Stoddard
was born July 20, 1825, at Hingham, Massachusetts.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v24 - Sta to Tal
It is as black as the sky was just
now on the quay. ”
"Have you been to the quay, Mary? ” asked Roxalana.
content yourself within doors. Where is Tempe ? ”
“I saw her kiting up-stairs just now. If she does not take
care she'll keel over. It is as true as the gospel, that she has
got a look in her face as new as a drop of cream would be to
“Do
my cat. "
“Go and tell her that Virginia Brande is here, and she will
come back. »
"I have always thought,” Mary replied, sticking a pin between
her teeth, and allowing her eyes to take a reflective cast, that
it was as much as my life was worth to interfere with the way
of a Gates; but I may change my mind. I'll go right after
Tempe. O Lord-a-mercy, where do you think the two creatures
are by this time? Sho! I know they will be along soon: it is not
likely that Captain Argus Gates is going to be lost at sea, after
he has given up going to sea; and — it would be foolish to sup-
pose that Mat Sutcliffe will venture more than getting his boots
soaked through. ”
Hairpins, please,” said Virginia.
Roxalana asked again, Where is Tempe? Virginia Brande is
here. ”
Tempe fell into a fit of weeping and laughing the moment
she saw Virginia, which was ended by a dead faint.
At last the boat was launched. Argus and Mat were afloat;
so much was gained, and Argus thought the danger was prefer-
able to the labor they had undergone in getting ready to risk
their lives. The gloomy twilight, spreading from the east,
dropped along the shore while they were dragging, pushing, and
lifting the boat over the shingle, slush, and into the opposing
((
sea,
## p. 14021 (#207) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14021
“Hell bent be it! ” said Mat, apostrophizing the waves, "if
you say so. You are not alone, my friends. ”
Mat seemed a part of the storm: his spirits were in a wild
commotion; his clothes were torn and soggy with brine, and his
hands were gashed and bloody. Argus had lost his cap, and
broken his oar; he bound his head with Mat's woolen comforter,
jammed his shoulder against the gunwale, and used the shortened
oar with much composure. They did not make much headway:
the boat was riding in all directions in the roar and foam of the
sea; darkness pressed upon them; they were shut between the
low-hanging sky and the shaking plain of water. In the midst
of his silent, measured, energetic action, the thoughts of Argus
drifted idly back to the trifling events of his life: a new and
surprising charm was added to them, as bright, quiet, and warm
as the golden dust of a summer sunset which touches everything
as it vanishes.
Mat swore at the top of his voice that the wind was more
nor'rard, and it would be an even chance about beating or not.
Argus looked up and saw a circular break in the clouds, but
said nothing
"By the crucifix,” cried Mat, throwing himself forward, “I
heard a yell. Where away are we? We are shoaling! ”
Argus plunged his hands into the water from the stern-sheets:
it felt like the wrinkled, hideous flesh of a monster, trying to
creep away.
“We are under lee or there is a lull, for the water don't
break,” he said. “If the moon was out, we should see the White
Flat. I reckon we are on the tongue of the bar, and the vessel
has struck below. Her hull must be sunk ten feet by this time,
and her shrouds and spars are washed off: that yell will not be
heard again. ”
“Damn 'em,” said Mat savagely, if they have drowned afore
ever we could reach 'em, I'll take 'em dead, carry every mother's
son of 'em to Kent, and bury 'em against their wills. ”
The endless, steady-going rockers which slid under them from
the bay outside tossed the boat no longer; the wind ceased to
smite their faces, but tore overhead and ripped the clouds apart.
The moon rolled out, and to the right they saw the ghastly, nar-
row crest of the White Flat. A mass of spume on their left
which hissed madly proved what Argus had said, - that they were
close to the end of the bar. Within the limits of the moonlight
C
## p. 14022 (#208) ##########################################
14022
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
they saw nothing. In the bewildering, darkling illumination of
.
the shattering water around them they were alone.
“If she's parted,” continued Mat, “something might wash this
way,— her gear at least. I'd like to catch a cabin door, or an
article to that effect: it might come handy. ”
Argus did not hear him, for he was overboard. Missing him,
Mat gave way for a moment; he felt the keel shove resisting
sand, and remained passive, merely muttering, "I'm blasted, but
she may drive. ”
Argus had seen, or thought he had, to the right of the boat,
some object dipping in and out of the water and making toward
them. He met it coming sideways, where the water was just
below his breast; missed a hold of it, struggled for it, the shift-
ing bottom impeding his footway; and the water battled against
his head and arms, till, rearing itself up and stranding on the
beach, he stumbled and fell beside it exhausted.
Raising himself on his hands and knees, he brought his face
close to two persons
-a man and a woman fastened together
by the embrace of death. The woman's face was upturned; its
white oval, wet and glistening, shed a horrid light; the repeated
blows of the murderous waves had tangled and spread her long
hair over her. Tears of rage rushed into Argus's eyes when he
saw where it had been torn from its roots. Her arms were
round the man's head; her hands clutched his temples; his face
was so tightly pressed into her bosom that Argus instinctively
believed he was still alive in a stifled swoon. She was dead.
Take her lover away from that breast of stone, Argus; let him
not see those open lips, - no longer the crimson gates to the
fiery hours of his enjoyment,- nor let him feel those poor bruised
fingers clenching his brain; those delicate stems of the will
are powerless to creep round his heart! May Satan of the re-
morseless deep alone know and remember the last hour of this
woman's passion, despair, and sacrifice!
Argus rose to his feet, wondering why he saw so clearly; and
possessed with an idea which was a mad one, perhaps, but which
allied him, in greatness of soul, to the woman before him. He
was still confused, and had forgotten where Mat and the boat
were; but Mat had seen his dark figure rising against the sky,
and was plowing through the sand with the intention of remon-
strating with Argus on the impossibility of ever getting it off
again. But when he came up behind him, there was something
## p. 14023 (#209) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14023
(
>
(
»
(C
in his attitude - a familiar one - which imposed his respectful
-
attention. Mat bent over the bodies silently, and touched them
with his foot.
She is dead ? ” interrogated Argus.
“Never will be more so. ”
« This man is still alive. Lift his head. I am out of breath.
The wind is going down, and we can run back easy. "
"It may raly be called pleasant," muttered Mat, on his knees
in the sand. “There, now I have got you, safe enough from her.
God! she put on shirt and trousers to jump overboard with him;
swapping deaths, and getting nothing to boot. He is limber:
give me the brandy and let's warm up the boy. ”
"Here,” said Argus in a suppressed voice, "pour it down,
quick. Have you a lashing? I should like to put her out of his
sight: one of the ballast stones will do. Help me to carry her
to the other side of the bar: the deep water will cover her. ”
Mat pretended to be too busy to hear.
“Crazier than ever,” he muttered. "I might have known his
damned crankiness would bile out somewhere. "
Argus wrapped the poor girl in his mackintosh, and staggered
towards the boat carrying her; there was no help against it, and
Mat rose to his assistance. In a moment or two she was buried
in the grave she had so terribly resisted.
The gale was nearly spent, and Mat ventured to hoist the
sail. Argus tumbled the still insensible man into the boat by
the head and heels, and they ran across the harbor, landing at
the quay below the house. Mary was there before the boat was
tied to a spile.
“How are you off for elbow-grease ? ” cried Mat. « Put the
lantern down, and jump in: here's a bundle for you to take up
to the house. Cap'n and I are clean gone, I tell you. I've lost
the rims of my ears, and expect to leave a few toes in these 'ere
boots when I pull 'em off. Come, quick! ”
Without a word she lifted the man from the bottom of the
boat, and with Mat's help, clambered up the wharf and took
him into the house. Tempe ran shrieking when she saw him
stretched on the floor before the fire in the green room. Roxa-
lana sat rigid, nailed to her chair, incapable of motion at the
sight; Virginia and Mary were collected. Mat adroitly peeled
off a portion of his wet clothes, and told Mary to rub him like
damnation. It was a long time before he gave sign of life. At
the first choking breath Mat poured some brandy over his face
>
## p. 14024 (#210) ##########################################
14024
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
and neck; he rose galvanically to a sitting posture, and fell back
again, to all appearance dead. But Mat declared he was all
right, and presently went out to change his wet clothes for dry
ones. Virginia looked up at Argus, convinced herself that the
man was saved.
“Take care of me, if you please,” he said. «I want brandy,
and a dry shirt. How are you, Roxalana ? ”
At the sound of his voice she turned in her chair.
Mat re-
turned with his arms full of clothes for Argus, and asked her if
she would be good enough to step out with Virginia, and go to
bed. There wasn't any use in praying now, for they were back.
Not one of them thought of the unhappy crew, all lost except
one who lay before them.
