Embers, Complete

                    The apple blossoms glisten
                    Within the crowned trees;
                    The meadow grasses listen
                    The din of busy bees;
                    The wayward, woodland singer
                    Carols along the leas,
                    Not loth to be the bringer
                    Of summer fantasies.

                    But you and I who never
                    Meet now but for regret,
                    Forever and forever,
                    Though flower-bonds were set
                    In Maytime, if you wonder
                    That falling leaves are ours,
                    Yours was it cast asunder,
                    Mine are the faded flowers.

                    The fluted wren is sobbing
                    Beneath the mossy eaves;
                    The throstle’s chord is throbbing
                    In coronal of leaves;
                    The home of love is lilies,
                    And rose-hearts, flaming red,
                    Red roses and white lilies—
                    Lo, thus the gods were wed!

                    But we weep on, unheeding
                    The earth’s joys spread for us;
                    And ever, far receding,
                    Our fair land fades from us:
                    One waited, patient, broken,
                    High-hearted but opprest,
                    One lightly took the token—
                    The mad Fates took the rest.

                    High mountains and low valleys,
                    And shreds of silver seas,
                    The lone brook’s sudden sallies,
                    And all the joys of these,—
                    These were, but now the fire
                    Volcanic seeks the sea,
                    And dark wave walls retire
                    Tyrannic seeking me.

                    Spirit of dreams, a vision
                    Well hast thou wrought for us;
                    Fold high the veil Elysian,
                    The past held naught for us;
                    Years, what are they but spaces
                    Set in a day for me?
                    Lo, here are lilied places—
                    My love comes back to me!

               I knows a town, an’ it’s a fine town,
               And many a brig goes sailin’ to its quay;
               I knows an inn, an’ it’s a fine inn,
               An’ a lass that’s fair to see.
               I knows a town, an’ it’s a fine town;
               I knows an inn, an’ it’s a fine inn—
               But Oh my lass, an’ Oh the gay gown,
               Which I have seen my pretty in!

               I knows a port, an’ it’s a good port,
               An’ many a brig is ridin’ easy there;
               I knows a home, an’ it’s a good home,
               An’ a lass that’s sweet an’ fair.
               I knows a port, an’ it’s a good port,
               I knows a home, an’ it’s a good home—
               But Oh the pretty that is my sort,
               What’s wearyin’ till I come!

               I knows a day, an’ it’s a fine day,
               The day a sailor man comes back to town;
               I knows a tide, an’ it’s a good tide,
               The tide that gets you quick to anchors down.
               I knows a day, an’ it’s a fine day,
               I knows a tide, an’ it’s a good tide—
               And God help the lubber, I say,
               What’s stole the sailor man’s bride!

               Mark the faces of the children
               Flooded with sweet innocence!
               God’s smile on their foreheads glisten
               Ere their heart-strings have grown tense.

               And they know not of the sadness,
               Of the palpitating pain
               Drawn through arid veins of manhood,
               Or the lusts that life disdain.

               Little reek they of the shadows
               Fallen through the steep world’s space
               God hath touched them with His chrism
               And their sunlight is His grace.

               And the green grooves of the meadows
               They are fair to look upon;
               And the silver thrush and robin
               Sing most sweetly on and on.

               But the faces of the children—
               They are fairer far than these;
               And the songs they sing are sweeter
               Than the thrushes’ in the trees.

               Little hands, our God has given
               All the flower-bloom for you;
               Gather violets in the meadows,
               Trailing your sweet fingers through.

               The swift tears that sometimes glisten
               On their faces dashed with pain
               Weave a rosy bow of promise,
               Like the afterglow of rain.

               The soft, verdant fields of childhood,
               Certes, are the softer for
               The dissolving dew of morning,
               Noon’s elate ambassador.

               Looking skyward, do they wonder—
               They, the children palm to palm—
               What is out beyond the azure
               In the infinite of calm?

               Though they murmur soft “Our Father,”
                Angel wings to speed it on
               Past the bright wheels of the Pleiads,
               Have they thought of benison?

