« Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky,
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points me to seven who are now in glory
There on high!
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points me to seven who are now in glory
There on high!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v28 - Songs, Hymns, Lyrics
16808 (#508) ##########################################
16808
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Too true! Life's shores are shifting
Every year;
And we are seaward drifting
Every year;
Old places, changing, fret us,
The living more forget us,
There are fewer to regret us,
Every year.
But the truer life draws nigher
Every year;
And its morning-star climbs higher,
Every year;
Earth's hold on us grows slighter,
And the heavy burthen lighter,
And the Dawn Immortal brighter,
Every year.
ALBERT PIKE.
TO O. S. C.
SPIRI
PIRIT of fire and dew,"
Whither hast fled ?
Thy soul they never knew
Who call thee dead.
Deep thoughts of why and how
Shadowed thine eyes:
Thou hast the answers now
Straight from the skies.
Thrilled with a double power,
Nature and Art-
Dowered with a double dower,
Reason and heart-
Not souls like thine, in vain
God fashioneth;
Leadeth them forth again,
Gently, by death.
ANNIE Eliot TRUMBULL.
## p. 16809 (#509) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16809
THE WIND OF DEATH
T"
HE wind of death, that softly blows
The last warm petal from the rose,
The last dry leaf from off the tree,
To-night has come to breathe on me.
There was a time I learned to hate,
As weaker mortals learn to love;
The passion held me fixed as fate,
Burned in my veins early and late -
But now a wind falls from above-
The wind of death, that silently
Enshroudeth friend and enemy.
There was a time my soul was thrilled
By keen ambition's whip and spur:
My master forced me where he willed,
And with his power my life was filled :
But now the old-time pulses stir
How faintly in the wind of death,
That bloweth lightly as a breath!
And once, but once, at Love's dear feet
I yielded strength and life and heart;
His look turned bitter into sweet,
His smile made all the world complete -
The wind blows loves like leaves apart-
The wind of death, that tenderly
Is blowing 'twixt my love and me.
O wind of death, that darkly blows
Each separate ship of human woes
Far out on a mysterious sea,
I turn, I turn my face to thee.
ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD
AREWELL, ye golden follies, pleasing troubles !
Farewell, ye honored rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame's but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honor's the darling of but one short day;
F !
## p. 16810 (#510) ##########################################
16810
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Beauty, the eyes' idol, but a damasked skin;
State but a golden prison to live in
And torture free-born minds; embroidered trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own;
Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great, but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill;
I would be high, but see the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke;
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mine;
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected whilst the ass goes free;
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud
Like the bright sun oft setting in a cloud;
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorned if poor;
Great, feared; fair, tempted; high, still envied more:
I have wished all, but now I wish for neither,
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair; poor I'll be rather.
Would the world now adopt me for her heir;
Would beauty's queen entitle me “the fair";
Fame speak me fortune's minion; could I vie
Angels* with India; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bowed knees, strike justice dumb
As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue
To stones and epitaphs; be called great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives,
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves!
These guests, these courts, my soul more dearly loves;
Now the winged people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
* Gold coins.
## p. 16811 (#511) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16811
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks; no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I'll sit and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn to affect an holy melancholy;
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it but in heaven again.
Attributed to Sir Henry Wotton and to Raleigh.
FAREWELL, EARTH'S BLISS
A
DIEU, farewell, earth's bliss:
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from its darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth;
Gold cannot buy you health,
Physic himself must fade:
All things to end are made.
The plague full swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower,
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage:
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
THOMAS NASH.
## p. 16812 (#512) ##########################################
16812
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
EPHEMERON
G*
RAY, on the daisied grass,
Shadows of moving leaves;
Happy the brown bees huin,
Summer has come — has comc;"
Lightly the low winds pass,
Shaking the peony-sheaves.
Tulips the sun looks through
Shining and stately stand;
Redder than rubies glow
All their great globes a-row,
Bright on the summer blue,
Lanthorns of fairy-land.
Ever and aye my own
Still shall this moment be;
I shall remember all, -
Shadows, and tulips tall,
Scent from the bean-fields blown,
Song of the humble-bee.
*
*
Lost is that fragrant hour,
Dewy and golden-lit,-
Dead
for the memory
Pitiful comes to me
Wan as a withered flower,-
Only the ghost of it.
GRAHAM R. TOMSON.
(I HAVE LOVED FLOWERS THAT FADE »
I
HAVE loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
A honeymoon delight, -
A joy of love at sight,
That ages in an hour:
My song, be like a flower!
I have loved airs, that die
Before their charm is writ
## p. 16813 (#513) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16813
Along a liquid sky
Trembling to welcome it;
Notes, that with pulse of fire
Proclaim the spirit's desire,
Then die, and are nowhere:
My song, be like an air!
Die, song, die like a breath,
And wither as a bloom:
Fear not a flowery death,
Dread not an airy tomb!
Author Unknown.
THE HASTE OF LOVE
AM
H, SWEETHEART, let us hurry!
We still have time.
Delaying thus, we bury
Our mutual prime.
Beauty's bright gift shall perish
As leaves grow sere;
All that we have and cherish
Shall disappear.
The cheek of roses fadeth,
Gray grows the head;
And fire the eyes evadeth,
And passion's dead.
The mouth, love's honeyed winner,
Is formless, cold;
The hand, like snow, gets thinner,
And thou art old!
So let us taste the pleasure
That youth endears,
Ere we are called to measure
The Aying years.
Give, as thou lov'st and livest,
Thy love to me,
Even though, in what thou givest,
My loss should be !
MARTIN OPITZ.
Translation of Bayard Taylor.
## p. 16814 (#514) ##########################################
16814
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
ATALANTA
WHEN
HEN spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the south with odors sweet,
I see my love in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.
She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.
But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew run
The vigor of Hippomenes.
O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,
And cared not, when at last we lost,
For life or death or anything!
MAURICE THOMPSON.
IMMANENCE
M
Y THOUGHTS go out like spider-threads,
Cast forth upon the air;
Filmy and fine, and floating wide,
Caught by whatever may betide,
To seek thee everywhere.
In league with every breeze that blows,
All ways, all holds they dare;
North, east, or south, or west they fly,
And sure, though winds be low or high,
To find thee everywhere.
Love still is lord of space and fate:
All roads his runners fare;
All heights that bar, they laughing climb;
They find all days the fitting time,
And highways everywhere.
## p. 16815 (#515) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16815
IN A ROSE-GARDEN
A
HUNDRED years from now, dear heart,
We shall not care at all.
It will not matter then a whit,
The honey or the gall.
The summer days that we have known
Will all forgotten be and flown;
The garden will be overgrown
Where now the roses fall.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We shall not mind the pain;
The throbbing crimson tide of life
Will not have left a stain.
The song we sing together, dear,
Will mean no more than means a tear
Amid a summer rain.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
The grief will all be o'er;
The sea of care will surge in vain
Upon a careless shore.
These glasses we turn down to-day
Here at the parting of the way –
We shall be wineless then as they,
And shall not mind it more.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We'll neither know nor care
What came of all life's bitterness,
Or followed love's despair.
Then fill the glasses up again,
And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain;
We'll build one castle more in Spain,
And dream one more dream there.
JOHN BENNETT.
THE ROSARY
TE
HE hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me:
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary.
## p. 16816 (#516) ##########################################
16816
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end, and there
A cross is hung.
O memories that bless- and burn!
O barren gain — and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross,
Sweetheart,
To kiss the cross.
ROBERT CAMERON Rogers.
A THRENODY
TH
HE rainy smell of a ferny dell,
Whose shadow no sun-ray flaws,
When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds
Telling her beads
Of haws.
The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed,
On hills where the trees are thinned,
When Autumn leans at the oak-root's scarp,
Playing a harp
Of wind.
The crickets' chirr 'neath brier and burr,
By leaf-strewn pools and streams,
When Autumn stands 'mid the dropping nuts,
With the book, she shuts,
Of dreams.
(
The gray “alas” of the days that pass,
And the hope that says adieu,"
A parting sorrow, a shriveled flower,
And one ghost's hour
With you.
MADISON J. CAWEIN.