“That 'ere Virginia,” said Mat, when she and Roxalana had
gone, and he was watching the man's eyelids, “is as mealy a gal
as I ever saw in my life. She's cool, and smooth, and soft. She
beat Moll in rubbing. Hullo! his eyes are open.
Look here,
Spaniard, you belong to us. Drink this, my lad, and let me
hold you up. So - all right, young un. Shut up, Gates: you are
drunk, and have reason to be. I reckon you are black and blue
from the bruises you got. I've had a pint of swipes myself, and
feel inwardly correct. Hark ye,- he's off in a reglar, natural
sleep, ain't he ? »
[The following poems are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. )
A SUMMER NIGHT
I
FEEL the breath of the summer night,
Aromatic fire;
The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
With tender desire.
The white moths flutter about the lamp,
Enamored with light;
And a thousand creatures softly sing
A song to the night!
But I am alone; and how can I sing
Praises to thee?
Come, Night! unveil the beautiful soul
That waiteth for me.
## p. 14025 (#211) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14025
EL MANALO
I
N THE still dark shade of the palace wall,
Where the peacocks strut,
Where the Queen may have heard my madrigal,
Together we sat.
My sombrero hid the fire in my eyes,
And shaded her own;
This serge cloak stifled her sweet little cries,
When I kissed her mouth.
The pale olive-trees on the distant plain,
The jagged blue rocks,
The vaporous sea — like mountain chain
Dropped into the night.
We saw the lights in the palace flare;
The musicians played;
The red guards slashed and sabred the stair
And cursed the old king.
In the long black shade of the palace wall,
We sat the night through;
Under my cloak— but I cannot tell all
The Queen may have seen!
MERCEDES
UP
NDER a sultry yellow sky
On the yellow sand I lie;
The crinkled vapors smite my brain,–
I smolder in a fiery pain.
-
Above the crags the condor flies,-
He knows where the red gold lies;
He knows where the diamonds shine:
If I knew, would she be mine?
Mercedes in her hammock swings;
In her court a palm-tree flings
Its slender shadow on the ground;
The fountain falls with silver sound.
## p. 14026 (#212) ##########################################
14026
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
ish it up;
Her lips are like this cactus cup;
With my hand I
I tear its flaming leaves apart. —
Would that I could tear her heart.
Last night a man was at her gate,–
In the hedge I lay in wait;
I saw Mercedes meet him there,
By the fireflies in her hair.
I waited till the break of day,
Then I rose and stole away;
But I left my dagger in the gate;-
Now she knows her lover's fate!
NAMELESS PAIN
1
SHOULD be happy with my lot:
A wife and mother,- is it not
Enough for me to be content?
What other blessing could be sent ?
A quiet house, and homely ways,
That make each day like other days;
I only see Time's shadow now
Darken the hair on baby's brow.
No world's work ever comes to me,
No beggar brings his misery;
I have no power, no healing art,
With bruised soul or broken heart.
I read the poets of the age, -
'Tis lotus-eating in a cage;
I study art, but art is dead
To one who clamors to be fed
With milk from Nature's rugged breast,
Who longs for Labor's lusty rest.
O foolish wish! I still should pine
If any other lot were mine.
## p. 14027 (#213) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14027
ON THE CAMPAGNA
S"
TOP on the Appian Way,
In the Roman Campagna, -
Stop at my tomb,
The tomb of Cecilia Metella!
To-day as you see it
Alaric saw it, ages ago,
When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,
Sat at the gates of Rome,
Reading his Runic shield.
Odin! thy curse remains!
Beneath these battlements
My bones were stirred with Roman pride,
Though centuries before my Romans died:
Now my bones are dust; the Goths are dust.
The river-bed is dry where sleeps the king;
My tomb remains.
When Rome commanded the earth,
Great were the Metelli:
I was Metellus's wife;
I loved him,- and I died.
Then with slow patience built he this memorial :
Each century marks his love.
Pass by on the Appian Way
The tomb of Cecilia Metella.
Wild shepherds alone seek its shelter,
Wild buffaloes tramp at its base,
Deep in its desolation,
Deep as the shadow of Rome!
ON MY BED OF A WINTER NIGHT
N of night,
,
What care I for the wild wind's scream ?
What to me is its crooked flight ?
O Deep in a sleep, and deep in a dream,
On the sea of a summer's day,
Wrapped in the folds of a snowy sail,
## p. 14028 (#214) ##########################################
14028
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
What care I for the fitful gale,
Now in earnest, and now in play?
What care I for the fitful wind,
That groans in a gorge, or sighs in a tree?
Groaning and sighing are nothing to me;
For I am a man of steadfast mind.
## p. 14029 (#215) ##########################################
14029
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
(1825-)
.
(
HE poems of Richard Henry Stoddard, one of America's truest
lyrical poets, were collected and published in a complete
edition in 1880. The Early Poems) form the first of the
periods into which, for convenience's sake, the book is divided; the
'Songs of Summer) with «The King's Bell’ the second; the “Songs
of the East) the third; and Later Poems' the fourth. They repre-
sent the work of thirty years. In 1890 he published The Lion's Cub
and Other Verses,' a book not unworthy of
his maturity.
Stoddard's early verses, too good to be
purely original, are perhaps the nearest
approach made by any youthful poet to the
tuneful phrases and overflowing melody of
Keats. But the poet of twenty had lighted
his fire with the divine torch. The song
«You know the old Hidalgo,”
the serenade
-
«But music has a golden key,” --
songs of the gay troubadour singing under R. H. STODDARD
the latticed window,- are true lyrics, show-
ing those peculiar traits of poetic power which are recognizable
through all the changes consequent upon nearly fifty years of study
and development. These traits are a passionate love of beauty,
affluence, virility, and imagination; and a minor but unusual quality,
that of childlike unselfconsciousness. He propounds no questions, he
seeks to solve no problems. He is a poet, not a metaphysician.
Stoddard learned to "find” his art, according to his own confes-
sion, in his early poems. 'The Songs of Summer' are made up of
short poems in which his warm imagination gives life to the simplest
themes. Among the best known of them are There are Gains for
all Our Losses,' (Two Brides,' Through the Night, and the songs
The Sky is a Drinking-Cup, and Birds are Singing Round my
Window. )
## p. 14030 (#216) ##########################################
14030
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
Beginning with a measure a little less regular than that of Keats,
Stoddard departed gradually from the even ten-syllabled rhyme, and
adopted freer movements for his varied themes. This is perceptible
in-
“The young child Jesus had a garden
Full of roses rich and rare,"
a poem which might be inscribed under one of Francia's pictures.
Few men have sung with so pure a spontaneity, preserving at the
same time the canons of art. There is infinite variety in 'The Book
of the East. Its versifications are made from translations by many
hands, and not translations at first hand. That love of beauty, that
“sensuous love of earth” which passionately possessed him, led Stod-
dard to use in maturer years the language of the Orient, as in
youth it had led him to echo 'Endymion. But through the caressing
measures of the Persian, the ringing rhythm of the Tartar, the sensu-
ous tenderness of the Arab songs, through the Chinese songs where
he runs the gamut of sweetness, sentiment, homely naturalism, and
savage passion, - through all these themes and quantities the poet
keeps himself always within the limits of accurate and organic com-
position.
His narrative poems, scattered through all four volumes, owe
much of their simplicity and strength to the vigor and purity of his
prose. In “The Fisher and Charon,' in Proserpine,' in 'The King's
Sentinel,' in “The Pearl of the Philippines, and in "Wratislaw,' his
imagination and his strength blending, find completest expression.
It was said of Browning that he was a woman's man. ” Stoddard
is essentially “a man's man. ” In his Book of the East,'. poems
which exhibit to the full his delicate sensuousness, he has the Ori-
ental view of woman, feeling her helplessness and her witchery. In
his Songs of the Mystic' he watches the passing of youth and love,
the approach of age and sorrow, with all of the poet's, of the man's,
regret; yet retains his strength and sweetness, his love of love and
warfare, to the end. The Later Poems) contain many of his noblest
efforts,- poems that express the highest flights and largest freedom
of his poetical genius.
Mr.
Stoddard was born July 20, 1825, at Hingham, Massachusetts.
His father was a sea-captain, who died when his son was ten years
old. It was doubtless owing to this parentage, and to his early influ-
ences and associations, that the poet's songs of the sea are so appre-
ciative of its mystery and its charm. After his father's death he
came with his mother to New York, where he received a common-
school education, supplemented by independent study. He served for
some time in the New York Dock Department, and spent seventeen
(
## p. 14031 (#217) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14031
years in the Custom House, in an employment dignified by the ex-
ample of Hawthorne at Salem, and of Lamb at the East India House.
During this time he did much scholarly prose work, generally as a
literary essayist and critic.