               Nay! the undefiled children
               Say it bound by ignorance;
               But the saying is the merit,
               And the loving bans mischance.

               Oh the mountain heights of childhood,
               And the waterfalls of dreams,
               And the sleeping in the shadows
               Of the willows by the streams!

               Toss your gleaming hair, O children,
               Back in waving of the wind!
               Flash the starlight ‘heath your eyelids
               From the sunlight of the mind!

               See, we strain you to our bosoms,
               And we kiss your lip and brow;
               Human hearts must have some idols,
               And we shrine you idols now.

               Time, the ruthless idol-breaker,
               Smileless, cold iconoclast,
               Though he rob us of our altars,
               Cannot rob us of the past.

               Dull and dead the gods’ bright nectar,
               Disencrowned of its foam;
               Duller, deader far the empty,
               Barren hearthstone of a home.

               Smile out to our age and give us,
               Children, of the dawn’s desire;
               We have passed morn’s gold and opal,
               We have lost life’s early fire.

          “Where do the stars grow, little Garaine?
          The garden of moons, is it far away?
          The orchard of suns, my little Garaine,
          Will you take us there some day?”

          “If you shut your eyes,” quoth little Garaine,
          “I will show you the way to go
          To the orchard of suns and the garden of moons
          And the field where the stars do grow.

          “But you must speak soft,” quoth little Garaine,
          “And still must your footsteps be,
          For a great bear prowls in the field of the stars,
          And the moons they have men to see.

          “And the suns have the Children of Signs to guard,
          And they have no pity at all—
          You must not stumble, you must not speak,
          When you come to the orchard wall.

          “The gates are locked,” quoth little Garaine,
          “But the way I am going to tell—
          The key of your heart it will open them all:
          And there’s where the darlings dwell!”

                               (M. H.)

          When you were born, my dear, when you were born,
            A glorious Voice came singing from the sun,
          An Ariel with roses of the morn,
            And through the vales of Arcady danced one
            All golden as the corn.

          These were the happy couriers of God,
            Bearing your gifts: a magic all your own,
          And Beauty with her tall divining rod;
            While tiny star-smiths, bending to your throne,
            Your feet with summer shod.

          Into my heart, my dear, you flashed your way,
            Your rosy, golden way: a fairy horn
          Proclaimed you dancing light and roundelay;—
            I thank my generous Fates that you were born
            One lofty joyous day.

                          L’EMPEREUR, MORT

                         (M. H., AGED FIVE)

          My dear, I was thy lover,
          A man of spring-time years;
          I sang thee songs, gave gifts and songs most poor,
          But they were signs; and now, for evermore,
          Thou farest forth!  My heart is full of tears,
          My dear, my very dear.

          My dear, I was thy lover,
          I wrote thee on my shield,
          I cried thy name in goodly fealty,
          Thy champion I.  And now, no more for me
          Thy face, thy smile: thou goest far afield,
          My dear, my very dear.

          My dear, I am thy lover:
          Afield thy spirit goes,
          And thou shalt find that Inn of God’s delight,
          Where thou wilt wait for us who say good night,
          To thy sweet soul.  The rest—the rest, God knows,
          My dear, my dear!

          Phyllis, I knew you once when I was young,
          And travelled to your land of Arcady.
          Do you, of all the songs, wild songs, before you flung,
          Remember mine—its buoyant melody,
          Its hope, its pride; do you remember it?
          It was the song that makes the world go round;
          I bought it of a Boy: in scars I paid for it,
          Phyllis, to you who jested at my wound.

          Did ye see the white cloud in the glint o’ the sun?
          That’s the brow and the eye o’ my bairnie.
          Did ye ken the red bloom at the bend o’ the crag?
          That’s the rose in the cheek o’ my bairnie.
          Did ye hear the gay lilt o’ the lark by the burn?
          That’s the voice of my bairnie, my dearie.
          Did ye smell the wild scent in the green o’ the wood?
          That’s the breath o’ my ain, o’ my bairnie.
          Sae I’ll gang awa’ hame, to the shine o’ the fire,
             To the cot where I lie wi’ my bairnie.