## p. 16817 (#517) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16817
COME BACK, DEAR DAYS
CO
HOME back, dear days, from out the past! —
I see your gentle ghosts arise ;
You look at me with mournful eyes,
And then the night grows vague and vast:
You have gone back to Paradise.
Why did you fleet away, dear days?
You were so welcome when you came!
The morning skies were all aflame;
The birds sang matins in your praise:
All else of life you put to shame.
Did I not honor you aright, -
I, who but lived to see you shine,
Who felt your very pain divine,
Thanked God and warmed me in your light,
Or quaffed your tears as they were wine ?
What wooed you to those stranger skies, —
What love more fond, what dreams more fair,
What music whispered in the air ?
What soft delight of smiles and sighs
Enchanted you from otherwhere ?
You left no pledges when you went:
The years since then are bleak and cold;
No bursting buds the Junes unfold.
While you were here my all I spent;
Now I am poor and sad and old.
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
A REVERY OF BOYHOOD
(THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
T
HERE we children used to play,
Through the meadows and
away,
Looking 'mid the grassy maze
For the violets; those days
Long ago
Saw them grow:
Now one sees the cattle graze.
XXVIII-1052
## p. 16818 (#518) ##########################################
16818
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
I remember as we fared
Through the blossoms, we compared
Which the prettiest might be:
We were little things, you see.
On the ground
Wreaths we bound;
So it goes, our youth and we.
Over stick and stone we went
Till the sunny day was spent;
Hunting strawberries, each skirts
From the beeches to the firs,
Till - Hello,
Children! Go
Home, they cry — the foresters.
HEINRICH VON MORUNGEN.
Translation of Edward T. McLaughlin.
TWILIGHT
I
SAW her walking in the rain,
And sweetly drew she nigh;
And then she crossed the hills again
To bid the day good-by.
«Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
I'll say a glad Good-morrow! »
O dweller in the darling wood,
When near to death I lie,
Come from your leafy solitude,
And bid my soul good-by.
Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
O say a glad Good-morrow!
ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
## p. 16819 (#519) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16819
THE HIGHWAY
TE
He highway lies all bare and brown,
A naked line across the down
Worn by a hundred hurrying feet.
The tide of life along it flows,
And busy commerce comes and goes.
Where once the grass grew green and sweet
The world's fierce pulses beat.
Well for the highway that it lies
The passageway of great emprise!
Yet from its dust what voices cry,-
Voices of soft green growing things
Trampled and torn from earth which clings
Too closely, unperceiving why
Its darling bairns must die.
*
***
My heart's a highway, trodden down
By many a traveler of renown,-
Grave Thought and burden-bearing Deeds.
And strong Achievement's envoy fares,
With laughing Joys and crowding Cares,
Along the road that worldward leads —
Once rank with foolish weeds.
Glad is my heart to hear them pass,
Yet sometimes breathes a low "Alas!
The tender springing things that grew-
The nursling hopes their feet destroyed,
Sweet ignorant dreams that youth enjoyed
That blossomed there the long year through-
Would I could have them too!
LOUISE BETTS EDWARDS.
## p. 16820 (#520) ##########################################
16820
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
OLD
B
Y THE wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat a hoary pilgrim sadly musing:
Oft I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape like a page perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-rimmed hat,
Coat as ancient as the form 'twas folding,
Silver buttons, queue, and crimped cravat,
Oaken staff his feeble hand upholding: -
There he sat!
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-rimmed hat.
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there,
No one sympathizing, no one heeding,
None to love him for his thin gray hair,
And the furrows all so mutely pleading
Age and care:
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there.
It was summer, and we went to school,
Dapper country lads and little maidens,
Taught the motto of the “dunce's stool”.
Its grave import still my fancy ladens:
«Here's a fool! »
It was summer, and we went to school.
Still, in sooth, our tasks we seldom tried, -
Sportive pastime only worth our learning;
But we listened when the old man sighed,
And that lesson to our hearts went burning,
And we cried !
Still, in sooth, our tasks we seldom tried.
When a stranger seemed to mark our play,
(Some of us were joyous, some sad-hearted,)
I remember well — too well — that day!
Oftentimes the tears unbidden started,
Would not stay!
When the stranger seemed to mark our play.
When we cautiously adventured nigh,
We could see his lips with anguish quiver;
## p. 16821 (#521) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
1682 1
Yet no word he uttered, but his eye
Seemed in mournful converse with the river
Murmuring by,
When we cautiously adventured nigh.
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell:
Ah! to me her name was always heaven!
She besought him all his grief to tell –
(I was then thirteen, and she eleven)
Isabel!
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell.
Softly asked she with a voice divine:
“Why so lonely hast thou wandered hither?
Hast no home? — then come with me to mine;
There's our cottage, let me lead thee thither.
Why repine ? ”
Softly asked she with a voice divine.
»
"Angel,” said he sadly, I am old;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow:
Yet why I sit here thou shalt be told. ”
Then his eye betrayed a pearl of sorrow:
Down it rolled ; -
“Angel,” said he sadly, “I am old!
“I have tottered here to look once more
On the pleasant scene where I delighted
In the careless, happy days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core !
I have tottered here to look once more!
"All the picture now to me how dear!
E'en this gray old rock where I am seated
Seems a jewel worth my journey here;
Ah, that such a scene should be completed
With a tear!
All the picture now to me how dear!
«Old stone school-house! - it is still the same!
There's the very step so oft I mounted;
There's the window creaking in its frame,
And the notches that I cut and counted
For the game:
Old stone school-house! it is still the same!
## p. 16822 (#522) ##########################################
16822
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
«In the cottage yonder I was born —
Long my happy home, that humble dwelling:
There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn,
There the spring with limpid nectar swelling :
Ah, forlorn!
In the cottage yonder I was born.
(C
“Those two gateway sycamores you see —
They were planted just so far asunder
That long well-pole from the path to free,
And the wagon to pass safely under -
Ninety-three!
Those two gateway sycamores you see.
« There's the orchard where we used to climb,
When my mates and I were boys together;
Thinking nothing of the flight of time,
Fearing naught but work and rainy weather:
Past its prime!
There's the orchard where we used to climb.
« There the rude three-cornered chestnut rails,
Round the pasture where the flocks were grazing,
Where so sly I used to watch for quails
In the crops of buckwheat we were raising;
Traps and trails. -
There the rude three-cornered chestnut rails.
«How in summer have I traced that stream,
There through mead and woodland sweetly gliding,
Luring simple trout with many a scheme,
From the nooks where I have found them hiding:
All a dream!
How in summer have I traced that stream.
« There's the mill that ground our yellow grain;
Pond, and river still serenely flowing;
Cot, there nestling in the shaded lane,
Where the lily of my heart was blowing –
Mary Jane!
There's the mill that ground our yellow grain.
« There's the gate on which I used to swing,
Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red gable;
But alas! the morn shall no more bring
That dear group around my father's table:
## p. 16823 (#523) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16823
Taken wing!
There's the gate on which I used to swing.
“I am fleeing! — all I loved are fled;
Yon green meadow was our place for playing;
That old tree can tell of sweet things said,
When around it Jane and I were straying:
She is dead!
I am fleeing ! - all I loved have fled!
« Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky,
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points me to seven who are now in glory
There on high!
Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky.
«Oft the aisle of that old church we trod,
Guided thither by an angel mother;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod,
Sire and sisters, and my little brother:
Gone to God!
Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
« There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways;
Bless the holy lesson! — but ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise,
Those sweet voices silent now forever!
Peaceful days!
There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.
“There my Mary blest me with her hand,
When our souls drank in the nuptial blessing,–
Ere she hastened to the spirit land,
Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing:
Broken band!
There my Mary blest me with her hand.
“I have come to see that grave once more,
And the sacred place where we delighted,
Where we worshiped in the days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core !
I have come to see that grave once more.
“Haply, ere the verdure there shall fade,
I, all withering with years, shall perish;
## p. 16824 (#524) ##########################################
16824
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
With my Mary may I there be laid,
Join forever — all the wish I cherish -
Her dear shade!
Haply, ere the verdure there shall fade.
"Angel,” said he sadly, "I am old!