SONG
From “The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Yºu
ou know the old Hidalgo
(His box is next to ours)
Who threw the Prima Donna
The wreath of orange-flowers:
He owns the half of Aragon,
With mines beyond the main;
A very ancient nobleman
And gentleman of Spain.
They swear that I must wed him,
In spite of yea or nay,
Though uglier than the Scaramouch,
The spectre in the play;
But I will sooner die a maid
Than wear a gilded chain,
For all the ancient noblemen
And gentlemen of Spain !
A SERENADE
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. ' Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
T""
HE moon is muffled in a cloud
That folds the lover's star,
But still beneath thy balcony
I touch my soft guitar.
If thou art waking, Lady dear,
The fairest in the land,
Unbar thy wreathèd lattice now,
And wave thy snowy hand.
She hears me not, her spirit lies
In trances mute and deep;
## p. 14032 (#218) ##########################################
14032
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
But Music has a golden key
That opes the gate of Sleep.
Then let her sleep; and if I fail
To set her spirit free,
My song will mingle in her dream,
And she will dream of me.
THE YELLOW MOON
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
He yellow Moon looks slantly down
Through seaward mists, upon the town;
And ghost-like there the moonshine falls
Between the dimn and shadowy walls.
TH
I see a crowd in every street,
But cannot hear their falling feet;
They float like clouds through shade and light,
And seem a portion of the Night.
The ships have lain for ages fled
Along the waters, dark and dead;
The dying waters wash no more
The long black line of spectral shore.
There is no life on land or sea,
Save in the quiet Moon and me;
Nor ours is true, but only seems,
Within some dead old World of Dreams.
THE SKY IS A DRINKING-CUP
Adapted from the Persian. From “The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. '
Copyright 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons
T"
THE sky is a drinking-cup
That was overturned of old,
And it pours in the eyes of men
Its wine of airy gold.
We drink that wine all day,
Till the last drop is drained up,
And are lighted off to bed
By the jewels in the cup!
## p. 14033 (#219) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14033
THE TWO BRIDES
From (The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880 by
Charles Scribner's Sons
I
SAW two maids at the kirk,
And both were fair and sweet:
One in her wedding robe,
And one in her winding-sheet.
The choristers sang the hymn,
The sacred rites were read;
And one for life to Life,
And one to Death, was wed.
They were borne to their bridal beds
In loveliness and bloom;
One in a merry castle,
And one in a solemn tomb.
One on the morrow woke
In a world of sin and pain;
But the other was happier far,
And never awoke again.
THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
THER
WHERE are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain;
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
We are stronger and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain:
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
But it never comes again.
XXIV-878
## p. 14034 (#220) ##########################################
14034
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
THE SEA
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Yºu
ou stooped and picked a red-lipped shell,
Beside the shining sea:
“This little shell, when I am gone,
Will whisper still of me. ”
I kissed your hands, upon the sands,
For you were kind to me.
I hold the shell against my ear,
And hear its hollow roar:
It speaks to me about the sea,
But speaks of you no more.
I pace the sands, and wring my hands,
For you are kind no more.
THE SEA
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by Charles
Scribner's Sons
TH
HOU pallid fisher maiden,
That standest by the shore,
Why dost thou watch the ocean,
And hearken to its roar ?
It is some Danish sailor,
That sails the Spanish main;
Nor will thy roses redden
Till he returns again.
Thou simple fisher maiden,
He cares no more for thee:
He sleeps with the mermaidens,
The witches of the sea.
Thou shouldst not watch the ocean,
And hearken to its roar,
When bridal bells are ringing
In little kirks ashore.
Go, dress thee for thy bridal:
A stalwart man like me
Is worth a thousand sailors
Whose bones are in the sea.
## p. 14035 (#221) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14035
ALONG THE GRASSY SLOPE I SIT
From «The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
A
LONG the grassy slope I sit,
And dream of other years;
My heart is full of soft regrets,
My eyes of tender tears.
The wild bees hummed about the spot,
The sheep-beils tinkled far,
Last year when Alice sat with me,
Beneath the evening star.
The same sweet star is o'er me now,
Around the same soft hours;
But Alice molders in the dust
With all the last year's flowers.
I sit alone, and only hear
The wild bees on the steep,
And distant bells that seem to float
From out the folds of Sleep.
THE SHADOW OF THE HAND
From The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
(ITALY)
You
ou were very charming, Madam,
In your silks and satins fine;
And you made your lovers drunken,
But it was not with your wine.
There were court-gallants in dozens,
There were princes of the land,
And they would have perished for you,
As they knelt and kissed your hand.
For they saw no stain upon it,
It was such a snowy hand.
But for me, I knew you better;
And while you were flaunting there,
## p. 14036 (#222) ##########################################
14036
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
I remembered some one lying
With the blood on his white hair.
He was pleading for you, Madam,
Where the shriven spirits stand;
But the Book of Life was darkened
By the shadow of a hand.
It was tracing your perdition,
For the blood upon your hand !
PAIN IN AUTUMN
From (The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. "
Scribner's Sons
Copyright 1880, by Charles
, a
A Preys on my heart, and clouds my brain;
And shadows brood above my dreams,
Like spectral mists o'er haunted streams.
There is no fire within the grate,
The room is cold and desolate,
And dampness on the window-panes
Foretells the equinoctial rains.
The stony road runs past the door,
Dry and dusty evermore;
Up and down the people go,
Shadowy figures, sad and slow,
And the strange houses lie below.
Across the road the dark elms wait,
Ranged in a row before the gate,
Giving their voices to the wind,
And their sorrows to my mind.
Behind the house the river flows,
Half unrest and half repose:
Ships lie below with mildewed sails,
Tattered in forgotten gales;
Along each hulk a whitish line,
The dashing of the ancient brine.
Beyond, the spaces of the sea,
Which old Ocean's portals be:
The land runs out its horns of sand,
And the sea comes in to meet the land.
## p. 14037 (#223) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14037
Sky sinks to sea, sea swells to sky,
Till they meet, and mock the eye,
And where they meet the sand-hills lie;
No cattle in their pastures seen,
For the yellow grass was never green.
With a calm and solemn stare
They look to heaven in blank despair,
And heaven, with pity dumb the while,
Looks down again with a sickly smile.
The sky is gray, half dark, half bright,
Swimming in dim, uncertain light,
Something between the day and night.
And the winds blow, but soft and low,
Unheard, unheeded in their woe;
Like some sick heart, too near o'erthrown
To vent its grief by sigh or moan,
Some heart that breaks, like mine - alone.
And here I dwell, condemned to see,
And be, what all these phantoms be,
Within this realm of penal pain,
Beside the melancholy main:
The waste which lies, as legend saith,
Between the worlds of Life and Death;
A soul from Life to Death betrayed,
A shadow in the world of shade.
BIRDS
From «The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by Charles
Scribner's Sons
B
IRDS are singing round my window,
Tunes the sweetest ever heard;
And I hang my cage there daily,
But I never catch a bird.
So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
And they sing there all day long;
But they will not fold their pinions
In the little cage of Song!
## p. 14038 (#224) ##########################################
14038
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
THE DEAD
From “The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. "
Scribner's Sons
Copyright 1880, by Charles
1
THINK about the dead by day,
I dream of them at night:
They seem to stand beside my chair,
Clad in the clothes they used to wear,
And by my bed in white.
The commonplaces of their lives,
The lightest words they said,
Revive in me, and give me pain,
And make me wish them back again,
Or wish that I were dead.
I would be kinder to them now,
Were they alive once more;
Would kiss their cheeks, and kiss their hair,
And love them, like the angels there,
Upon the silent shore.
## p. 14039 (#225) ##########################################
14039
THEODOR STORM
(1817-1888)
TEODOR STORM is one of the masters of the German novelle.
His range is somewhat limited, for he is intensely national,
almost sectional. Born in Husum, a small town on the sea-
coast of Schleswig-Holstein, he had the Northerner's deep love for
home; and all his work is colored by this love. After passing through
the gymnasium of his native town, he went to Lübeck to prepare for
the university. Here his love of poetry was awakened; and Goethe,
Eichendorf, and Heine exerted an influence
upon him which he never outgrew. He stud-
ied law at Kiel and at Berlin, and settled
down to a quiet practice at Husum. The
revolutionary disturbances of 1848 drove him
from his home, and led him to accept posi-
tions under the Prussian government; first
at Potsdam, and then at Heiligenstadt in
Southern Germany. During these latter
years he acquired that intimate acquaint-
ance with Southern manners and modes of
thinking which he turned to artistic uses in
some of his stories. He returned to Husum
in 1864, where he held the position of land- THEODOR STORM
vogt until 1880. He then retired to his
country home in Holstein; and some of his most delightful work was
produced in his old age.