                    How many years of sun and snow
                    Have come to Camden Town,
                    Since through its streets and in its shade,
                    I wandered up and down.

                    Not many more than to you here
                    These verses hapless flung,
                    Yet of the Long Ago they seem
                    To me who am yet young.

                    We strive to measure life by Time,
                    And con the seasons o’er,
                    To find, alas! that days are years,
                    And years for evermore.

                    The joys that thrill, the ill that thralls,
                    Pressed down on heart and brain—
                    These are the only horologues,
                    The Age’s loss or gain.

                    And I am old in all of these,
                    And wonder if I know
                    The man begotten of the boy,
                    Who loved that long ago.

                    A lilac bush close to the gate,
                    A locust at the door,
                    A low, wide window flower-filled,
                    With ivy covered o’er.

                    A face—O love of childhood dreams,
                    Lily in form and name—
                    It comes back now in these day-dreams,
                    The same yet not the same.

                    My childhood’s friend!   Well gathered are
                    The sheaves of many days,
                    But this one sheaf is garnered in,
                    Bound by my love always.

                    Where have you wandered, child, since when
                    Together merrily,
                    We gathered cups of columbine
                    By lazy Rapanee?

                    The green spears of the flagflower,
                    Down by the old mill-race,
                    Are weapons now for other hands,
                    Who mimic warfare chase.

                    You were so tender, yet so strong,
                    So gentle, yet so free,
                    Your every word, whenever heard,
                    Seemed wondrous wise to me.

                    You marvelled if the dead could hear
                    Our steps, that passed at will
                    Their low green houses in the elm-
                    Crowned churchyard on the hill.

                    And I, whom your sweet childhood’s trust,
                    Esteemed as most profound,
                    Thought that they heard, as in a dream,
                    The shadow of a sound.

                    We drew the long, rank grass away
                    From tombstones mossy grown,
                    To read the verses crude and quaint,
                    And make the words our own.

                    One tottering marble, willow-spread,
                    I well remember yet,
                    With only this engraved thereon,
                    “By Joseph to Jeanette.”

                    It held us wondering oft, as we
                    Peeped through the pickets old:
                    There was some mystery, we knew,
                    Some history untold.

                    Well, better far those simple words,
                    Where weeping phrase is not,
                    Than burdened tablet, and the rest
                    Forgetting and forgot.

                    And Lily Minden, do you lie
                    In some forgotten grave,
                    Where only strangers’ feet pass o’er
                    Your temple’s architrave?

                    Or, by some hearthstone, have you learned
                    The worst and best of life,
                    And found sweet greetings in the name
                    Of mother and of wife?

                    I cannot tell: I know you but
                    As bee the clover bloom,
                    That sips content, and straightway builds
                    Its mansion and its tomb.

                    So took I in child-innocence,
                    So build the House of Life,
                    And in low tone to thee alone,
                    As dead or maid or wife,

                    I sing this song, borne all along
                    A space of wasted breath;
                    And build me on from room to room
                    Unto the House of Death,

                    Where portals swing forever in
                    To weary pilgrim guest,
                    And hearts that here were inly dear
                    Shall find a Room of Rest.

                    Three times round has the sun gone, Jean,
                    Since on your lips I pressed
                    Mute farewells; if that pain was keen
                    Fair were you in your nest.

                    Smiling, sweetheart, I left you there;
                    You had no word to say;
                    One last touch to your brow and hair,
                    Then I went on my way.

                    Time it was when the leaves were grown
                    Your rose-colour, my queen;
                    Ere the birds to the south had flown,
                    While yet the grass was green.

                    Eyes demure, do you ever yearn,
                    Bird-wise to summer lands?
                    Is it to meet your look I turn,
                    Saying, “She understands,”

                    Saying, “She waits in her quiet place
                    Patient till I shall come,
                    The old sweet grace in her dreaming face
                    That made a Heav’n her home”?