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow;
Now why I sit here thou hast been told. ” –
In his eye another pearl of sorrow
Down it rolled!
“Angel,” said he sadly, "I am old!
By the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing:
Still I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape like a page perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
RALPH HOYT.
THE PRIME OF LIFE
Jº
Ust as I thought I was growing old,
Ready to sit in my easy-chair,
To watch the world with a heart grown cold,
And smile at a folly I would not share,
Rose came by with a smile for me,-
And I am thinking that forty year
Isn't the age that it seems to be,
When two pretty brown eyes are near.
Bless me, of life it is just the prime ! -
A fact that I hope she will understand ;-
And forty year is a perfect rhyme
To dark-brown eyes and a pretty hand.
These gray hairs are by chance, you see,–
Boys are sometimes gray, I am told.
Rose came by with a smile for me,
Just as I thought I was getting old.
WALTER LEARNED.
## p. 16825 (#525) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16825
THE OLD
T"
WHEY are waiting on the shore
For the bark to take them home:
They will toil and grieve no more;
The hour for release hath come.
All their long life lies behind,
Like a dimly blending dream;
There is nothing left to bind
To the realms that only seem.
They are waiting for the boat;
There is nothing left to do:
What was near them grows remote,
Happy silence falls like dew;
Now the shadowy bark is come,
And the weary may go home.
By still water they would rest,
In the shadow of the tree;
After battle, sleep is best,
After noise, tranquillity,
RODEN NOËL.
THE GREAT BREATH
I"
Ts edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day;
There where the ether like a diamond glows,
Its petals fade away.
A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
The great deep thrills, for through it everywhere
The breath of Beauty blows.
I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Molded to her by deep and deeper breath,
Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
And knows herself in death.
G. W. RUSSELL.
## p. 16826 (#526) ##########################################
16826
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE REFUSAL OF CHARON *
"W"
Hy look the distant mountains
So gloomy and so drear?
Are rain-clouds passing o'er them,
Or is the tempest near ? » —
«No shadow of the tempest
Is there, nor wind, nor rain,-
'Tis Charon that is passing by,
With all his gloomy train.
“The young men march before him
In all their strength and pride;
The tender little infants,
They totter by his side;
The old men walk behind him,
And earnestly they pray-
Both old and young imploring him
To grant some brief delay. ” —
“O Charon! halt, we pray thee,
By yonder little town,
Or near that sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down!
The old will drink and be refreshed,
The young the disk will fing,
And the tender little children
Pluck flowers beside the spring. ”.
“I will not stay my journey,
Nor halt by any town,
Near any sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down:
The mothers coming to the well
Would know the babes they bore;
The wives would clasp their husbands,
Nor could I part them more. ”
Romaic.
* Modern Greek poetry assigns to Charon, not only the duty of ferrying his
cargo across the Styx, but the function formerly assumed by Hermes, of con-
ducting the souls of the dead to the underworld.
## p. 16827 (#527) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16827
THE WILD RIDE
I
HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses,
All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing.
Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, [legion,
Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping
With stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.
The road is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things to entice us:
What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the
riding.
Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and her pitiful beauty!
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.
I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses,
All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing.
We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with thy Troopers that follow!
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.
THE FRONTIER
O
SOLDIER, treading through the long day's heat,
With tattered banner and with drooping crest, —
Now as the sun sinks down thy purpled West,
Thou who hast come so far with aching feet,
Thou who must march and never canst retreat,
Art thou not weary of the bootless quest ?
Look'st thou not forward to a time of rest?
Sweet will it be — beyond all telling sweet-
After long marches with red danger fraught,
The wakeful bivouac, the assault and flight-
After thy scars of glory; sore distraught -
To camp afar, beyond defeat and fight,
Wrapped in the blanket of a dreamless night,
Out past the pickets and the tents of thought!
LLOYD MIFFLIN.
## p. 16828 (#528) ##########################################
16828
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
FREEDOM OF THE MIND
H"
IGH walls and huge the body may confine,
And iron grates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,
And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways;
Yet scorns the immortal mind this base control!
No chains can bind it, and no cell inclose:
Swifter than light it flies from Pole to Pole,
And in a flash from earth to heaven goes!
It leaps from mount to mount — from vale to vale
It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers;
It visits home, to hear the fireside tale,
Or in sweet converse pass the joyous hours;
'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,
And in its watches wearies every star!
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
THE CLOISTER
T:
HOUGHT never knew material bound or place,
Nor footsteps may the roving fancy trace:
Peace cannot learn beneath a roof to house,
Nor cloister hold us safe within our vows.
The cloistered heart may brave the common air,
And the world's children breathe the holiest prayer:
Build for us, Lord, and in thy temple reign!
Watch with us, Lord, our watchman wakes in vain!
LYDIA MARIA Child.
MY MINDE TO ME A KINGDOM IS
M
Y MINDE to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy wherein I finde
As farre exceeds all earthly blisse
That God or nature hath assignde;
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my minde forbids to crave.
Content I live; this is my stay, —
I seek no more than may suffice.
## p. 16829 (#529) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16829
I presse to beare no haughtie sway;
Look! what I lack my mind supplies.
Loe, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my minde doth bring.
I see how plentie surfets oft,
And hastie clyinbers soon do fall;
I see that such as sit aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all.
These get with toile, and keepe with feare;
Such cares my mind could never beare.
Some have too much, yet still they crave;
I little have, yet seek no more :
They are but poore, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lacke, I lend; they pine, I live.
.
I wish but what I have at will;
I wander not to seeke for more;
I like the plaine, I clime no hill;
In greatest storms I sitte on shore,
And laugh at them that toile in vaine
To get what must be lost againe.
The court ne cart I like ne loath,-
Extreames are counted worst of all;
The golden meane betwixt them both
Doth surest sit, and feares no fall:
This is my choyce; for why? -I finde
No wealth is like a quiet minde.
My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clere my chiefe defence;
I neither seeke by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to breed offence.
Thus do I live: thus will I die:
Would all did so as well as I!
SIR EDWARD DYER.
## p. 16830 (#530) ##########################################
168 30
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THOUGHT
Thor
HOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought:
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen:
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
Heart to heart was never known;
Mind with mind did never meet:
We are columns left alone
Of a temple once complete.
Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart though seeming near,
In our light we scattered lie;
All is thus but starlight here.
What is social company
But a babbling summer stream ?
What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream ?
Only when the sun of love
Melts the scattered stars of thought,
Only when we live above
What the dim-eyed world hath taught,
Only when our souls are fed
By the fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led
Which they never drew from earth,
We, like parted drops of rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one.
CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH.
## p. 16831 (#531) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16831
QUESTIONINGS
H*
ATH this world without me wrought
Other substance than my thought ?
Lives it by my sense alone,
Or by essence of its own ?
Will its life, with mine begun,
Cease to be when that is done,
Or another consciousness
With the selfsame forms impress?
Doth yon fire-ball poised in air
Hang by my permission there?
Are the clouds that wander by
But the offspring of mine eye,
Born with every glance I cast,
Perishing when that is past ?
And those thousand thousand eyes,
Scattered through the twinkling skies —
Do they draw their life from mine,
Or of their own beauty shine ?
Now I close my eyes, my ears,
And creation disappears;
Yet if I but speak the word,
All creation is restored.
Or— more wonderful — within,
N creations do begin;
Hues more bright and forms more rare
Than reality doth wear
Flash across my inward sense,
Born of mind's omnipotence.
Soul, that all informest, say!
Shall these glories pass away?
Will those planets cease to blaze
When these eyes no longer gaze ?
And the life of things be o'er,
When these pulses beat no more?
Thought! that in me works and lives, -
Life to all things living gives -
Art thou not thyself, perchance,
But the universe in trance ?
A reflection inly flung
By that world thou fanciedst sprung
-
## p. 16832 (#532) ##########################################
16832
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
From thyself, - thyself a dream, -
Of the world's thinking, thou the theme?
Be it thus, or be thy birth
From a source above the earth,-.
Be thou matter, be thou mind,
In thee alone myself I find,
And through thee alone, for me,
Hath this world reality.