Storm led the most uneventful of lives: happy in his family and
conscientious in his official duties. In his literary work there is
very curiously an ever-returning undertone of sadness, of lost hopes,
of disappointed lives. He began his literary career as lyric poet, - by
Liederbuch Dreier Freunde (Song-Book of Three Friends), a small
volume published in 1843 in conjunction with Tycho and Theodor
Mommsen. By their truth to nature and their simple pathos these
poems promised to place Storm high among German lyric poets, had
not his growing fame as story-teller led him to cultivate prose at the
expense of poetry. His first great success was 'Immen-see,' published
in 1850. Even to-day it is one of the most popular and best known
of his works. It is a story of reminiscence,- an old man going back
## p. 14040 (#226) ##########################################
14040
THEODOR STORM
to his youth to live over again, in the twilight hour, the days of his
young lost love. This harking back to bygone times runs more or
less through all of Storm's work. It determines the form,-a tale
told in the first person by an elderly speaker; and it colors the spirit,
toning it down to the gray of sorrows outlived but not forgotten.
Renunciation and resignation are the watchwords of most of his
stories.
With his return home in 1864, a new and the most fruitful period
of his work began, marked by a great advance in characterization
and in firmness of touch; he is also more dramatic: 'In St. Jürgen'
is an example. He next tried the artist novel, a favorite type with
German writers. Psyche, published in 1875, has been especially
praised by German critics. Some of his strongest work was done in
the so-called chronicle novels,– romantic tales with a historic back-
ground, delineating North German life in the seventeenth century.
(Aquis Submersis) is one of the best of these, and by some critics
considered the finest he ever wrote. Pole Poppenspäler' (Paul the
Puppet-Player), written in 1877 for the children's magazine Deutsche
Jugend, is one of his most charming stories. He composed it with
the utmost care, on the principle that only the best is good enough
for children, and that one should not “write down ) to them. He
has also cultivated the Märchen: of these, 'Die Regentrude' (Rain-
Gertrude) is a most happy example of the blending of the real with
the fantastic.
After his retirement his country home became a Mecca for liter-
ary pilgrimages. He was a favorite of the German reading public,
because of his poetical, dreamy sentiment, his simplicity, his love
of home, and his finished workmanship. He knows how to create an
atmosphere and to produce a mood; he is one of the great masters
of the short story of character and sentiment.
(
AFTER YEARS
From Immen-see)
0
NCE more years have fled. It is a warm spring afternoon;
and a young man, with sunburnt and strongly marked
features, strolls leisurely along a shady road leading down
the side of a hill. His grave gray eyes seem watching attent-
ively for some alteration in the monotonous features of the
road, which is long in making its appearance. By-and-by a
cart comes slowly up the hill. Halloo, good friend,” cries the
## p. 14041 (#227) ##########################################
THEODOR STORM
14041
>
wanderer to the peasant trudging by its side, does this road
lead to Immen-see ? »
"Straight on,” replies the man, touching his round hat.
“Is it far from here ? »
Your Honor's just there. You'll see the lake before you
could half finish a pipe: the manor-house is close on to it. ”
The peasant went his way, and the other quickened his pace
under the trees. After a quarter of a mile their friendly shade
ceased on the left hand; and the path lay along the ridge of a
descent, wooded with ancient oaks, whose crests hardly reached
the level on which the traveler stood. Beyond these a wide
landscape was glowing in the sunlight. Far beneath him lay the
lake, calm, dark-blue, almost encircled by green waving forests,
which, opening on but one side, disclosed an extensive perspect-
ive, bounded in its turn by a blue mountain range. Exactly
opposite, it seemed as if snow had been strown among the green
foliage of the woods: this effect was caused by the fruit-trees,
now in full blossom; and amidst them, crowning the bank of
the lake, stood the whitewashed manor-house,- a substantial edi.
fice covered with red tiles. A stork flew from the chimney and
circled slowly over the water. “ Immen-see! » cried the traveler.
It almost seemed as if he had reached the end of his journey;
for he stood several minutes perfectly motionless, gazing over the
summits of the trees at his feet towards the opposite shore, where
the reflection of the house lay gently quivering on the water.
Then suddenly he continued his course.
The descent now became steep, so that the trees again shaded
the path; but also shut out all view of the prospect beyond, of
which a glimpse could only now and then be caught through
their branches. Soon the ground again rose, and the woods
were replaced by well-cultivated vineyards; on both sides of the
road stood blossoming fruit-trees, among whose fragrant branches
the bees were humming merrily and rifling the flowers. A
stately man, clad in a brown coat, now advanced to meet our
pedestrian; and when within a few paces he waved his cap in
the air, and in a clear hearty voice joyfully exclaimed, “Welcome,
brother Reinhardt! welcome to Immen-see!
"God bless you, Eric! thanks for your kind welcome! » cried
the other in answer.
Here the old friends met, and a hearty shaking of hands
followed. "But is it really you? ” said Eric after the first
»
## p. 14042 (#228) ##########################################
14042
THEODOR STORM
greeting, as he looked closely into the grave countenance of his
old schoolfellow.
“Certainly it is I. And you are your old self too, Eric;
only you look, if possible, even more cheerful than you always
used to do. ”
At these words a pleasant smile made Eric's simple feat-
ures look even merrier than before. “Yes, brother Reinhardt,”
said he, once more pressing his friend's hand: “since then I
have drawn the great prize. But you know all about that. ” Then,
rubbing his hands and chuckling with inward satisfaction, he
added, “That will be a surprise! She'd never expect him,- not
him, to all eternity! ”
“A surprise? To whom then? ” demanded Reinhardt.
« To Elizabeth. ”
"Elizabeth! You do not mean that you have not told her of
-
my visit ? »
“Not a word, brother Reinhardt! She's not expecting you,
nor does mother either. I invited you quite privately, that the
pleasure might be all the greater. You know how I enjoy car-
rying out my little plans sometimes. ”
Reinhardt grew thoughtful; and as they approached the house,
he with difficulty drew breath. On the left hand the vineyards
were soon succeeded by a large kitchen-garden, stretching down
to the water's edge. Meanwhile the stork had descended to
terra firma, and was marching gravely among the vegetable
beds. “Halloo! ” cried Eric, clapping his hands: “is that long-
legged Egyptian stealing my short pea-sticks again ? » The bird
rose slowly, and perched on the roof of a new building, which,
almost covered by the branches of the peach and apricot trees
trained against it, lay at the end of the kitchen garden. “That
is the manufactory,” said Eric. “I had that added two years
ago. The business premises were built by my father, of blessed
.
memory; the dwelling-house dates from my grandfather's time.
So each generation gets forward a little. ”
As he spoke, they reached an open space, bounded on both
sides by the business premises, and on the background by the
manor-house, whose two wings were joined by a high garden
wall; which did not, however, quite shut out all view of the rows
of dark yew-trees within, and over which drooped here and there
the clusters of the now flowering lilacs. Men with faces heated
alike by toil and exposure came and went, and saluted the two
(
## p. 14043 (#229) ##########################################
THEODOR STORM
11043
« Rein-
»
friends; and for each Eric had some order or inquiry respecting
his daily work. At length they reached the house. A cool and
spacious hall received them, at the end of which they entered a
somewhat darker side passage. Here Eric opened a door, and
they passed into a large garden-room. The thick foliage which
covered the windows had filled both sides of this apartment
with a sort of green twilight; but between these the wide-open
folding-doors at once admitted the full splendor of the spring sun-
shine, and revealed the charming view of a garden, full of circular
flower-beds and dark shady alleys, and divided down the centre
by a broad walk, beyond which appeared the lake and the forest
on its opposite shore. As the two companions entered, a breeze
laden with delicious perfume from the parterres was wafted
towards them.
On the terrace, facing the garden, sat a slight, girlish figure.
She rose, and advanced to meet the new-comers; but half-way
paused and stared at the stranger, motionless as though rooted
to the spot. He smiled, and held his hand towards her.
hardt! » cried she, “Reinhardt! My God! is it you? It is long
since we met. ”
"Long indeed,” said he,- and could utter no more; for as
he heard her voice, a sharp bodily pang shot through his heart;
and when he looked at her, she stood before him, the same
sweet tender form to whom years ago, he had bidden farewell
in his native place.
Eric, his whole face beaming with delight, had remained stand-
ing at the door. “Well, Elizabeth,” said he, “what do you say
to that? You didn't expect him,- not him, to all eternity! ”
Elizabeth's eyes were turned with a look of sisterly affection
towards him. “You are always so kind, Eric! ” said she.