                    No!  She is there ‘neath Northern skies,
                    And no word does she send;
                    But near to my heart her image lies,
                    And shall lie there to the end.

                    Come what will I am not bereft
                    Of the memory of that time,
                    When in her hands my heart I left
                    There, in a colder clime.

                    And to my eyes no face is fair,
                    For one face comes between;
                    And if a song has a low sweet air,
                    Through it there whispers, “Jean.”

                    Better for me the world would say,
                    If I had broke the charm,
                    Set in the circle she one day
                    Made by her round white arm.

                    Never a king in days of eld
                    Gathered about his throat
                    Such a circlet; no queen e’er held
                    Necklace so clear of mote.

                    It sufficeth the charm was set;
                    And if it chance that one
                    Still remembers, though one forget,
                    Then is the worst thing done—

                    Done, and I still can say “Let be;
                    I have no word of blame;
                    Though her heart is no more for me,
                    Mine shall be still the same.”

                    I have my life to live and she—
                    Well, if it be so—so;
                    She may welcome or banish me
                    And if I go, I go.

                    Friend, I pray you repress those tears,
                    Comfort from this derive:
                    I am a score—and more-of years
                    And Jean is only five.

               From buckwheat fields the summer sun
               Drew honeyed breezes over
               The lanes where happy children run
               With bare feet in the clover.

               The schoolhouse stood with pines about
               Upon the hill, and ever
               A creek, where hid the speckled trout,
               Ran past it to the river.

               And rosy faces gathered there,
               With rustic good around them;
               With breath of balm blown everywhere,
               Pure, ere the world had found them.

               Behind sweet purple ambuscades
               Of lilacs, laws were broken;
               And here a desk with knives was frayed,
               There passed forbidden token.

               One slipped a butternut between
               His pearly teeth; a maiden
               Dove-eyed, caressed her cheek; ‘twas e’en
               With maple sugar laden—

               A flock that caught at wiles, because
               The shepherd’s hand that drove them,
               Reached little toward wise human laws,
               And less to God above them.

               With eyebrows bent and surly look
               He only saw before him,
               The rule, the lesson, and the book,
               Not nature brooding o’er him.

               One day through drone of locusts fell
               The wood-bird’s fitful tapping,
               And in his chair at “dinner-spell,”
                The teacher grim sat napping.

               An urchin creeping in beholds
               The tyrant slumber-smitten,
               And in his pocket’s ample folds
               He thrusts the school-yard kitten.

               At length the master waked, and clanged
               His bell with anger fitting;
               His sleep had made it double-fanged,
               And crossed like needles knitting.

               Slow to their seats the children file,
               And wait “Prepare for classes,”
                A score of lads across the aisle
               From twice a score of lasses.

               But two within the throng betray
               A mirth suppressed; the sinner,
               And Rafe Ridall, the chief at play,
               At books the easy winner:

               The wildest boy in all the school,
               In mischief first and ever,
               His daily seat the penance-stool,
               Disgraced for weeks together.

               Just sound of bone and strong of heart,
               Staunch friend and noble foeman;
               In life to play the kingly part,
               True both to man and woman.

               Joe’s secret now he holds; a deed
               With just enough of danger,
               To win his—ah, what’s that?  ‘Tis freed,
               The pocket-prisoned stranger!

               A moment’s riot laughter-filled,
               Then fear, white-visaged, follows;
               And through the silence there is trilled
               The shrill note of the swallows.

               And now a fierce form fronts them all,
               Two fierce eyes search their faces,
               Then flash their fire on Rafe Ridall,
               Whose mirth no peril chases.

               “You did it, sir!”  “Not I!”  “You did!”
                “No!”  “You’ve one chance for showing
               Who in my coat the kitten hid,
               Or be well thrashed for knowing.”

               The master paused, the birch he grasped
               Against his trousers flicking;
               Rafe said, with hands behind him clasped,
               “I’d rather take the licking.”