Therefore in thee will I live;
To thee all myself will give:
Losing still, that I may find
This bounded self in boundless mind.
FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE.
ANCIENT GUEBER HYMN
W*
HERE goest thou, keen soul of heat,
So bright, so light, so fleet;
Whose wing was never downward bent,
Aye pluming for ascent?
Where goest thou, when, breaking loose
From all mechanic use,
From beacon-head and altar-stone
And hearth of mortal flown,
Thou spreadest through the air apace,
Dissolving in wide space ?
Continually the waters fall;
Springs, torrents, rivers, — all,
Drawn downward to the gathering deep,
Remain within its keep.
But thou to the empyrean sea,
Bright upward stream, dost flee,
Where stars and sun are lost to sight,
Drowned in exceeding light!
Continually, in strength and pride,
The great ships cut the tide;
The waters fall, and these descend
Unto their journey's end.
But who, upborne on wing of thine,
Shall reach thy goal divine ?
## p. 16833 (#533) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16833
Thither, O rapt and holy Fire,
Thither, bid me aspire,
That when my spirit's flame burns free,
It shall ascend with thee.
FLAMMANTIS MENIA MUNDI *
STOOD alone in purple space, and saw
The burning walls of the world, like wings of flame
Circling the sphere: there was no break nor flaw
In those vast airy battlements whence came
The spirits who had done with time and fame
And all the playthings of earth's little hour;
I saw them each, I knew them for the same,
Mothers and brothers and the sons of power.
Yet were they changed: the flaming walls had burned
Their perishable selves, and there remained
Only the pure white vision of the soul,
The mortal part consumed, and swift returned
Ashes to ashes; while unscathed, unstained,
The immortal passed beyond the earth's control.
ANNIE FIELDS.
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS
T*
WHERE was a man who watched the river flow
Past the huge town, one gray November day.
Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play
The boys made merry as they saw him go,
Murmuring half-loud, with eyes upon the stream,
The immortal screed he held within his hand.
For he was walking in an April land
With Faust and Helen. Shadowy as a dream
Was the prose-world, the river and the town.
Wild joy possessed him: through enchanted skies
He saw the cranes of Ibycus swoop down.
He closed the page, he lifted up his eyes:
Lo- a black line of birds in wavering thread
Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!
EMMA LAZARUS.
(
*«Flaming walls of the world”: Lucretius.
XXVIII-1053
## p. 16834 (#534) ##########################################
16834
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE
I
(
SAID to Sorrow's awful storm
That beat against my breast,
Rage on,- thou mayst destroy this form,
And lay it low at rest;
But still the spirit that now brooks
Thy tempest, raging high,
Undaunted on its fury looks
With steadfast eye. ”
I said to Penury's meagre train,
“Come on,- your threats I brave:
My last poor life-drop you may drain,
And crush me to the grave;
Yet still the spirit that endures
Shall mock your force the while,
And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours
With bitter smile. ”
I said to cold Neglect and Scorn,
“Pass on,- I heed you not:
Ye may pursue me till my form
And being are forgot;
Yet still the spirit, which you see
Undaunted by your wiles,
Draws from its own nobility
Its high-born smiles. ”
I said to Friendship's menaced blow,
“Strike deep,- my heart shall bear:
Thou canst but add one bitter woe
To those already there;
Yet still the spirit that sustains
This last severe distress
Shall smile upon its keenest pains,
And scorn redress,
I said to Death's uplifted dart,
«Aim sure, -oh, why delay ?
Thou wilt not find a fearful heart,
A weak, reluctant prey;
For still the spirit, firm and free,
Unruffled by dismay,
Wrapt in its own eternity,
Shall pass away. ”
LAVINIA STODDARD.
## p. 16835 (#535) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16835
ANY SOUL TO ANY BODY
S°
O we must part, my body, you and I,
Who've spent so many pleasant years together!
'Tis sorry work to lose your company
Who clove to me so close, whate'er the weather,
From winter unto winter, wet or dry;
But you have reached the limit of your tether,
And I must journey on my way alone,
And leave you quietly beneath a stone.
They say that you are altogether bad
(Forgive me, 'tis not my experience),
And think me very wicked to be sad
At leaving you, a clod, a prison, whence
To get quite free I should be very glad.
Perhaps I may be so, some few days hence;
But now, methinks, 'twere graceless not to spend
A tear or two on my departing friend.
Now our iong partnership is near completed,
And I look back upon its history,
I greatly fear 1 have not always treated
You with the honesty you showed to me.
And I must own that you have oft defeated
Unworthy schemes by your sincerity,
And by a blush or stammering tongue have tried
To make me think again before I lied.
'Tis true you're not so handsome as you were,
But that's not your fault and is partly mine, -
You might have lasted longer with more care,
And still looked something like your first design;
And even now, with all your wear and tear,
'Tis pitiful to think I must resign
You to the friendless grave, the patient prey
Of all the hungry legions of decay.
But you must stay, dear body, and I go.
And I was once so very proud of you!
You made my mother's eyes to overflow
When first she saw you, wonderful and new.
And now, with all your faults, 'twere hard to find
A slave more willing or a friend more true:
Ay - even they who say the worst about you
Can scarcely tell what I shall do without you.
COSMO MONKHOUSE.
## p. 16836 (#536) ##########################################
16836
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
BODY AND SOUL
H*
ERE at life's silent, shadowy gate,
O Soul, my Soul, I lie and wait;
Faint in the darkness, blind and dumb,
O Soul, my promised comrade, come!
The morn breaks gladly in the east;
Hush! hark! the signs of solemn feast:
The softened footstep on the stair;
The happy smile, the chant, the prayer;
The dainty robes, the christening-bowl -
'Tis well with Body and with Soul.
Why lingerest thou at dawn of life?
Seest not a world with pleasure rife?
Hear'st not the song and whir of bird ?
The joyous leaves to music stirred ?
Thou too shalt sing and float in light;
My Soul, thou shalt be happy — quite.
But yet so young, and such unrest ?
Thou must be glad, my glorious guest.
Here is the revel, here is mirth,
Here strains enchanting sway the earth;
Measures of joy in fullness spent:
My Soul, thou canst but be content.
Is this a tear upon my hand ?
A tear? I do not understand.
Ripples of laughter, and a moan?
Why sit we thus, apart, alone ?
Lift up thine eyes, O Soul, and sing!
He comes, our lover and our king!
Feel how each pulse in rapture thrills!
Look, at our feet the red wine spills!
And he – he comes with step divine,
A spirit meet, O Soul, for thine.
Body and Soul's supremest bliss -
What, dost thou ask for more than this?
Stay, here are houses, lands, and gold;
Here, honor's hand; here, gains untold :
Drink thou the full cup to the lees;
Drink, Soul, and make thy bed in ease.
Thou art my prisoner; thou my slave:
And thou shalt sip wherein I lave.
## p. 16837 (#537) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16837
Nay? nay? Then there are broader fields,
Whose luring path a treasure yields:
Thou shalt the universe explore,
Its heights of knowledge, depths of lore;
Shalt journey far o'er land and sea:
And I, my Soul, will follow thee;
Will follow — follow — but I lag:
My heart grows faint, my footsteps flag.
-
And there are higher, holier things ?
Is this a taunt thy spirit Alings?
What is it, Soul, that thou wouldst say ?
Thou erst had time to fast and pray.
Give me one word, one loving sign,
For this spent life of yours and mine!
I held thee fast by sordid ties?
I trailed thy garments, veiled thine eyes?
Go on, I come: but once did wait,
O Soul, for thee, at morning's gate.
Canst thou not pause to give me breath ?
Perchance this shadow, Soul, is death.
I stumble, fall — it is the grave:
I am the prisoner, I the slave;
And thou, strange guest, for aye art free:
Forgive me, Soul, - I could but be
The earth that soiled, the fleshly clod,
The weight that bound thee to the sod.
16808
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Too true! Life's shores are shifting
Every year;
And we are seaward drifting
Every year;
Old places, changing, fret us,
The living more forget us,
There are fewer to regret us,
Every year.
But the truer life draws nigher
Every year;
And its morning-star climbs higher,
Every year;
Earth's hold on us grows slighter,
And the heavy burthen lighter,
And the Dawn Immortal brighter,
Every year.
