Pike County Ballads and Other Poems

  Not done, but near its ending,
    Is the work that our eyes desired;
  Not yet fulfilled, but near the goal,
    Is the hope that our worn hearts fired.
  And on the Alban Mountains,
    Where the blushes of dawn increase,
  We see the flash of the beautiful feet
    Of Freedom and of Peace!

  How long were our fond dreams baffled!—
    Novara's sad mischance,
  The Kaiser's sword and fetter-lock,
    And the traitor stab of France;
  Till at last came glorious Venice,
    In storm and tempest home;
  And now God maddens the greedy kings,
    And gives to her people Rome.

  Lame Lion of Caprera!
    Red-shirts of the lost campaigns!
  Not idly shed was the costly blood
    You poured from generous veins.
  For the shame of Aspromonte,
    And the stain of Mentana's sod,
  But forged the curse of kings that sprang
    From your breaking hearts to God!

  We lift our souls to Thee, O Lord
    Of Liberty and of Light!
  Let not earth's kings pollute the work
    That was done in their despite;
  Let not Thy light be darkened
    In the shade of a sordid crown,
  Nor pampered swine devour the fruit
    Thou shook'st with an earthquake down!

  Let the People come to their birthright,
    And crosier and crown pass away
  Like phantasms that flit o'er the marshes
    At the glance of the clean, white day.
  And then from the lava of AEtna
    To the ice of the Alps let there be
  One freedom, one faith without fetters,
    One republic in Italy free!

  King Saloman looked from his donjon bars,
    Where the Danube clamours through sedge and sand,
    And he cursed with a curse his revolting land,—
  With a king's deep curse of treason and wars.

  He said:  "May this false land know no truth!
    May the good hearts die and the bad ones flourish,
    And a greed of glory but live to nourish
  Envy and hate in its restless youth.

  "In the barren soil may the ploughshare rust,
    While the sword grows bright with its fatal labour,
    And blackens between each man and neighbour
  The perilous cloud of a vague distrust!

  "Be the noble idle, the peasant in thrall,
    And each to the other as unknown things,
    That with links of hatred and pride the kings
  May forge firm fetters through each for all!

  "May a king wrong them as they wronged their king
    May he wring their hearts as they wrung mine,
    Till they pour their blood for his revels like wine,
  And to women and monks their birthright fling!"

  The mad king died; but the rushing river
    Still brawls by the spot where his donjon stands,
    And its swift waves sigh to the conscious sands
  That the curse of King Saloman works for ever.

  For flowing by Pressbourg they heard the cheers
    Ring out from the leal and cheated hearts
    That were caught and chained by Theresa's arts,—
  A man's cool head and a girl's hot tears!

  And a star, scarce risen, they saw decline,
    Where Orsova's hills looked coldly down,
    As Kossuth buried the Iron Crown
  And fled in the dark to the Turkish line.

  And latest they saw in the summer glare
    The Magyar nobles in pomp arrayed,
    To shout as they saw, with his unfleshed blade,
  A Hapsburg beating the harmless air.

  But ever the same sad play they saw,
    The same weak worship of sword and crown,
    The noble crushing the humble down,
  And moulding Wrong to a monstrous Law.

  The donjon stands by the turbid river,
    But Time is crumbling its battered towers;
    And the slow light withers a despot's powers,
  And a mad king's curse is not for ever!

  I tore this weed from the rank, dark soil
    Where it grew in the monkish time,
  I trimmed it close and set it again
    In a border of modern rhyme.

  I.
  Long years ago, when the Devil was loose
    And faith was sorely tried,
  Three monks of Basle went out to walk
    In the quiet eventide.

  A breeze as pure as the breath of Heaven
    Blew fresh through the cloister-shades,
  A sky as glad as the smile of Heaven
    Blushed rose o'er the minster-glades.

  But scorning the lures of summer and sense,
    The monks passed on in their walk;
  Their eyes were abased, their senses slept,
    Their souls were in their talk.

  In the tough grim talk of the monkish days
    They hammered and slashed about,—
  Dry husks of logic,—old scraps of creed,—
    And the cold gray dreams of doubt,—

  And whether Just or Justified
    Was the Church's mystic Head,—
  And whether the Bread was changed to God,
    Or God became the Bread.