               Full many a year has passed since then,
               The lilacs still are blooming,
               Awaiting childish hands again,
               But they are long in coming.

               Now wandering swallows build their nests
               Where doors and roofs decaying,
               No more shut in the master’s zest,
               Nor out the children’s playing.

               All, all are gone who gathered there;
               Some toil among the masses,
               Some, overworn with pain and care,
               Wait Death’s “Prepare for classes.”

               And some—the sighing pines sway on
               Above them, dreamless lying;
               And ‘mong them sleeps the master, gone
               His anger and their crying.

               And Rafe Ridall, brave then, brave now,
               Amid the jarring courses
               Of man’s misrule, still takes the blow
               For those of weaker forces.

               A little brown sparrow came tripping
               Across the green grass at my feet;
               A kingfisher poised, and was peering
               Where current and calm water meet;

               The clouds hung in passionless clusters
               Above the green hills of the south;
               A bobolink fluttered to leeward
               With a twinkle of bells in its mouth.

               Ah, the morning was silver with glory
               As I lay by my tent on the shore;
               And the soft air was drunken with odours,
               And my soul lifted up to adore.

               Is there wonder I took me to dreaming
               Of the gardens of Greece and old Rome,
               Of the fair watered meadows of Ida,
               And the hills where the gods made their home?

               Of the Argonauts sung to by Sirens,
               Of Andromache, Helen of Troy,
               Of Proserpine, Iphigenia,
               And the Fates that build up and destroy?

               Of the phantom isle, green Theresea,
               And the Naiads and Dryads that give
               To the soul of the poet, the dreamer,
               The visions of fancy that live

               In the lives and the language of mortals
               Unconscious, but sure as the sea,
               And that make for great losses repayment
               To wandering singers like me?

               But a little brown sparrow came tripping
               Across the green grass at my feet;
               And a kingfisher poised, and was peering
               Where current and calm water meet;

               And Alice, sweet Alice, my neighbour,
               Stands musing beneath the pine tree;
               And her look says—“I have a lover
               Who sails on the turbulent sea:

               Does he dream as I dream night and daytime
               Of a face that is tender and true;
               Will he come to me e’en as he left me?”
                Yes, Alice, sweet Alice, for you,

               Is the sunlight, and not the drear shadow,
               The gentle and fortunate peace:
               But he who thus revels in rhyming
               Has shadows that never shall cease.

               The bay gleams softly in the sun,
               The morning widens o’er the world:
               The bluebird’s song is just begun,
               And down the skies white clouds are furled.

               The boat lies idly by the shore,
               The shed I built with happy care
               Is fallen; and I see no more
               The white tents in the eager air.

               The goldenrod holds up its plumes
               In the long stretch of meadow grass,
               The briarrose shakes its sweet perfumes,
               In coverts where the sparrows pass.

               Far off, above, the sapphire gleams,
               Far off, below, the sapphire flows,
               And this, my place of morning dreams,
               The bank where my vain visions rose!

               Sweet Alice, he came back again,
               Across the waste of summer sea,
               What time the fields were full of grain,
               But not to thee; but not to thee.

               She comes no more when evening falls,
               To watch the stars wheel up the sky;
               Then love and light were over all;
               Alas! that light and love should die.

               I feel her hand upon my arm,
               I see her eyes shine through the mist;
               Her life was passionate and warm
               As the red jewels at her wrist.

               Hearts do not break, the world has said,
               Though love lie stark and light be flown;
               But still it counts its lost and dead,
               And in the solitudes makes moan.

               We school our lips to make our hearts
               Seem other than in truth they are;
               Before the lights we play our part,
               And paint the flesh to hide the scar.

               Masquers and mummers all, and yet
               The slaves of some dead passion’s fires,
               Of hopes the soul can ne’er forget
               Still sobbing in life’s trembling wires.

               Fate puts our dear desires in pawn,
               Youth passes, unredeemed they lie;
               The leaves drop from our rose of dawn,
               And storms fall from the mocking sky.