ALBERT PIKE.
TO O. S. C.
SPIRI
PIRIT of fire and dew,"
Whither hast fled ?
Thy soul they never knew
Who call thee dead.
Deep thoughts of why and how
Shadowed thine eyes:
Thou hast the answers now
Straight from the skies.
Thrilled with a double power,
Nature and Art-
Dowered with a double dower,
Reason and heart-
Not souls like thine, in vain
God fashioneth;
Leadeth them forth again,
Gently, by death.
ANNIE Eliot TRUMBULL.
## p. 16809 (#509) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16809
THE WIND OF DEATH
T"
HE wind of death, that softly blows
The last warm petal from the rose,
The last dry leaf from off the tree,
To-night has come to breathe on me.
There was a time I learned to hate,
As weaker mortals learn to love;
The passion held me fixed as fate,
Burned in my veins early and late -
But now a wind falls from above-
The wind of death, that silently
Enshroudeth friend and enemy.
There was a time my soul was thrilled
By keen ambition's whip and spur:
My master forced me where he willed,
And with his power my life was filled :
But now the old-time pulses stir
How faintly in the wind of death,
That bloweth lightly as a breath!
And once, but once, at Love's dear feet
I yielded strength and life and heart;
His look turned bitter into sweet,
His smile made all the world complete -
The wind blows loves like leaves apart-
The wind of death, that tenderly
Is blowing 'twixt my love and me.
O wind of death, that darkly blows
Each separate ship of human woes
Far out on a mysterious sea,
I turn, I turn my face to thee.
ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
A FAREWELL TO THE VANITIES OF THE WORLD
AREWELL, ye golden follies, pleasing troubles !
Farewell, ye honored rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame's but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honor's the darling of but one short day;
F !
## p. 16810 (#510) ##########################################
16810
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Beauty, the eyes' idol, but a damasked skin;
State but a golden prison to live in
And torture free-born minds; embroidered trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own;
Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great, but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill;
I would be high, but see the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke;
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind,
Dig in the bowels of the richest mine;
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected whilst the ass goes free;
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud
Like the bright sun oft setting in a cloud;
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich, hated; wise, suspected; scorned if poor;
Great, feared; fair, tempted; high, still envied more:
I have wished all, but now I wish for neither,
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair; poor I'll be rather.
Would the world now adopt me for her heir;
Would beauty's queen entitle me “the fair";
Fame speak me fortune's minion; could I vie
Angels* with India; with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bowed knees, strike justice dumb
As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue
To stones and epitaphs; be called great master
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster;
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives,
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign
Than ever Fortune would have made them mine,
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves!
These guests, these courts, my soul more dearly loves;
Now the winged people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring;
* Gold coins.
## p. 16811 (#511) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16811
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks; no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I'll sit and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn to affect an holy melancholy;
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it but in heaven again.
Attributed to Sir Henry Wotton and to Raleigh.
FAREWELL, EARTH'S BLISS
A
DIEU, farewell, earth's bliss:
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from its darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth;
Gold cannot buy you health,
Physic himself must fade:
All things to end are made.
The plague full swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower,
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage:
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
THOMAS NASH.
## p. 16812 (#512) ##########################################
16812
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
EPHEMERON
G*
RAY, on the daisied grass,
Shadows of moving leaves;
Happy the brown bees huin,
Summer has come — has comc;"
Lightly the low winds pass,
Shaking the peony-sheaves.
Tulips the sun looks through
Shining and stately stand;
Redder than rubies glow
All their great globes a-row,
Bright on the summer blue,
Lanthorns of fairy-land.
Ever and aye my own
Still shall this moment be;
I shall remember all, -
Shadows, and tulips tall,
Scent from the bean-fields blown,
Song of the humble-bee.
*
*
Lost is that fragrant hour,
Dewy and golden-lit,-
Dead
for the memory
Pitiful comes to me
Wan as a withered flower,-
Only the ghost of it.
GRAHAM R. TOMSON.
(I HAVE LOVED FLOWERS THAT FADE »
I
HAVE loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
A honeymoon delight, -
A joy of love at sight,
That ages in an hour:
My song, be like a flower!
I have loved airs, that die
Before their charm is writ
## p. 16813 (#513) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16813
Along a liquid sky
Trembling to welcome it;
Notes, that with pulse of fire
Proclaim the spirit's desire,
Then die, and are nowhere:
My song, be like an air!
Die, song, die like a breath,
And wither as a bloom:
Fear not a flowery death,
Dread not an airy tomb!
Author Unknown.
THE HASTE OF LOVE
AM
H, SWEETHEART, let us hurry!
We still have time.
Delaying thus, we bury
Our mutual prime.
Beauty's bright gift shall perish
As leaves grow sere;
All that we have and cherish
Shall disappear.
The cheek of roses fadeth,
Gray grows the head;
And fire the eyes evadeth,
And passion's dead.
The mouth, love's honeyed winner,
Is formless, cold;
The hand, like snow, gets thinner,
And thou art old!
So let us taste the pleasure
That youth endears,
Ere we are called to measure
The Aying years.
Give, as thou lov'st and livest,
Thy love to me,
Even though, in what thou givest,
My loss should be !
MARTIN OPITZ.
Translation of Bayard Taylor.
## p. 16814 (#514) ##########################################
16814
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
ATALANTA
WHEN
HEN spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the south with odors sweet,
I see my love in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.
She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses' breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.
But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew run
The vigor of Hippomenes.
O race of love! we all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,
And cared not, when at last we lost,
For life or death or anything!
MAURICE THOMPSON.
IMMANENCE
M
Y THOUGHTS go out like spider-threads,
Cast forth upon the air;
Filmy and fine, and floating wide,
Caught by whatever may betide,
To seek thee everywhere.
In league with every breeze that blows,
All ways, all holds they dare;
North, east, or south, or west they fly,
And sure, though winds be low or high,
To find thee everywhere.
Love still is lord of space and fate:
All roads his runners fare;
All heights that bar, they laughing climb;
They find all days the fitting time,
And highways everywhere.
## p. 16815 (#515) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16815
IN A ROSE-GARDEN
A
HUNDRED years from now, dear heart,
We shall not care at all.
It will not matter then a whit,
The honey or the gall.
The summer days that we have known
Will all forgotten be and flown;
The garden will be overgrown
Where now the roses fall.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We shall not mind the pain;
The throbbing crimson tide of life
Will not have left a stain.
The song we sing together, dear,
Will mean no more than means a tear
Amid a summer rain.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
The grief will all be o'er;
The sea of care will surge in vain
Upon a careless shore.
These glasses we turn down to-day
Here at the parting of the way –
We shall be wineless then as they,
And shall not mind it more.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We'll neither know nor care
What came of all life's bitterness,
Or followed love's despair.
Then fill the glasses up again,
And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain;
We'll build one castle more in Spain,
And dream one more dream there.
JOHN BENNETT.
THE ROSARY
TE
HE hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me:
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary.
## p. 16816 (#516) ##########################################
16816
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end, and there
A cross is hung.
O memories that bless- and burn!
O barren gain — and bitter loss!
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross,
Sweetheart,
To kiss the cross.
ROBERT CAMERON Rogers.
A THRENODY
TH
HE rainy smell of a ferny dell,
Whose shadow no sun-ray flaws,
When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds
Telling her beads
Of haws.
The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed,
On hills where the trees are thinned,
When Autumn leans at the oak-root's scarp,
Playing a harp
Of wind.
The crickets' chirr 'neath brier and burr,
By leaf-strewn pools and streams,
When Autumn stands 'mid the dropping nuts,
With the book, she shuts,
Of dreams.
(
The gray “alas” of the days that pass,
And the hope that says adieu,"
A parting sorrow, a shriveled flower,
And one ghost's hour
With you.
MADISON J. CAWEIN.
## p. 16817 (#517) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16817
COME BACK, DEAR DAYS
CO
HOME back, dear days, from out the past! —
I see your gentle ghosts arise ;
You look at me with mournful eyes,
And then the night grows vague and vast:
You have gone back to Paradise.