  But of human hearts outside their walls
    They never paused to dream,
  And they never thought of the love of God
    That smiled in the twilight gleam.

  II.
  As these three monks went bickering on
    By the foot of a spreading tree,
  Out from its heart of verdurous gloom
    A song burst wild and free,—

  A wordless carol of life and love,
    Of nature free and wild;
  And the three monks paused in the evening shade,
    Looked up at each other and smiled.

  And tender and gay the bird sang on,
    And cooed and whistled and trilled,
  And the wasteful wealth of life and love
    From his happy heart was spilled.

  The song had power on the grim old monks
    In the light of the rosy skies;
  And as they listened the years rolled back,
    And tears came into their eyes.

  The years rolled back and they were young,
    With the hearts and hopes of men,
  They plucked the daisies and kissed the girls
    Of dear dead summers again.

  III.
  But the eldest monk soon broke the spell;
    "'Tis sin and shame," quoth he,
  "To be turned from talk of holy things
    By a bird's cry from a tree.

  "Perchance the Enemy of Souls
    Hath come to tempt us so.
  Let us try by the power of the Awful Word
    If it be he, or no!"

  To Heaven the three monks raised their hands;
    "We charge thee, speak!" they said,
  "By His dread Name who shall one day come
    To judge the quick and the dead,—

  "Who art thou?  Speak!"  The bird laughed loud.
    "I am the Devil," he said.
  The monks on their faces fell, the bird
    Away through the twilight sped.

  A horror fell on those holy men
    (The faithful legends say),
  And one by one from the face of the earth
    They pined and vanished away.

  IV.
  So goes the tale of the monkish books,
    The moral who runs may read,—
  He has no ears for Nature's voice
    Whose soul is the slave of creed.

  Not all in vain with beauty and love
    Has God the world adorned;
  And he who Nature scorns and mocks,
    By Nature is mocked and scorned.

  Fytte the First:  wherein it shall be shown how the Truth
  is too mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper.

  The King was sick. His cheek was red
    And his eye was clear and bright;
  He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
    And peacefully snored at night.

  But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
    And doctors came by the score.
  They did not cure him.  He cut off their heads
    And sent to the schools for more.

  At last two famous doctors came,
    And one was as poor as a rat,—
  He had passed his life in studious toil,
    And never found time to grow fat.

  The other had never looked in a book;
    His patients gave him no trouble—
  If they recovered they paid him well,
    If they died their heirs paid double.

  Together they looked at the royal tongue,
    As the King on his couch reclined;
  In succession they thumped his august chest,
    But no trace of disease could find.

  The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
    "Hang him up!" roared the King in a gale,—
  In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
    The other leech grew a shade pale;

  But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
    And thus his prescription ran,—
  The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
    In the Shirt of a Happy Man.

  Fytte the Second:  tells of the search for the Shirt, and how
  it was nigh found, but was not, for reasons which are said or sung.

  Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
    And fast their horses ran,
  And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
    But they found no Happy Man.

  They found poor men who would fain be rich
    And rich who thought they were poor;
  And men who twisted their waists in stays,
    And women that shorthose wore.

  They saw two men by the roadside sit,
    And both bemoaned their lot;
  For one had buried his wife, he said,
    And the other one had not.

  At last they came to a village gate,
    A beggar lay whistling there;
  He whistled and sang and laughed and rolled
    On the grass in the soft June air.

  The weary couriers paused and looked
    At the scamp so blithe and gay;
  And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!
    You seem to be happy to-day."

  "O yes, fair sirs!" the rascal laughed,
    And his voice rang free and glad,
  "An idle man has so much to do
    That he never has time to be sad."

  "This is our man," the courier said
    "Our luck has led us aright.
  I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
    For the loan of your shirt to-night."

  The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
    And laughed till his face was black;
  "I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun,
    "But I haven't a shirt to my back."

  Fytte the Third:  shewing how His Majesty the King came
  at last to sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt.

  Each day to the King the reports came in
    Of his unsuccessful spies,
  And the sad panorama of human woes
    Passed daily under his eyes.

  And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
    And his maladies hatched in gloom;
  He opened his windows and let the air
    Of the free heaven into his room.