He took her small hand caressingly in his. "And now we have
got him,” said he, we will not let him go again in a hurry.
now on the quay. ”
"Have you been to the quay, Mary? ” asked Roxalana.
content yourself within doors. Where is Tempe ? ”
“I saw her kiting up-stairs just now. If she does not take
care she'll keel over. It is as true as the gospel, that she has
got a look in her face as new as a drop of cream would be to
“Do
my cat. "
“Go and tell her that Virginia Brande is here, and she will
come back. »
"I have always thought,” Mary replied, sticking a pin between
her teeth, and allowing her eyes to take a reflective cast, that
it was as much as my life was worth to interfere with the way
of a Gates; but I may change my mind. I'll go right after
Tempe. O Lord-a-mercy, where do you think the two creatures
are by this time? Sho! I know they will be along soon: it is not
likely that Captain Argus Gates is going to be lost at sea, after
he has given up going to sea; and — it would be foolish to sup-
pose that Mat Sutcliffe will venture more than getting his boots
soaked through. ”
Hairpins, please,” said Virginia.
Roxalana asked again, Where is Tempe? Virginia Brande is
here. ”
Tempe fell into a fit of weeping and laughing the moment
she saw Virginia, which was ended by a dead faint.
At last the boat was launched. Argus and Mat were afloat;
so much was gained, and Argus thought the danger was prefer-
able to the labor they had undergone in getting ready to risk
their lives. The gloomy twilight, spreading from the east,
dropped along the shore while they were dragging, pushing, and
lifting the boat over the shingle, slush, and into the opposing
((
sea,
## p. 14021 (#207) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14021
“Hell bent be it! ” said Mat, apostrophizing the waves, "if
you say so. You are not alone, my friends. ”
Mat seemed a part of the storm: his spirits were in a wild
commotion; his clothes were torn and soggy with brine, and his
hands were gashed and bloody. Argus had lost his cap, and
broken his oar; he bound his head with Mat's woolen comforter,
jammed his shoulder against the gunwale, and used the shortened
oar with much composure. They did not make much headway:
the boat was riding in all directions in the roar and foam of the
sea; darkness pressed upon them; they were shut between the
low-hanging sky and the shaking plain of water. In the midst
of his silent, measured, energetic action, the thoughts of Argus
drifted idly back to the trifling events of his life: a new and
surprising charm was added to them, as bright, quiet, and warm
as the golden dust of a summer sunset which touches everything
as it vanishes.
Mat swore at the top of his voice that the wind was more
nor'rard, and it would be an even chance about beating or not.
Argus looked up and saw a circular break in the clouds, but
said nothing
"By the crucifix,” cried Mat, throwing himself forward, “I
heard a yell. Where away are we? We are shoaling! ”
Argus plunged his hands into the water from the stern-sheets:
it felt like the wrinkled, hideous flesh of a monster, trying to
creep away.
“We are under lee or there is a lull, for the water don't
break,” he said. “If the moon was out, we should see the White
Flat. I reckon we are on the tongue of the bar, and the vessel
has struck below. Her hull must be sunk ten feet by this time,
and her shrouds and spars are washed off: that yell will not be
heard again. ”
“Damn 'em,” said Mat savagely, if they have drowned afore
ever we could reach 'em, I'll take 'em dead, carry every mother's
son of 'em to Kent, and bury 'em against their wills. ”
The endless, steady-going rockers which slid under them from
the bay outside tossed the boat no longer; the wind ceased to
smite their faces, but tore overhead and ripped the clouds apart.
The moon rolled out, and to the right they saw the ghastly, nar-
row crest of the White Flat. A mass of spume on their left
which hissed madly proved what Argus had said, - that they were
close to the end of the bar. Within the limits of the moonlight
C
## p. 14022 (#208) ##########################################
14022
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
they saw nothing. In the bewildering, darkling illumination of
.
the shattering water around them they were alone.
“If she's parted,” continued Mat, “something might wash this
way,— her gear at least. I'd like to catch a cabin door, or an
article to that effect: it might come handy. ”
Argus did not hear him, for he was overboard. Missing him,
Mat gave way for a moment; he felt the keel shove resisting
sand, and remained passive, merely muttering, "I'm blasted, but
she may drive. ”
Argus had seen, or thought he had, to the right of the boat,
some object dipping in and out of the water and making toward
them. He met it coming sideways, where the water was just
below his breast; missed a hold of it, struggled for it, the shift-
ing bottom impeding his footway; and the water battled against
his head and arms, till, rearing itself up and stranding on the
beach, he stumbled and fell beside it exhausted.
Raising himself on his hands and knees, he brought his face
close to two persons
-a man and a woman fastened together
by the embrace of death. The woman's face was upturned; its
white oval, wet and glistening, shed a horrid light; the repeated
blows of the murderous waves had tangled and spread her long
hair over her. Tears of rage rushed into Argus's eyes when he
saw where it had been torn from its roots. Her arms were
round the man's head; her hands clutched his temples; his face
was so tightly pressed into her bosom that Argus instinctively
believed he was still alive in a stifled swoon. She was dead.
Take her lover away from that breast of stone, Argus; let him
not see those open lips, - no longer the crimson gates to the
fiery hours of his enjoyment,- nor let him feel those poor bruised
fingers clenching his brain; those delicate stems of the will
are powerless to creep round his heart! May Satan of the re-
morseless deep alone know and remember the last hour of this
woman's passion, despair, and sacrifice!
Argus rose to his feet, wondering why he saw so clearly; and
possessed with an idea which was a mad one, perhaps, but which
allied him, in greatness of soul, to the woman before him. He
was still confused, and had forgotten where Mat and the boat
were; but Mat had seen his dark figure rising against the sky,
and was plowing through the sand with the intention of remon-
strating with Argus on the impossibility of ever getting it off
again. But when he came up behind him, there was something
## p. 14023 (#209) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14023
(
>
(
»
(C
in his attitude - a familiar one - which imposed his respectful
-
attention. Mat bent over the bodies silently, and touched them
with his foot.
She is dead ? ” interrogated Argus.
“Never will be more so. ”
« This man is still alive. Lift his head. I am out of breath.
The wind is going down, and we can run back easy. "
"It may raly be called pleasant," muttered Mat, on his knees
in the sand. “There, now I have got you, safe enough from her.
God! she put on shirt and trousers to jump overboard with him;
swapping deaths, and getting nothing to boot. He is limber:
give me the brandy and let's warm up the boy. ”
"Here,” said Argus in a suppressed voice, "pour it down,
quick. Have you a lashing? I should like to put her out of his
sight: one of the ballast stones will do. Help me to carry her
to the other side of the bar: the deep water will cover her. ”
Mat pretended to be too busy to hear.
“Crazier than ever,” he muttered. "I might have known his
damned crankiness would bile out somewhere. "
Argus wrapped the poor girl in his mackintosh, and staggered
towards the boat carrying her; there was no help against it, and
Mat rose to his assistance. In a moment or two she was buried
in the grave she had so terribly resisted.
The gale was nearly spent, and Mat ventured to hoist the
sail. Argus tumbled the still insensible man into the boat by
the head and heels, and they ran across the harbor, landing at
the quay below the house. Mary was there before the boat was
tied to a spile.
“How are you off for elbow-grease ? ” cried Mat. « Put the
lantern down, and jump in: here's a bundle for you to take up
to the house. Cap'n and I are clean gone, I tell you. I've lost
the rims of my ears, and expect to leave a few toes in these 'ere
boots when I pull 'em off. Come, quick! ”
Without a word she lifted the man from the bottom of the
boat, and with Mat's help, clambered up the wharf and took
him into the house. Tempe ran shrieking when she saw him
stretched on the floor before the fire in the green room. Roxa-
lana sat rigid, nailed to her chair, incapable of motion at the
sight; Virginia and Mary were collected. Mat adroitly peeled
off a portion of his wet clothes, and told Mary to rub him like
damnation. It was a long time before he gave sign of life. At
the first choking breath Mat poured some brandy over his face
>
## p. 14024 (#210) ##########################################
14024
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
and neck; he rose galvanically to a sitting posture, and fell back
again, to all appearance dead. But Mat declared he was all
right, and presently went out to change his wet clothes for dry
ones. Virginia looked up at Argus, convinced herself that the
man was saved.
“Take care of me, if you please,” he said. «I want brandy,
and a dry shirt. How are you, Roxalana ? ”
At the sound of his voice she turned in her chair.
Mat re-
turned with his arms full of clothes for Argus, and asked her if
she would be good enough to step out with Virginia, and go to
bed. There wasn't any use in praying now, for they were back.
Not one of them thought of the unhappy crew, all lost except
one who lay before them.
“That 'ere Virginia,” said Mat, when she and Roxalana had
gone, and he was watching the man's eyelids, “is as mealy a gal
as I ever saw in my life. She's cool, and smooth, and soft. She
beat Moll in rubbing. Hullo! his eyes are open.