Why did you fleet away, dear days?
You were so welcome when you came!
The morning skies were all aflame;
The birds sang matins in your praise:
All else of life you put to shame.
Did I not honor you aright, -
I, who but lived to see you shine,
Who felt your very pain divine,
Thanked God and warmed me in your light,
Or quaffed your tears as they were wine ?
What wooed you to those stranger skies, —
What love more fond, what dreams more fair,
What music whispered in the air ?
What soft delight of smiles and sighs
Enchanted you from otherwhere ?
You left no pledges when you went:
The years since then are bleak and cold;
No bursting buds the Junes unfold.
While you were here my all I spent;
Now I am poor and sad and old.
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
A REVERY OF BOYHOOD
(THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
T
HERE we children used to play,
Through the meadows and
away,
Looking 'mid the grassy maze
For the violets; those days
Long ago
Saw them grow:
Now one sees the cattle graze.
XXVIII-1052
## p. 16818 (#518) ##########################################
16818
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
I remember as we fared
Through the blossoms, we compared
Which the prettiest might be:
We were little things, you see.
On the ground
Wreaths we bound;
So it goes, our youth and we.
Over stick and stone we went
Till the sunny day was spent;
Hunting strawberries, each skirts
From the beeches to the firs,
Till - Hello,
Children! Go
Home, they cry — the foresters.
HEINRICH VON MORUNGEN.
Translation of Edward T. McLaughlin.
TWILIGHT
I
SAW her walking in the rain,
And sweetly drew she nigh;
And then she crossed the hills again
To bid the day good-by.
«Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
I'll say a glad Good-morrow! »
O dweller in the darling wood,
When near to death I lie,
Come from your leafy solitude,
And bid my soul good-by.
Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
O say a glad Good-morrow!
ETHELWYN WETHERALD.
## p. 16819 (#519) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16819
THE HIGHWAY
TE
He highway lies all bare and brown,
A naked line across the down
Worn by a hundred hurrying feet.
The tide of life along it flows,
And busy commerce comes and goes.
Where once the grass grew green and sweet
The world's fierce pulses beat.
Well for the highway that it lies
The passageway of great emprise!
Yet from its dust what voices cry,-
Voices of soft green growing things
Trampled and torn from earth which clings
Too closely, unperceiving why
Its darling bairns must die.
*
***
My heart's a highway, trodden down
By many a traveler of renown,-
Grave Thought and burden-bearing Deeds.
And strong Achievement's envoy fares,
With laughing Joys and crowding Cares,
Along the road that worldward leads —
Once rank with foolish weeds.
Glad is my heart to hear them pass,
Yet sometimes breathes a low "Alas!
The tender springing things that grew-
The nursling hopes their feet destroyed,
Sweet ignorant dreams that youth enjoyed
That blossomed there the long year through-
Would I could have them too!
LOUISE BETTS EDWARDS.
## p. 16820 (#520) ##########################################
16820
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
OLD
B
Y THE wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat a hoary pilgrim sadly musing:
Oft I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape like a page perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-rimmed hat,
Coat as ancient as the form 'twas folding,
Silver buttons, queue, and crimped cravat,
Oaken staff his feeble hand upholding: -
There he sat!
Buckled knee and shoe, and broad-rimmed hat.
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there,
No one sympathizing, no one heeding,
None to love him for his thin gray hair,
And the furrows all so mutely pleading
Age and care:
Seemed it pitiful he should sit there.
It was summer, and we went to school,
Dapper country lads and little maidens,
Taught the motto of the “dunce's stool”.
Its grave import still my fancy ladens:
«Here's a fool! »
It was summer, and we went to school.
Still, in sooth, our tasks we seldom tried, -
Sportive pastime only worth our learning;
But we listened when the old man sighed,
And that lesson to our hearts went burning,
And we cried !
Still, in sooth, our tasks we seldom tried.
When a stranger seemed to mark our play,
(Some of us were joyous, some sad-hearted,)
I remember well — too well — that day!
Oftentimes the tears unbidden started,
Would not stay!
When the stranger seemed to mark our play.
When we cautiously adventured nigh,
We could see his lips with anguish quiver;
## p. 16821 (#521) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
1682 1
Yet no word he uttered, but his eye
Seemed in mournful converse with the river
Murmuring by,
When we cautiously adventured nigh.
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell:
Ah! to me her name was always heaven!
She besought him all his grief to tell –
(I was then thirteen, and she eleven)
Isabel!
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell.
Softly asked she with a voice divine:
“Why so lonely hast thou wandered hither?
Hast no home? — then come with me to mine;
There's our cottage, let me lead thee thither.
Why repine ? ”
Softly asked she with a voice divine.
»
"Angel,” said he sadly, I am old;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow:
Yet why I sit here thou shalt be told. ”
Then his eye betrayed a pearl of sorrow:
Down it rolled ; -
“Angel,” said he sadly, “I am old!
“I have tottered here to look once more
On the pleasant scene where I delighted
In the careless, happy days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core !
I have tottered here to look once more!
"All the picture now to me how dear!
E'en this gray old rock where I am seated
Seems a jewel worth my journey here;
Ah, that such a scene should be completed
With a tear!
All the picture now to me how dear!
«Old stone school-house! - it is still the same!
There's the very step so oft I mounted;
There's the window creaking in its frame,
And the notches that I cut and counted
For the game:
Old stone school-house! it is still the same!
## p. 16822 (#522) ##########################################
16822
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
«In the cottage yonder I was born —
Long my happy home, that humble dwelling:
There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn,
There the spring with limpid nectar swelling :
Ah, forlorn!
In the cottage yonder I was born.
(C
“Those two gateway sycamores you see —
They were planted just so far asunder
That long well-pole from the path to free,
And the wagon to pass safely under -
Ninety-three!
Those two gateway sycamores you see.
« There's the orchard where we used to climb,
When my mates and I were boys together;
Thinking nothing of the flight of time,
Fearing naught but work and rainy weather:
Past its prime!
There's the orchard where we used to climb.
« There the rude three-cornered chestnut rails,
Round the pasture where the flocks were grazing,
Where so sly I used to watch for quails
In the crops of buckwheat we were raising;
Traps and trails. -
There the rude three-cornered chestnut rails.
«How in summer have I traced that stream,
There through mead and woodland sweetly gliding,
Luring simple trout with many a scheme,
From the nooks where I have found them hiding:
All a dream!
How in summer have I traced that stream.
« There's the mill that ground our yellow grain;
Pond, and river still serenely flowing;
Cot, there nestling in the shaded lane,
Where the lily of my heart was blowing –
Mary Jane!
There's the mill that ground our yellow grain.
« There's the gate on which I used to swing,
Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red gable;
But alas! the morn shall no more bring
That dear group around my father's table:
## p. 16823 (#523) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16823
Taken wing!
There's the gate on which I used to swing.
“I am fleeing! — all I loved are fled;
Yon green meadow was our place for playing;
That old tree can tell of sweet things said,
When around it Jane and I were straying:
She is dead!
I am fleeing ! - all I loved have fled!
« Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky,
Tracing silently life's changeful story,
So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points me to seven who are now in glory
There on high!
Yon white spire,- a pencil on the sky.
«Oft the aisle of that old church we trod,
Guided thither by an angel mother;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod,
Sire and sisters, and my little brother:
Gone to God!
Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
« There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways;
Bless the holy lesson! — but ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise,
Those sweet voices silent now forever!
Peaceful days!
There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.
“There my Mary blest me with her hand,
When our souls drank in the nuptial blessing,–
Ere she hastened to the spirit land,
Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing:
Broken band!
There my Mary blest me with her hand.
“I have come to see that grave once more,
And the sacred place where we delighted,
Where we worshiped in the days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core !
I have come to see that grave once more.
“Haply, ere the verdure there shall fade,
I, all withering with years, shall perish;
## p. 16824 (#524) ##########################################
16824
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
With my Mary may I there be laid,
Join forever — all the wish I cherish -
Her dear shade!
Haply, ere the verdure there shall fade.
"Angel,” said he sadly, "I am old!
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow;
Now why I sit here thou hast been told. ” –
In his eye another pearl of sorrow
Down it rolled!