  And out he went in the world and toiled
    In his own appointed way;
  And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
    And the King was well and gay.

  A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
  Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
  "Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

  "I loved,—and, blind with passionate love, I fell.
  Love brought me down to death, and death to Hell.
  For God is just, and death for sin is well.

  "I do not rage against His high decree,
  Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be;
  But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

  "Great Spirit! let me see my love again
  And comfort him one hour, and I were fain
  To pay a thousand years of fire and pain."

  Then said the pitying angel, "Nay, repent
  That wild vow!  Look, the dial-finger's bent
  Down to the last hour of thy punishment!"

  But still she wailed, "I pray thee, let me go!
  I cannot rise to peace and leave him so.
  Oh, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!"

  The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar,
  And upward, joyous, like a rising star,
  She rose and vanished in the ether far.

  But soon adown the dying sunset sailing,
  And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing,
  She fluttered back, with broken-hearted wailing.

  She sobbed, "I found him by the summer sea
  Reclined, his head upon a maiden's knee,—
  She curled his hair and kissed him.  Woe is me!"

  She wept, "Now let my punishment begin!
  I have been fond and foolish.  Let me in
  To expiate my sorrow and my sin."

  The angel answered, "Nay, sad soul, go higher!
  To be deceived in your true heart's desire
  Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire!"

  I stood on the top of Pitz Languard,
    And heard three voices whispering low,
  Where the Alpine birds in their circling ward
    Made swift dark shadows upon the snow.

  First Voice.

  I loved a girl with truth and pain,
    She loved me not.  When she said good-bye
  She gave me a kiss to sting and stain
    My broken life to a rosy dye.

  Second Voice.

  I loved a woman with love well tried,—
    And I swear I believe she loves me still.
  But it was not I who stood by her side
    When she answered the priest and said "I will."

  Third Voice.

  I loved two girls, one fond, one shy,
    And I never divined which one loved me.
  One married, and now, though I can't tell why,
    Of the four in the story I count but three.

  The three weird voices whispered low
    Where the eagles swept in their circling ward;
  But only one shadow scarred the snow
    As I clambered down from Pitz Languard.

  One day in the Tuileries,
  When a south-west Spanish breeze
    Brought scandalous news of the Queen,
  The fair, proud Empress said,
  "My good friend loses her head;
    If matters go on this way,
    I shall see her shopping, some day,
      In the Boulevard des Capucines."

  The saying swiftly went
  To the Place of the Orient,
    And the stout Queen sneered, "Ah, well!
    You are proud and prude, ma belle!
  But I think I will hazard a guess
  I shall see you one day playing chess
    With the Cure of Carabanchel."

  Both ladies, though not over wise,
  Were lucky in prophecies.
    For the Boulevard shopmen well
    Know the form of stout Isabel
      As she buys her modes de Paris;
  And after Sedan in despair
  The Empress prude and fair
  Went to visit Madame sa Mere
    In her villa at Carabanchel—
      But the Queen was not there to see.

  A squad of regular infantry,
    In the Commune's closing days,
  Had captured a crowd of rebels
    By the wall of Pere-la-Chaise.

  There were desperate men, wild women,
    And dark-eyed Amazon girls,
  And one little boy, with a peach-down cheek
    And yellow clustering curls.

  The captain seized the little waif,
    And said, "What dost thou here?"
  "Sapristi, Citizen captain!
    I'm a Communist, my dear!"

  "Very well!  Then you die with the others!"
  —"Very well!  That's my affair;
  But first let me take to my mother,
    Who lives by the wine-shop there,

  "My father's watch.  You see it;
    A gay old thing, is it not?
  It would please the old lady to have it;
    Then I'll come back here, and be shot."

  "That is the last we shall see of him,"
    The grizzled captain grinned,
  As the little man skimmed down the hill
    Like a swallow down the wind.

  For the joy of killing had lost its zest
    In the glut of those awful days,
  And Death writhed, gorged like a greedy snake,
    From the Arch to Pere-la-Chaise.

  But before the last platoon had fired
    The child's shrill voice was heard;
  "Houp-la! the old girl made such a row
    I feared I should break my word."

  Against the bullet-pitted wall
    He took his place with the rest,
  A button was lost from his ragged blouse,
    Which showed his soft white breast.

