
 On the white fountain Love alone unseals.

Look down, and let Life's tender day-break throw
 A second radiance on thy ripened hour:
Retrace thine own forgotten advent so,
 And in the bud behold thy perfect flower.

Nay, question not: whatever lies beyond
 God will dispose. Sit thus, Madonna mine,
For thou art haloed with a love as fond
 As Jewish Mary gave the Child Divine.

I lay my own proud title at thy feet;
 Thine the first, holiest right to love shalt be:
Though in his heart our wedded pulses beat,
 His sweetest life our darling draws from thee.

The father in his child beholds this truth,
 His perfect manhood has assumed its reign:
Thou wear'st anew the roses of thy youth,—
 The mother in her child is born again.

Thus came the Poet's Journal to an end.
His heart's completed music ceased to flow
From Ernest's lips: the tale I wished to know
Was wholly mine. “I am content, dear friend,”
I said: “to me no voice can be obscure
Wherein your nature speaks: the chords I hear,
Too far and frail to strike a stranger's ear.”
With that, I bowed to Edith's forehead pure,
And kissed her with a brother's blameless kiss:
“To you the fortune of these days I owe,
My other Ernest, like him most in this,
That you can hear the cries of ancient woe
With holy pity free from any blame
Of jealous love, and find your highest bliss
To know, through you his life's fulfilment came.”
“And through him, mine,” the woman's heart replied:
For Love's humility is Love's true pride.

“These are your sweetest poems, and your best,”
To him I said. “I know not.” answered he,
“They are my truest. I have ceased to be
The ambitious knight of Song, that shook his crest
In public tilts: the sober hermit I,
Whose evening songs but few approach to hear,—
Who, if those few should cease to lend an ear,
Would sing them to the forest and the sky
Contented: singing for myself alone.
No fear that any poet dies unknown,
Whose songs are written in the hearts that know
And love him, though their partial verdict show.
The tenderness that moves the critic's blame.
Those few have power to lift his name above
Forgetfulness, to grant that noblest fame
Which sets its trumpet to the lips of Love!”

“Nay, then,” said I, “you are already crowned,
If your ambition in the loving pride
Of us, your friends, is cheaply satisfied,
We are those trumpets: do you hear them sound?”
And Edith smilingly together wound
Light stems of ivy to a garland fair,
And pressed it archly on her husband's hair;
But he, with earnest voice, though in his eyes
A happy laughter shone, protesting, said:
“Respect, dear friends, the Muse's sanctities,
Nor mock, with wreaths upon a living head,
The holy laurels of the deathless Dead.
Crown Love, crown Truth when first her brow appears,
And crown the Hero when his deeds are done:
The Poet's leaves are gathered one by one,
In the slow process of the doubtful years.
Who seeks too eagerly, he shall not find:
Who, seeking not, pursues with single mind
Art's lofty aim, to him will she accord,
At her appointed time, the sure reward.”
The tall clock, standing sentry in the hall,
Struck midnight: on the panes no longer beat
The weary storm: the wind began to fall,
And through the breaking darkness glimmered, sweet
With tender stars, the flying gleams of sky.
“Come, Edith, lend your voice to crown the night,
And give the new day sunny break,” said I:
She listening first in self-deceiving plight
Of young maternal trouble, for a cry
From Arthur's crib, sat down in happy calm,
And sang to Ernest's heart his own thanksgiving psalm.

Thou who sendest sun and rain ,
Thou who spendest bliss and pain,
Good with bounteous hand bestowing,
Evil for Thy will allowing,—
Though Thy ways we cannot see,
All is just that comes from Thee.

In the peace of hearts at rest ,
In the child at mother's breast,
In the lives that now surround us,
In the deaths that sorely wound us,
Though we may not understand,
Father, we behold Thy hand!

Hear the happy hymn we raise;
Take the love which is Thy praise;
Give content in each condition;
Bend our hearts in sweet submission,
And Thy trusting children prove
Worthy of the Father's love!