Look here,
Spaniard, you belong to us. Drink this, my lad, and let me
hold you up. So - all right, young un. Shut up, Gates: you are
drunk, and have reason to be. I reckon you are black and blue
from the bruises you got. I've had a pint of swipes myself, and
feel inwardly correct. Hark ye,- he's off in a reglar, natural
sleep, ain't he ? »
[The following poems are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. )
A SUMMER NIGHT
I
FEEL the breath of the summer night,
Aromatic fire;
The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
With tender desire.
The white moths flutter about the lamp,
Enamored with light;
And a thousand creatures softly sing
A song to the night!
But I am alone; and how can I sing
Praises to thee?
Come, Night! unveil the beautiful soul
That waiteth for me.
## p. 14025 (#211) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14025
EL MANALO
I
N THE still dark shade of the palace wall,
Where the peacocks strut,
Where the Queen may have heard my madrigal,
Together we sat.
My sombrero hid the fire in my eyes,
And shaded her own;
This serge cloak stifled her sweet little cries,
When I kissed her mouth.
The pale olive-trees on the distant plain,
The jagged blue rocks,
The vaporous sea — like mountain chain
Dropped into the night.
We saw the lights in the palace flare;
The musicians played;
The red guards slashed and sabred the stair
And cursed the old king.
In the long black shade of the palace wall,
We sat the night through;
Under my cloak— but I cannot tell all
The Queen may have seen!
MERCEDES
UP
NDER a sultry yellow sky
On the yellow sand I lie;
The crinkled vapors smite my brain,–
I smolder in a fiery pain.
-
Above the crags the condor flies,-
He knows where the red gold lies;
He knows where the diamonds shine:
If I knew, would she be mine?
Mercedes in her hammock swings;
In her court a palm-tree flings
Its slender shadow on the ground;
The fountain falls with silver sound.
## p. 14026 (#212) ##########################################
14026
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
ish it up;
Her lips are like this cactus cup;
With my hand I
I tear its flaming leaves apart. —
Would that I could tear her heart.
Last night a man was at her gate,–
In the hedge I lay in wait;
I saw Mercedes meet him there,
By the fireflies in her hair.
I waited till the break of day,
Then I rose and stole away;
But I left my dagger in the gate;-
Now she knows her lover's fate!
NAMELESS PAIN
1
SHOULD be happy with my lot:
A wife and mother,- is it not
Enough for me to be content?
What other blessing could be sent ?
A quiet house, and homely ways,
That make each day like other days;
I only see Time's shadow now
Darken the hair on baby's brow.
No world's work ever comes to me,
No beggar brings his misery;
I have no power, no healing art,
With bruised soul or broken heart.
I read the poets of the age, -
'Tis lotus-eating in a cage;
I study art, but art is dead
To one who clamors to be fed
With milk from Nature's rugged breast,
Who longs for Labor's lusty rest.
O foolish wish! I still should pine
If any other lot were mine.
## p. 14027 (#213) ##########################################
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
14027
ON THE CAMPAGNA
S"
TOP on the Appian Way,
In the Roman Campagna, -
Stop at my tomb,
The tomb of Cecilia Metella!
To-day as you see it
Alaric saw it, ages ago,
When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,
Sat at the gates of Rome,
Reading his Runic shield.
Odin! thy curse remains!
Beneath these battlements
My bones were stirred with Roman pride,
Though centuries before my Romans died:
Now my bones are dust; the Goths are dust.
The river-bed is dry where sleeps the king;
My tomb remains.
When Rome commanded the earth,
Great were the Metelli:
I was Metellus's wife;
I loved him,- and I died.
Then with slow patience built he this memorial :
Each century marks his love.
Pass by on the Appian Way
The tomb of Cecilia Metella.
Wild shepherds alone seek its shelter,
Wild buffaloes tramp at its base,
Deep in its desolation,
Deep as the shadow of Rome!
ON MY BED OF A WINTER NIGHT
N of night,
,
What care I for the wild wind's scream ?
What to me is its crooked flight ?
O Deep in a sleep, and deep in a dream,
On the sea of a summer's day,
Wrapped in the folds of a snowy sail,
## p. 14028 (#214) ##########################################
14028
ELIZABETH BARSTOW STODDARD
What care I for the fitful gale,
Now in earnest, and now in play?
What care I for the fitful wind,
That groans in a gorge, or sighs in a tree?
Groaning and sighing are nothing to me;
For I am a man of steadfast mind.
## p. 14029 (#215) ##########################################
14029
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
(1825-)
.
(
HE poems of Richard Henry Stoddard, one of America's truest
lyrical poets, were collected and published in a complete
edition in 1880. The Early Poems) form the first of the
periods into which, for convenience's sake, the book is divided; the
'Songs of Summer) with «The King's Bell’ the second; the “Songs
of the East) the third; and Later Poems' the fourth. They repre-
sent the work of thirty years. In 1890 he published The Lion's Cub
and Other Verses,' a book not unworthy of
his maturity.
Stoddard's early verses, too good to be
purely original, are perhaps the nearest
approach made by any youthful poet to the
tuneful phrases and overflowing melody of
Keats. But the poet of twenty had lighted
his fire with the divine torch. The song
«You know the old Hidalgo,”
the serenade
-
«But music has a golden key,” --
songs of the gay troubadour singing under R. H. STODDARD
the latticed window,- are true lyrics, show-
ing those peculiar traits of poetic power which are recognizable
through all the changes consequent upon nearly fifty years of study
and development. These traits are a passionate love of beauty,
affluence, virility, and imagination; and a minor but unusual quality,
that of childlike unselfconsciousness. He propounds no questions, he
seeks to solve no problems. He is a poet, not a metaphysician.
Stoddard learned to "find” his art, according to his own confes-
sion, in his early poems. 'The Songs of Summer' are made up of
short poems in which his warm imagination gives life to the simplest
themes. Among the best known of them are There are Gains for
all Our Losses,' (Two Brides,' Through the Night, and the songs
The Sky is a Drinking-Cup, and Birds are Singing Round my
Window. )
## p. 14030 (#216) ##########################################
14030
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
Beginning with a measure a little less regular than that of Keats,
Stoddard departed gradually from the even ten-syllabled rhyme, and
adopted freer movements for his varied themes. This is perceptible
in-
“The young child Jesus had a garden
Full of roses rich and rare,"
a poem which might be inscribed under one of Francia's pictures.
Few men have sung with so pure a spontaneity, preserving at the
same time the canons of art. There is infinite variety in 'The Book
of the East. Its versifications are made from translations by many
hands, and not translations at first hand. That love of beauty, that
“sensuous love of earth” which passionately possessed him, led Stod-
dard to use in maturer years the language of the Orient, as in
youth it had led him to echo 'Endymion. But through the caressing
measures of the Persian, the ringing rhythm of the Tartar, the sensu-
ous tenderness of the Arab songs, through the Chinese songs where
he runs the gamut of sweetness, sentiment, homely naturalism, and
savage passion, - through all these themes and quantities the poet
keeps himself always within the limits of accurate and organic com-
position.
His narrative poems, scattered through all four volumes, owe
much of their simplicity and strength to the vigor and purity of his
prose. In “The Fisher and Charon,' in Proserpine,' in 'The King's
Sentinel,' in “The Pearl of the Philippines, and in "Wratislaw,' his
imagination and his strength blending, find completest expression.
It was said of Browning that he was a woman's man. ” Stoddard
is essentially “a man's man. ” In his Book of the East,'. poems
which exhibit to the full his delicate sensuousness, he has the Ori-
ental view of woman, feeling her helplessness and her witchery. In
his Songs of the Mystic' he watches the passing of youth and love,
the approach of age and sorrow, with all of the poet's, of the man's,
regret; yet retains his strength and sweetness, his love of love and
warfare, to the end. The Later Poems) contain many of his noblest
efforts,- poems that express the highest flights and largest freedom
of his poetical genius.
Mr.
Stoddard was born July 20, 1825, at Hingham, Massachusetts.
His father was a sea-captain, who died when his son was ten years
old. It was doubtless owing to this parentage, and to his early influ-
ences and associations, that the poet's songs of the sea are so appre-
ciative of its mystery and its charm. After his father's death he
came with his mother to New York, where he received a common-
school education, supplemented by independent study. He served for
some time in the New York Dock Department, and spent seventeen
(
## p. 14031 (#217) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14031
years in the Custom House, in an employment dignified by the ex-
ample of Hawthorne at Salem, and of Lamb at the East India House.
During this time he did much scholarly prose work, generally as a
literary essayist and critic.
SONG
From “The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Yºu
ou know the old Hidalgo
(His box is next to ours)
Who threw the Prima Donna
The wreath of orange-flowers:
He owns the half of Aragon,
With mines beyond the main;
A very ancient nobleman
And gentleman of Spain.