  "Now blaze away, my children!
    With your little one-two-three!"
  The Chassepots tore the stout young heart,
    And saved Society.

  I'll tell the story, kissing
    This white hand for my pains:
  No sweeter heart, nor falser,
    E'er filled such fine, blue veins.

  I'll sing a song of true love,
    My Lilith, dear! to you;
  Contraria contrariis—
    The rule is old and true.

  The happiest of all lovers
    Was Ernst of Edelsheim;
  And why he was the happiest,
    I'll tell you in my rhyme.

  One summer night he wandered
    Within a lonely glade,
  And, couched in moss and moonlight,
    He found a sleeping maid.

  The stars of midnight sifted
    Above her sands of gold;
  She seemed a slumbering statue,
    So fair and white and cold.

  Fair and white and cold she lay
    Beneath the starry skies;
  Rosy was her waking
    Beneath the Ritter's eyes.

  He won her drowsy fancy,
    He bore her to his towers,
  And swift with love and laughter
    Flew morning's purpled hours.

  But when the thickening sunbeams
    Had drunk the gleaming dew,
  A misty cloud of sorrow
    Swept o'er her eyes' deep blue.

  She hung upon the Ritter's neck,
    She wept with love and pain,
  She showered her sweet, warm kisses
    Like fragrant summer rain.

  "I am no Christian soul," she sobbed,
    As in his arms she lay;
  "I'm half the day a woman,
    A serpent half the day.

  "And when from yonder bell-tower
    Rings out the noonday chime,
  Farewell! farewell for ever,
    Sir Ernst of Edelsheim!"

  "Ah! not farewell for ever!"
    The Ritter wildly cried;
  "I will be saved or lost with thee,
    My lovely Wili-Bride!"

  Loud from the lordly bell-tower
    Rang out the noon of day,
  And from the bower of roses
    A serpent slid away.

  But when the mid-watch moonlight
    Was shimmering through the grove,
  He clasped his bride thrice dowered
    With beauty and with love.

  The happiest of all lovers
    Was Ernst of Edelsheim—
  His true love was a serpent
    Only half the time!

  There was never a castle seen
    So fair as mine in Spain:
  It stands embowered in green,
    Crowning the gentle slope
  Of a hill by the Xenil's shore
  And at eve its shade flaunts o'er
    The storied Vega plain,
  And its towers are hid in the mists of Hope;
    And I toil through years of pain
    Its glimmering gates to gain.

  In visions wild and sweet
  Sometimes its courts I greet:
    Sometimes in joy its shining halls
  I tread with favoured feet;
  But never my eyes in the light of day
    Were blest with its ivied walls,
  Where the marble white and the granite gray
  Turn gold alike when the sunbeams play,
    When the soft day dimly falls.

  I know in its dusky rooms
    Are treasures rich and rare;
  The spoil of Eastern looms,
    And whatever of bright and fair
  Painters divine have caught and won
    From the vault of Italy's air:
  White gods in Phidian stone
    People the haunted glooms;
  And the song of immortal singers
  Like a fragrant memory lingers,
    I know, in the echoing rooms.

  But nothing of these, my soul!
    Nor castle, nor treasures, nor skies,
  Nor the waves of the river that roil
    With a cadence faint and sweet
    In peace by its marble feet—
  Nothing of these is the goal
    For which my whole heart sighs.
  'Tis the pearl gives worth to the shell—
    The pearl I would die to gain;
  For there does my lady dwell,
  My love that I love so well—
    The Queen whose gracious reign
    Makes glad my castle in Spain.

  Her face so pure and fair
    Sheds light in the shady places,
  And the spell of her girlish graces
    Holds charmed the happy air.
  A breath of purity
    For ever before her flies,
  And ill things cease to be
    In the glance of her honest eyes.
  Around her pathway flutter,
    Where her dear feet wander free
    In youth's pure majesty,
    The wings of the vague desires;
  But the thought that love would utter
    In reverence expires.

  Not yet! not yet shall I see
    That face which shines like a star
    O'er my storm-swept life afar,
  Transfigured with love for me.
  Toiling, forgetting, and learning
  With labour and vigils and prayers,
    Pure heart and resolute will,
    At last I shall climb the hill
  And breathe the enchanted airs
  Where the light of my life is burning
    Most lovely and fair and free,
  Where alone in her youth and beauty
  And bound by her fate's sweet duty,
    Unconscious she waits for me.