“Angel,” said he sadly, "I am old!
By the wayside, on a mossy stone,
Sat the hoary pilgrim, sadly musing:
Still I marked him sitting there alone,
All the landscape like a page perusing;
Poor, unknown,
By the wayside, on a mossy stone.
RALPH HOYT.
THE PRIME OF LIFE
Jº
Ust as I thought I was growing old,
Ready to sit in my easy-chair,
To watch the world with a heart grown cold,
And smile at a folly I would not share,
Rose came by with a smile for me,-
And I am thinking that forty year
Isn't the age that it seems to be,
When two pretty brown eyes are near.
Bless me, of life it is just the prime ! -
A fact that I hope she will understand ;-
And forty year is a perfect rhyme
To dark-brown eyes and a pretty hand.
These gray hairs are by chance, you see,–
Boys are sometimes gray, I am told.
Rose came by with a smile for me,
Just as I thought I was getting old.
WALTER LEARNED.
## p. 16825 (#525) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16825
THE OLD
T"
WHEY are waiting on the shore
For the bark to take them home:
They will toil and grieve no more;
The hour for release hath come.
All their long life lies behind,
Like a dimly blending dream;
There is nothing left to bind
To the realms that only seem.
They are waiting for the boat;
There is nothing left to do:
What was near them grows remote,
Happy silence falls like dew;
Now the shadowy bark is come,
And the weary may go home.
By still water they would rest,
In the shadow of the tree;
After battle, sleep is best,
After noise, tranquillity,
RODEN NOËL.
THE GREAT BREATH
I"
Ts edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day;
There where the ether like a diamond glows,
Its petals fade away.
A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
The great deep thrills, for through it everywhere
The breath of Beauty blows.
I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Molded to her by deep and deeper breath,
Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
And knows herself in death.
G. W. RUSSELL.
## p. 16826 (#526) ##########################################
16826
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE REFUSAL OF CHARON *
"W"
Hy look the distant mountains
So gloomy and so drear?
Are rain-clouds passing o'er them,
Or is the tempest near ? » —
«No shadow of the tempest
Is there, nor wind, nor rain,-
'Tis Charon that is passing by,
With all his gloomy train.
“The young men march before him
In all their strength and pride;
The tender little infants,
They totter by his side;
The old men walk behind him,
And earnestly they pray-
Both old and young imploring him
To grant some brief delay. ” —
“O Charon! halt, we pray thee,
By yonder little town,
Or near that sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down!
The old will drink and be refreshed,
The young the disk will fing,
And the tender little children
Pluck flowers beside the spring. ”.
“I will not stay my journey,
Nor halt by any town,
Near any sparkling fountain,
Where the waters wimple down:
The mothers coming to the well
Would know the babes they bore;
The wives would clasp their husbands,
Nor could I part them more. ”
Romaic.
* Modern Greek poetry assigns to Charon, not only the duty of ferrying his
cargo across the Styx, but the function formerly assumed by Hermes, of con-
ducting the souls of the dead to the underworld.
## p. 16827 (#527) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16827
THE WILD RIDE
I
HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses,
All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing.
Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, [legion,
Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping
With stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.
The road is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things to entice us:
What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the
riding.
Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and her pitiful beauty!
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.
I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses,
All night from their cells the importunate tramping and neighing.
We spur to a land of no name, outracing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with thy Troopers that follow!
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.
THE FRONTIER
O
SOLDIER, treading through the long day's heat,
With tattered banner and with drooping crest, —
Now as the sun sinks down thy purpled West,
Thou who hast come so far with aching feet,
Thou who must march and never canst retreat,
Art thou not weary of the bootless quest ?
Look'st thou not forward to a time of rest?
Sweet will it be — beyond all telling sweet-
After long marches with red danger fraught,
The wakeful bivouac, the assault and flight-
After thy scars of glory; sore distraught -
To camp afar, beyond defeat and fight,
Wrapped in the blanket of a dreamless night,
Out past the pickets and the tents of thought!
LLOYD MIFFLIN.
## p. 16828 (#528) ##########################################
16828
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
FREEDOM OF THE MIND
H"
IGH walls and huge the body may confine,
And iron grates obstruct the prisoner's gaze,
And massive bolts may baffle his design,
And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways;
Yet scorns the immortal mind this base control!
No chains can bind it, and no cell inclose:
Swifter than light it flies from Pole to Pole,
And in a flash from earth to heaven goes!
It leaps from mount to mount — from vale to vale
It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers;
It visits home, to hear the fireside tale,
Or in sweet converse pass the joyous hours;
'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,
And in its watches wearies every star!
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
THE CLOISTER
T:
HOUGHT never knew material bound or place,
Nor footsteps may the roving fancy trace:
Peace cannot learn beneath a roof to house,
Nor cloister hold us safe within our vows.
The cloistered heart may brave the common air,
And the world's children breathe the holiest prayer:
Build for us, Lord, and in thy temple reign!
Watch with us, Lord, our watchman wakes in vain!
LYDIA MARIA Child.
MY MINDE TO ME A KINGDOM IS
M
Y MINDE to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy wherein I finde
As farre exceeds all earthly blisse
That God or nature hath assignde;
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my minde forbids to crave.
Content I live; this is my stay, —
I seek no more than may suffice.
## p. 16829 (#529) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16829
I presse to beare no haughtie sway;
Look! what I lack my mind supplies.
Loe, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my minde doth bring.
I see how plentie surfets oft,
And hastie clyinbers soon do fall;
I see that such as sit aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all.
These get with toile, and keepe with feare;
Such cares my mind could never beare.
Some have too much, yet still they crave;
I little have, yet seek no more :
They are but poore, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lacke, I lend; they pine, I live.
.
I wish but what I have at will;
I wander not to seeke for more;
I like the plaine, I clime no hill;
In greatest storms I sitte on shore,
And laugh at them that toile in vaine
To get what must be lost againe.
The court ne cart I like ne loath,-
Extreames are counted worst of all;
The golden meane betwixt them both
Doth surest sit, and feares no fall:
This is my choyce; for why? -I finde
No wealth is like a quiet minde.
My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clere my chiefe defence;
I neither seeke by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to breed offence.
Thus do I live: thus will I die:
Would all did so as well as I!
SIR EDWARD DYER.
## p. 16830 (#530) ##########################################
168 30
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THOUGHT
Thor
HOUGHT is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought:
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen:
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
Heart to heart was never known;
Mind with mind did never meet:
We are columns left alone
Of a temple once complete.
Like the stars that gem the sky,
Far apart though seeming near,
In our light we scattered lie;
All is thus but starlight here.
What is social company
But a babbling summer stream ?
What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream ?
Only when the sun of love
Melts the scattered stars of thought,
Only when we live above
What the dim-eyed world hath taught,
Only when our souls are fed
By the fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led
Which they never drew from earth,
We, like parted drops of rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one.
CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH.
## p. 16831 (#531) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16831
QUESTIONINGS
H*
ATH this world without me wrought
Other substance than my thought ?
Lives it by my sense alone,
Or by essence of its own ?
Will its life, with mine begun,
Cease to be when that is done,
Or another consciousness
With the selfsame forms impress?
Doth yon fire-ball poised in air
Hang by my permission there?
Are the clouds that wander by
But the offspring of mine eye,
Born with every glance I cast,
Perishing when that is past ?
And those thousand thousand eyes,
Scattered through the twinkling skies —
Do they draw their life from mine,
Or of their own beauty shine ?
Now I close my eyes, my ears,
And creation disappears;
Yet if I but speak the word,
All creation is restored.
Or— more wonderful — within,
N creations do begin;
Hues more bright and forms more rare
Than reality doth wear
Flash across my inward sense,
Born of mind's omnipotence.
Soul, that all informest, say!
Shall these glories pass away?
Will those planets cease to blaze
When these eyes no longer gaze ?
And the life of things be o'er,
When these pulses beat no more?
Thought! that in me works and lives, -
Life to all things living gives -
Art thou not thyself, perchance,
But the universe in trance ?
A reflection inly flung
By that world thou fanciedst sprung
-
## p. 16832 (#532) ##########################################
16832
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
From thyself, - thyself a dream, -
Of the world's thinking, thou the theme?