They swear that I must wed him,
In spite of yea or nay,
Though uglier than the Scaramouch,
The spectre in the play;
But I will sooner die a maid
Than wear a gilded chain,
For all the ancient noblemen
And gentlemen of Spain !
A SERENADE
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. ' Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
T""
HE moon is muffled in a cloud
That folds the lover's star,
But still beneath thy balcony
I touch my soft guitar.
If thou art waking, Lady dear,
The fairest in the land,
Unbar thy wreathèd lattice now,
And wave thy snowy hand.
She hears me not, her spirit lies
In trances mute and deep;
## p. 14032 (#218) ##########################################
14032
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
But Music has a golden key
That opes the gate of Sleep.
Then let her sleep; and if I fail
To set her spirit free,
My song will mingle in her dream,
And she will dream of me.
THE YELLOW MOON
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
He yellow Moon looks slantly down
Through seaward mists, upon the town;
And ghost-like there the moonshine falls
Between the dimn and shadowy walls.
TH
I see a crowd in every street,
But cannot hear their falling feet;
They float like clouds through shade and light,
And seem a portion of the Night.
The ships have lain for ages fled
Along the waters, dark and dead;
The dying waters wash no more
The long black line of spectral shore.
There is no life on land or sea,
Save in the quiet Moon and me;
Nor ours is true, but only seems,
Within some dead old World of Dreams.
THE SKY IS A DRINKING-CUP
Adapted from the Persian. From “The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. '
Copyright 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons
T"
THE sky is a drinking-cup
That was overturned of old,
And it pours in the eyes of men
Its wine of airy gold.
We drink that wine all day,
Till the last drop is drained up,
And are lighted off to bed
By the jewels in the cup!
## p. 14033 (#219) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14033
THE TWO BRIDES
From (The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880 by
Charles Scribner's Sons
I
SAW two maids at the kirk,
And both were fair and sweet:
One in her wedding robe,
And one in her winding-sheet.
The choristers sang the hymn,
The sacred rites were read;
And one for life to Life,
And one to Death, was wed.
They were borne to their bridal beds
In loveliness and bloom;
One in a merry castle,
And one in a solemn tomb.
One on the morrow woke
In a world of sin and pain;
But the other was happier far,
And never awoke again.
THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
THER
WHERE are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain;
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.
We are stronger and are better,
Under manhood's sterner reign:
Still we feel that something sweet
Followed youth with flying feet,
And will never come again.
Something beautiful is vanished,
And we sigh for it in vain:
We behold it everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
But it never comes again.
XXIV-878
## p. 14034 (#220) ##########################################
14034
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
THE SEA
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Yºu
ou stooped and picked a red-lipped shell,
Beside the shining sea:
“This little shell, when I am gone,
Will whisper still of me. ”
I kissed your hands, upon the sands,
For you were kind to me.
I hold the shell against my ear,
And hear its hollow roar:
It speaks to me about the sea,
But speaks of you no more.
I pace the sands, and wring my hands,
For you are kind no more.
THE SEA
From "The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by Charles
Scribner's Sons
TH
HOU pallid fisher maiden,
That standest by the shore,
Why dost thou watch the ocean,
And hearken to its roar ?
It is some Danish sailor,
That sails the Spanish main;
Nor will thy roses redden
Till he returns again.
Thou simple fisher maiden,
He cares no more for thee:
He sleeps with the mermaidens,
The witches of the sea.
Thou shouldst not watch the ocean,
And hearken to its roar,
When bridal bells are ringing
In little kirks ashore.
Go, dress thee for thy bridal:
A stalwart man like me
Is worth a thousand sailors
Whose bones are in the sea.
## p. 14035 (#221) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14035
ALONG THE GRASSY SLOPE I SIT
From «The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
A
LONG the grassy slope I sit,
And dream of other years;
My heart is full of soft regrets,
My eyes of tender tears.
The wild bees hummed about the spot,
The sheep-beils tinkled far,
Last year when Alice sat with me,
Beneath the evening star.
The same sweet star is o'er me now,
Around the same soft hours;
But Alice molders in the dust
With all the last year's flowers.
I sit alone, and only hear
The wild bees on the steep,
And distant bells that seem to float
From out the folds of Sleep.
THE SHADOW OF THE HAND
From The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
(ITALY)
You
ou were very charming, Madam,
In your silks and satins fine;
And you made your lovers drunken,
But it was not with your wine.
There were court-gallants in dozens,
There were princes of the land,
And they would have perished for you,
As they knelt and kissed your hand.
For they saw no stain upon it,
It was such a snowy hand.
But for me, I knew you better;
And while you were flaunting there,
## p. 14036 (#222) ##########################################
14036
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
I remembered some one lying
With the blood on his white hair.
He was pleading for you, Madam,
Where the shriven spirits stand;
But the Book of Life was darkened
By the shadow of a hand.
It was tracing your perdition,
For the blood upon your hand !
PAIN IN AUTUMN
From (The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. "
Scribner's Sons
Copyright 1880, by Charles
, a
A Preys on my heart, and clouds my brain;
And shadows brood above my dreams,
Like spectral mists o'er haunted streams.
There is no fire within the grate,
The room is cold and desolate,
And dampness on the window-panes
Foretells the equinoctial rains.
The stony road runs past the door,
Dry and dusty evermore;
Up and down the people go,
Shadowy figures, sad and slow,
And the strange houses lie below.
Across the road the dark elms wait,
Ranged in a row before the gate,
Giving their voices to the wind,
And their sorrows to my mind.
Behind the house the river flows,
Half unrest and half repose:
Ships lie below with mildewed sails,
Tattered in forgotten gales;
Along each hulk a whitish line,
The dashing of the ancient brine.
Beyond, the spaces of the sea,
Which old Ocean's portals be:
The land runs out its horns of sand,
And the sea comes in to meet the land.
## p. 14037 (#223) ##########################################
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
14037
Sky sinks to sea, sea swells to sky,
Till they meet, and mock the eye,
And where they meet the sand-hills lie;
No cattle in their pastures seen,
For the yellow grass was never green.
With a calm and solemn stare
They look to heaven in blank despair,
And heaven, with pity dumb the while,
Looks down again with a sickly smile.
The sky is gray, half dark, half bright,
Swimming in dim, uncertain light,
Something between the day and night.
And the winds blow, but soft and low,
Unheard, unheeded in their woe;
Like some sick heart, too near o'erthrown
To vent its grief by sigh or moan,
Some heart that breaks, like mine - alone.
And here I dwell, condemned to see,
And be, what all these phantoms be,
Within this realm of penal pain,
Beside the melancholy main:
The waste which lies, as legend saith,
Between the worlds of Life and Death;
A soul from Life to Death betrayed,
A shadow in the world of shade.
BIRDS
From «The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. Copyright 1880, by Charles
Scribner's Sons
B
IRDS are singing round my window,
Tunes the sweetest ever heard;
And I hang my cage there daily,
But I never catch a bird.
So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
And they sing there all day long;
But they will not fold their pinions
In the little cage of Song!
## p. 14038 (#224) ##########################################
14038
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
THE DEAD
From “The Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard. "
Scribner's Sons
Copyright 1880, by Charles
1
THINK about the dead by day,
I dream of them at night:
They seem to stand beside my chair,
Clad in the clothes they used to wear,
And by my bed in white.
The commonplaces of their lives,
The lightest words they said,
Revive in me, and give me pain,
And make me wish them back again,
Or wish that I were dead.
I would be kinder to them now,
Were they alive once more;
Would kiss their cheeks, and kiss their hair,
And love them, like the angels there,
Upon the silent shore.
## p. 14039 (#225) ##########################################
14039
THEODOR STORM
(1817-1888)
TEODOR STORM is one of the masters of the German novelle.
His range is somewhat limited, for he is intensely national,
almost sectional. Born in Husum, a small town on the sea-
coast of Schleswig-Holstein, he had the Northerner's deep love for
home; and all his work is colored by this love. After passing through
the gymnasium of his native town, he went to Lübeck to prepare for
the university. Here his love of poetry was awakened; and Goethe,
Eichendorf, and Heine exerted an influence
upon him which he never outgrew. He stud-
ied law at Kiel and at Berlin, and settled
down to a quiet practice at Husum. The
revolutionary disturbances of 1848 drove him
from his home, and led him to accept posi-
tions under the Prussian government; first
at Potsdam, and then at Heiligenstadt in
Southern Germany. During these latter
years he acquired that intimate acquaint-
ance with Southern manners and modes of
thinking which he turned to artistic uses in
some of his stories. He returned to Husum
in 1864, where he held the position of land- THEODOR STORM
vogt until 1880. He then retired to his
country home in Holstein; and some of his most delightful work was
produced in his old age.