  She lived shut in by flowers and trees
  And shade of gentle bigotries.
  On this side lay the trackless sea,
  On that the great world's mystery;
  But all unseen and all unguessed
  They could not break upon her rest.
  The world's far splendours gleamed and flashed,
  Afar the wild seas foamed and dashed;
  But in her small, dull Paradise,
  Safe housed from rapture or surprise,
  Nor day nor night had power to fright
  The peace of God that filled her eyes.

  On the bluff of the Little Big-Horn,
    At the close of a woeful day,
  Custer and his Three Hundred
    In death and silence lay.

  Three Hundred to Three Thousand!
    They had bravely fought and bled;
  For such is the will of Congress
    When the White man meets the Red.

  The White men are ten millions,
    The thriftiest under the sun;
  The Reds are fifty thousand,
    And warriors every one.

  So Custer and all his fighting-men
    Lay under the evening skies,
  Staring up at the tranquil heaven
    With wide, accusing eyes.

  And of all that stood at noonday
    In that fiery scorpion ring,
  Miles Keogh's horse at evening
    Was the only living thing.

  Alone from that field of slaughter,
    Where lay the three hundred slain,
  The horse Comanche wandered,
    With Keogh's blood on his mane.

  And Sturgis issued this order,
    Which future times shall read,
  While the love and honour of comrades
    Are the soul of the soldiers creed.

  He said—
            Let the horse Comanche
    Henceforth till he shall die,
  Be kindly cherished and cared for
    By the Seventh Cavalry.

  He shall do no labour; he never shall know
    The touch of spur or rein;
  Nor shall his back be ever crossed
    By living rider again.

  And at regimental formation
    Of the Seventh Cavalry,
  Comanche draped in mourning and led
    By a trooper of Company I,

  Shall parade with the Regiment!
                           Thus it was
    Commanded and thus done,
  By order of General Sturgis, signed
    By Adjutant Garlington.

  Even as the sword of Custer,
    In his disastrous fall,
  Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world
    And glorified his pall,

  This order, issued amid the gloom
    That shrouds our army's name,
  When all foul beasts are free to rend
    And tear its honest fame,

  Shall prove to a callous people
    That the sense of a soldier's worth,
  That the love of comrades, the honour of arms,
    Have not yet perished from earth.

  In the dream of the Northern poets,
    The braves who in battle die
  Fight on in shadowy phalanx
    In the field of the upper sky;
  And as we read the sounding rhyme,
    The reverent fancy hears
  The ghostly ring of the viewless swords
    And the clash of the spectral spears.

  We think with imperious questionings
    Of the brothers whom we have lost,
  And we strive to track in death's mystery
    The flight of each valiant ghost.
  The Northern myth comes back to us,
    And we feel, through our sorrow's night,
  That those young souls are striving still
    Somewhere for the truth and light.

  It was not their time for rest and sleep;
    Their hearts beat high and strong;
  In their fresh veins the blood of youth
    Was singing its hot, sweet song.
  The open heaven bent over them,
    'Mid flowers their lithe feet trod,
  Their lives lay vivid in light, and blest
    By the smiles of women and God.

  Again they come!  Again I hear
    The tread of that goodly band;
  I know the flash of Ellsworth's eye
    And the grasp of his hard, warm hand;
  And Putnam, and Shaw, of the lion-heart,
    And an eye like a Boston girl's;
  And I see the light of heaven which lay
    On Ulric Dahlgren's curls.

  There is no power in the gloom of hell
    To quench those spirits' fire;
  There is no power in the bliss of heaven
    To bid them not aspire;
  But somewhere in the eternal plan
    That strength, that life survive,
  And like the files on Lookout's crest,
    Above death's clouds they strive.

  A chosen corps, they are marching on
    In a wider field than ours;
  Those bright battalions still fulfil
    The scheme of the heavenly powers;
  And high brave thoughts float down to us,
    The echoes of that far fight,
  Like the flash of a distant picket's gun
    Through the shades of the severing night.