               I shall come back no more; my ship
               Waits for me by the sundering sea;
               A prayer for her is on my lip—
               And the old life is dead to me.

I have lain beneath the pine trees just to hear the thrush’s calling,
I have waited for the throstle where the harvest fields were brown,
I have caught the lark’s sweet trilling from the depths of cloud-land
     falling
And the piping of the linnet through the willow branches blown.

But if you should pass to-morrow where your songs could never reach us,
There would still be throbbing through us all the music of your voice;
And your spirit would speak through the chords, as though it would
     beseech us
To remember that the noblest ends have ever noblest choice.

                    In your onward march, O men,
                    White of face, in promise whiter,
                    You unsheathe the sword, and then
                    Blame the wronged as the fighter.

                    Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o’er
                    All these foetid fields of evil,
                    While hard at the nation’s core
                    Eat the burning rust and weevil!

                    Nathless, out beyond the stars
                    Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
                    Seeing in all strifes and wars
                    Who the wronged, who the wronger.

                     “No man cared for my soul.”

               Blind, Lord, so blind!   I wander far
               From Thee among the haunts of men,
               Most like some lone, faint, flickering star
               Gone from its place, nor knoweth when
               The sun shall give it shining dole
               Lord! no man careth for my soul.

               Blind, Lord, so blind!   In loneliness
               By crowded mart or busy street,
               I fold my hands and feel how less
               Am I to any one I meet,
               Than to Thee one lost billow’s roll:
               Lord! no man careth for my soul.

               Blind, Lord, so blind!   And I have knelt
               ‘Mong myriads in Thy house of prayer;
               And still sad desolation felt,
               Though heavy freighted was the air
               With litanies of love: one ghoul
               Cried, “No man careth for thy soul!”

               Blind, Lord, so blind!   The world is blind;
               It feeds me, fainting, with a stone:
               I cry for bread.    Before, behind,
               Are hurrying feet; yet all alone
               I walk, and no one points the goal
               Lord! no man careth for my soul.

               Blind, Lord, Oh very blind am I!
               If sin of mine sets up the wall
               Between my poor sight and Thy sky,
               O Friend of man, Who cares for all,
               Send sweet peace ere the last bell toll—
               Yea, Lord, Thou carest for my soul!

          Over the hills they are waiting to greet us,
          They who have scanned all the ultimate places,
          Fathomed the world and the things that defeat us—
          Evils and graces.

          They have no thought for the toiling or spinning,
          Striving for bread that is dust in the gaining,
          They have won all that is well worth the winning—
          Past all distaining.

          Now they have done with the pain and the error,
          Nevermore here shall the dark things assail them,
          Void man’s devices and dreams have no terror—
          Shall we bewail them?

          They have cast off all the strife and derision,
          They have put on all the joy of our yearning;
          We falter feebly from vision to vision,
          Never discerning.

          Faint light before us, and shadows to grope in,
          Stretching out hands to the starbeams to guide us,
          Finding no place but our life’s loves to hope in,
          Doubt to deride us—

          So we climb upward with eyes growing dimmer,
          Looking back only to sigh through our smiling,
          Wondering still if the palpitant glimmer
          Leads past defiling.

          They whom we loved have gone over the mountains,
          Hands beckon to us like wings of the swallow,
          Voices we knew from delectable fountains
          Cry to us, “Follow!”

          Some were so young when they left us, that morning
          Seemed to have flashed and then died into gloaming,
          Leaving us wearier ‘neath the world’s scorning,
          Blinder in roaming.

          Some, in the time when the manhood is bravest,
          Strongest to bear and the hands to endeavour,
          When all the life is the firmest and gravest,
          Left us for ever.

          Some, when the Springtime had grown to December,
          Said, “It is done: now the last thing befall me;
          I shall sleep well—ah! dear hearts but remember:
          Farewell, they call me!”

          So the tale runs, and the end, who shall fear it?
          Is it not better to sleep than to sorrow?
          Tokens will come from the bourne as we near it—
          Time’s peace, to-morrow.