Storm led the most uneventful of lives: happy in his family and
conscientious in his official duties. In his literary work there is
very curiously an ever-returning undertone of sadness, of lost hopes,
of disappointed lives. He began his literary career as lyric poet, - by
Liederbuch Dreier Freunde (Song-Book of Three Friends), a small
volume published in 1843 in conjunction with Tycho and Theodor
Mommsen. By their truth to nature and their simple pathos these
poems promised to place Storm high among German lyric poets, had
not his growing fame as story-teller led him to cultivate prose at the
expense of poetry. His first great success was 'Immen-see,' published
in 1850. Even to-day it is one of the most popular and best known
of his works. It is a story of reminiscence,- an old man going back
## p. 14040 (#226) ##########################################
14040
THEODOR STORM
to his youth to live over again, in the twilight hour, the days of his
young lost love. This harking back to bygone times runs more or
less through all of Storm's work. It determines the form,-a tale
told in the first person by an elderly speaker; and it colors the spirit,
toning it down to the gray of sorrows outlived but not forgotten.
Renunciation and resignation are the watchwords of most of his
stories.
With his return home in 1864, a new and the most fruitful period
of his work began, marked by a great advance in characterization
and in firmness of touch; he is also more dramatic: 'In St. Jürgen'
is an example. He next tried the artist novel, a favorite type with
German writers. Psyche, published in 1875, has been especially
praised by German critics. Some of his strongest work was done in
the so-called chronicle novels,– romantic tales with a historic back-
ground, delineating North German life in the seventeenth century.
(Aquis Submersis) is one of the best of these, and by some critics
considered the finest he ever wrote. Pole Poppenspäler' (Paul the
Puppet-Player), written in 1877 for the children's magazine Deutsche
Jugend, is one of his most charming stories. He composed it with
the utmost care, on the principle that only the best is good enough
for children, and that one should not “write down ) to them. He
has also cultivated the Märchen: of these, 'Die Regentrude' (Rain-
Gertrude) is a most happy example of the blending of the real with
the fantastic.
After his retirement his country home became a Mecca for liter-
ary pilgrimages. He was a favorite of the German reading public,
because of his poetical, dreamy sentiment, his simplicity, his love
of home, and his finished workmanship. He knows how to create an
atmosphere and to produce a mood; he is one of the great masters
of the short story of character and sentiment.
(
AFTER YEARS
From Immen-see)
0
NCE more years have fled. It is a warm spring afternoon;
and a young man, with sunburnt and strongly marked
features, strolls leisurely along a shady road leading down
the side of a hill. His grave gray eyes seem watching attent-
ively for some alteration in the monotonous features of the
road, which is long in making its appearance. By-and-by a
cart comes slowly up the hill. Halloo, good friend,” cries the
## p. 14041 (#227) ##########################################
THEODOR STORM
14041
>
wanderer to the peasant trudging by its side, does this road
lead to Immen-see ? »
"Straight on,” replies the man, touching his round hat.
“Is it far from here ? »
Your Honor's just there. You'll see the lake before you
could half finish a pipe: the manor-house is close on to it. ”
The peasant went his way, and the other quickened his pace
under the trees. After a quarter of a mile their friendly shade
ceased on the left hand; and the path lay along the ridge of a
descent, wooded with ancient oaks, whose crests hardly reached
the level on which the traveler stood. Beyond these a wide
landscape was glowing in the sunlight. Far beneath him lay the
lake, calm, dark-blue, almost encircled by green waving forests,
which, opening on but one side, disclosed an extensive perspect-
ive, bounded in its turn by a blue mountain range. Exactly
opposite, it seemed as if snow had been strown among the green
foliage of the woods: this effect was caused by the fruit-trees,
now in full blossom; and amidst them, crowning the bank of
the lake, stood the whitewashed manor-house,- a substantial edi.
fice covered with red tiles. A stork flew from the chimney and
circled slowly over the water. “ Immen-see! » cried the traveler.
It almost seemed as if he had reached the end of his journey;
for he stood several minutes perfectly motionless, gazing over the
summits of the trees at his feet towards the opposite shore, where
the reflection of the house lay gently quivering on the water.
Then suddenly he continued his course.
The descent now became steep, so that the trees again shaded
the path; but also shut out all view of the prospect beyond, of
which a glimpse could only now and then be caught through
their branches. Soon the ground again rose, and the woods
were replaced by well-cultivated vineyards; on both sides of the
road stood blossoming fruit-trees, among whose fragrant branches
the bees were humming merrily and rifling the flowers. A
stately man, clad in a brown coat, now advanced to meet our
pedestrian; and when within a few paces he waved his cap in
the air, and in a clear hearty voice joyfully exclaimed, “Welcome,
brother Reinhardt! welcome to Immen-see!
"God bless you, Eric! thanks for your kind welcome! » cried
the other in answer.
Here the old friends met, and a hearty shaking of hands
followed. "But is it really you? ” said Eric after the first
»
## p. 14042 (#228) ##########################################
14042
THEODOR STORM
greeting, as he looked closely into the grave countenance of his
old schoolfellow.
“Certainly it is I. And you are your old self too, Eric;
only you look, if possible, even more cheerful than you always
used to do. ”
At these words a pleasant smile made Eric's simple feat-
ures look even merrier than before. “Yes, brother Reinhardt,”
said he, once more pressing his friend's hand: “since then I
have drawn the great prize. But you know all about that. ” Then,
rubbing his hands and chuckling with inward satisfaction, he
added, “That will be a surprise! She'd never expect him,- not
him, to all eternity! ”
“A surprise? To whom then? ” demanded Reinhardt.
« To Elizabeth. ”
"Elizabeth! You do not mean that you have not told her of
-
my visit ? »
“Not a word, brother Reinhardt! She's not expecting you,
nor does mother either. I invited you quite privately, that the
pleasure might be all the greater. You know how I enjoy car-
rying out my little plans sometimes. ”
Reinhardt grew thoughtful; and as they approached the house,
he with difficulty drew breath. On the left hand the vineyards
were soon succeeded by a large kitchen-garden, stretching down
to the water's edge. Meanwhile the stork had descended to
terra firma, and was marching gravely among the vegetable
beds. “Halloo! ” cried Eric, clapping his hands: “is that long-
legged Egyptian stealing my short pea-sticks again ? » The bird
rose slowly, and perched on the roof of a new building, which,
almost covered by the branches of the peach and apricot trees
trained against it, lay at the end of the kitchen garden. “That
is the manufactory,” said Eric. “I had that added two years
ago. The business premises were built by my father, of blessed
.
memory; the dwelling-house dates from my grandfather's time.
So each generation gets forward a little. ”
As he spoke, they reached an open space, bounded on both
sides by the business premises, and on the background by the
manor-house, whose two wings were joined by a high garden
wall; which did not, however, quite shut out all view of the rows
of dark yew-trees within, and over which drooped here and there
the clusters of the now flowering lilacs. Men with faces heated
alike by toil and exposure came and went, and saluted the two
(
## p. 14043 (#229) ##########################################
THEODOR STORM
11043
« Rein-
»
friends; and for each Eric had some order or inquiry respecting
his daily work. At length they reached the house. A cool and
spacious hall received them, at the end of which they entered a
somewhat darker side passage. Here Eric opened a door, and
they passed into a large garden-room. The thick foliage which
covered the windows had filled both sides of this apartment
with a sort of green twilight; but between these the wide-open
folding-doors at once admitted the full splendor of the spring sun-
shine, and revealed the charming view of a garden, full of circular
flower-beds and dark shady alleys, and divided down the centre
by a broad walk, beyond which appeared the lake and the forest
on its opposite shore. As the two companions entered, a breeze
laden with delicious perfume from the parterres was wafted
towards them.
On the terrace, facing the garden, sat a slight, girlish figure.
She rose, and advanced to meet the new-comers; but half-way
paused and stared at the stranger, motionless as though rooted
to the spot. He smiled, and held his hand towards her.
hardt! » cried she, “Reinhardt! My God! is it you? It is long
since we met. ”
"Long indeed,” said he,- and could utter no more; for as
he heard her voice, a sharp bodily pang shot through his heart;
and when he looked at her, she stood before him, the same
sweet tender form to whom years ago, he had bidden farewell
in his native place.
Eric, his whole face beaming with delight, had remained stand-
ing at the door. “Well, Elizabeth,” said he, “what do you say
to that? You didn't expect him,- not him, to all eternity! ”
Elizabeth's eyes were turned with a look of sisterly affection
towards him. “You are always so kind, Eric! ” said she.
He took her small hand caressingly in his. "And now we have
got him,” said he, we will not let him go again in a hurry.