Be it thus, or be thy birth
From a source above the earth,-.
Be thou matter, be thou mind,
In thee alone myself I find,
And through thee alone, for me,
Hath this world reality.
Therefore in thee will I live;
To thee all myself will give:
Losing still, that I may find
This bounded self in boundless mind.
FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE.
ANCIENT GUEBER HYMN
W*
HERE goest thou, keen soul of heat,
So bright, so light, so fleet;
Whose wing was never downward bent,
Aye pluming for ascent?
Where goest thou, when, breaking loose
From all mechanic use,
From beacon-head and altar-stone
And hearth of mortal flown,
Thou spreadest through the air apace,
Dissolving in wide space ?
Continually the waters fall;
Springs, torrents, rivers, — all,
Drawn downward to the gathering deep,
Remain within its keep.
But thou to the empyrean sea,
Bright upward stream, dost flee,
Where stars and sun are lost to sight,
Drowned in exceeding light!
Continually, in strength and pride,
The great ships cut the tide;
The waters fall, and these descend
Unto their journey's end.
But who, upborne on wing of thine,
Shall reach thy goal divine ?
## p. 16833 (#533) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16833
Thither, O rapt and holy Fire,
Thither, bid me aspire,
That when my spirit's flame burns free,
It shall ascend with thee.
FLAMMANTIS MENIA MUNDI *
STOOD alone in purple space, and saw
The burning walls of the world, like wings of flame
Circling the sphere: there was no break nor flaw
In those vast airy battlements whence came
The spirits who had done with time and fame
And all the playthings of earth's little hour;
I saw them each, I knew them for the same,
Mothers and brothers and the sons of power.
Yet were they changed: the flaming walls had burned
Their perishable selves, and there remained
Only the pure white vision of the soul,
The mortal part consumed, and swift returned
Ashes to ashes; while unscathed, unstained,
The immortal passed beyond the earth's control.
ANNIE FIELDS.
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS
T*
WHERE was a man who watched the river flow
Past the huge town, one gray November day.
Round him in narrow high-piled streets at play
The boys made merry as they saw him go,
Murmuring half-loud, with eyes upon the stream,
The immortal screed he held within his hand.
For he was walking in an April land
With Faust and Helen. Shadowy as a dream
Was the prose-world, the river and the town.
Wild joy possessed him: through enchanted skies
He saw the cranes of Ibycus swoop down.
He closed the page, he lifted up his eyes:
Lo- a black line of birds in wavering thread
Bore him the greetings of the deathless dead!
EMMA LAZARUS.
(
*«Flaming walls of the world”: Lucretius.
XXVIII-1053
## p. 16834 (#534) ##########################################
16834
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE
I
(
SAID to Sorrow's awful storm
That beat against my breast,
Rage on,- thou mayst destroy this form,
And lay it low at rest;
But still the spirit that now brooks
Thy tempest, raging high,
Undaunted on its fury looks
With steadfast eye. ”
I said to Penury's meagre train,
“Come on,- your threats I brave:
My last poor life-drop you may drain,
And crush me to the grave;
Yet still the spirit that endures
Shall mock your force the while,
And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours
With bitter smile. ”
I said to cold Neglect and Scorn,
“Pass on,- I heed you not:
Ye may pursue me till my form
And being are forgot;
Yet still the spirit, which you see
Undaunted by your wiles,
Draws from its own nobility
Its high-born smiles. ”
I said to Friendship's menaced blow,
“Strike deep,- my heart shall bear:
Thou canst but add one bitter woe
To those already there;
Yet still the spirit that sustains
This last severe distress
Shall smile upon its keenest pains,
And scorn redress,
I said to Death's uplifted dart,
«Aim sure, -oh, why delay ?
Thou wilt not find a fearful heart,
A weak, reluctant prey;
For still the spirit, firm and free,
Unruffled by dismay,
Wrapt in its own eternity,
Shall pass away. ”
LAVINIA STODDARD.
## p. 16835 (#535) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16835
ANY SOUL TO ANY BODY
S°
O we must part, my body, you and I,
Who've spent so many pleasant years together!
'Tis sorry work to lose your company
Who clove to me so close, whate'er the weather,
From winter unto winter, wet or dry;
But you have reached the limit of your tether,
And I must journey on my way alone,
And leave you quietly beneath a stone.
They say that you are altogether bad
(Forgive me, 'tis not my experience),
And think me very wicked to be sad
At leaving you, a clod, a prison, whence
To get quite free I should be very glad.
Perhaps I may be so, some few days hence;
But now, methinks, 'twere graceless not to spend
A tear or two on my departing friend.
Now our iong partnership is near completed,
And I look back upon its history,
I greatly fear 1 have not always treated
You with the honesty you showed to me.
And I must own that you have oft defeated
Unworthy schemes by your sincerity,
And by a blush or stammering tongue have tried
To make me think again before I lied.
'Tis true you're not so handsome as you were,
But that's not your fault and is partly mine, -
You might have lasted longer with more care,
And still looked something like your first design;
And even now, with all your wear and tear,
'Tis pitiful to think I must resign
You to the friendless grave, the patient prey
Of all the hungry legions of decay.
But you must stay, dear body, and I go.
And I was once so very proud of you!
You made my mother's eyes to overflow
When first she saw you, wonderful and new.
And now, with all your faults, 'twere hard to find
A slave more willing or a friend more true:
Ay - even they who say the worst about you
Can scarcely tell what I shall do without you.
COSMO MONKHOUSE.
## p. 16836 (#536) ##########################################
16836
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
BODY AND SOUL
H*
ERE at life's silent, shadowy gate,
O Soul, my Soul, I lie and wait;
Faint in the darkness, blind and dumb,
O Soul, my promised comrade, come!
The morn breaks gladly in the east;
Hush! hark! the signs of solemn feast:
The softened footstep on the stair;
The happy smile, the chant, the prayer;
The dainty robes, the christening-bowl -
'Tis well with Body and with Soul.
Why lingerest thou at dawn of life?
Seest not a world with pleasure rife?
Hear'st not the song and whir of bird ?
The joyous leaves to music stirred ?
Thou too shalt sing and float in light;
My Soul, thou shalt be happy — quite.
But yet so young, and such unrest ?
Thou must be glad, my glorious guest.
Here is the revel, here is mirth,
Here strains enchanting sway the earth;
Measures of joy in fullness spent:
My Soul, thou canst but be content.
Is this a tear upon my hand ?
A tear? I do not understand.
Ripples of laughter, and a moan?
Why sit we thus, apart, alone ?
Lift up thine eyes, O Soul, and sing!
He comes, our lover and our king!
Feel how each pulse in rapture thrills!
Look, at our feet the red wine spills!
And he – he comes with step divine,
A spirit meet, O Soul, for thine.
Body and Soul's supremest bliss -
What, dost thou ask for more than this?
Stay, here are houses, lands, and gold;
Here, honor's hand; here, gains untold :
Drink thou the full cup to the lees;
Drink, Soul, and make thy bed in ease.
Thou art my prisoner; thou my slave:
And thou shalt sip wherein I lave.
## p. 16837 (#537) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16837
Nay? nay? Then there are broader fields,
Whose luring path a treasure yields:
Thou shalt the universe explore,
Its heights of knowledge, depths of lore;
Shalt journey far o'er land and sea:
And I, my Soul, will follow thee;
Will follow — follow — but I lag:
My heart grows faint, my footsteps flag.
-
And there are higher, holier things ?
Is this a taunt thy spirit Alings?
What is it, Soul, that thou wouldst say ?
Thou erst had time to fast and pray.
Give me one word, one loving sign,
For this spent life of yours and mine!
I held thee fast by sordid ties?
I trailed thy garments, veiled thine eyes?
Go on, I come: but once did wait,
O Soul, for thee, at morning's gate.
Canst thou not pause to give me breath ?
Perchance this shadow, Soul, is death.
I stumble, fall — it is the grave:
I am the prisoner, I the slave;
And thou, strange guest, for aye art free:
Forgive me, Soul, - I could but be
The earth that soiled, the fleshly clod,
The weight that bound thee to the sod.