  No fear for them!  In our lower field
    Let us keep our arms unstained,
  That at last we be worthy to stand with them
    On the shining heights they've gained.
  We shall meet and greet in closing ranks
    In Time's declining sun,
  When the bugles of God shall sound recall
    And the battle of life be won.

  If Heaven would hear my prayer,
    My dearest wish would be,
  Thy sorrows not to share,
    But take them all on me;
  If Heaven would hear my prayer.

  I'd beg with prayers and sighs
    That never a tear might flow
  From out thy lovely eyes,
    If Heaven might grant it so;
  Mine be the tears and sighs.

  No cloud thy brow should cover,
    But smiles each other chase
  From lips to eyes all over
    Thy sweet and sunny face;
  The clouds my heart should cover.

  That all thy path be light
    Let darkness fall on me;
  If all thy days be bright,
    Mine black as night could be.
  My love would light my night.

  For thou art more than life,
    And if our fate should set
  Life and my love at strife,
    How could I then forget
  I love thee more than life?

  The beauty of the Northern dawns,
    Their pure, pale light is thine;
  Yet all the dreams of tropic nights
    Within thy blue eyes shine.
  Not statelier in their prisoning seas
    The icebergs grandly move,
  But in thy smile is youth and joy,
    And in thy voice is love.

  Thou art like Hecla's crest that stands
    So lonely, proud, and high,
  No earthly thing may come between
    Her summit and the sky.
  The sun in vain may strive to melt
    Her crown of virgin snow—
  But the great heart of the mountain glows
    With deathless fire below.

  Roll on, O shining sun,
    To the far seas!
  Bring down, ye shades of eve,
    The soft, salt breeze!
  Shine out, O stars, and light
  My darling's pathway bright,
  As through the summer night
    She comes to me.

  No beam of any star
    Can match her eyes;
  Her smile the bursting day
    In light outvies.
  Her voice—the sweetest thing
  Heard by the raptured spring
  When waking wild-woods ring—
    She comes to me.

  Ye stars, more swiftly wheel
    O'er earth's still breast;
  More wildly plunge and reel
    In the dim west!
  The earth is lone and lorn,
  Till the glad day be born,
  Till with the happy morn
    She comes to me.

  When April woke the drowsy flowers,
    And vagrant odours thronged the breeze,
  And bluebirds wrangled in the bowers,
    And daisies flashed along the leas,
  And faint arbutus strove among
    Dead winter's leaf-strewn wreck to rise,
  And nature's sweetly jubilant song
    Went murmuring up the sunny skies,
  Into this cheerful world you came,
  And gained by right your vernal name.

  I think the springs have changed of late,
    For "Arctics" are my daily wear,
  The skies are turned to cold grey slate,
    And zephyrs are but draughts of air;
  But you make up whate'er we lack,
    When we, too rarely, come together,
  More potent than the almanac,
    You bring the ideal April weather;
  When you are with us we defy
  The blustering air, the lowering sky;
  In spite of winter's icy darts,
  We've spring and sunshine in our hearts.

  In fine, upon this April day,
    This deep conundrum I will bring:
  Tell me the two good reasons, pray,
    I have, to say you are like spring?

  [You give it up?]  Because we love you—
    And see so very little of you.

  In the dim chamber whence but yesterday
    Passed my beloved, filled with awe I stand;
    And haunting Loves fluttering on every hand
  Whisper her praises who is far away.
  A thousand delicate fancies glance and play
    On every object which her robes have fanned,
    And tenderest thoughts and hopes bloom and expand
  In the sweet memory of her beauty's ray.
  Ah! could that glass but hold the faintest trace
    Of all the loveliness once mirrored there,
    The clustering glory of the shadowy hair
  That framed so well the dear young angel face!
    But no, it shows my own face, full of care,
  And my heart is her beauty's dwelling place.

  I love a woman tenderly,
  But cannot know if she loves me.
  I press her hand, her lips I kiss,
  But still love's full assurance miss.
  Our waking life for ever seems
  Cleft by a veil of doubt and dreams.

  But love and night and sleep combine
  In dreams to make her wholly mine.
  A sure love lights her eyes' deep blue,
  Her hands and lips are warm and true.
  Always the fact unreal seems,
  And truth I find alone in dreams.

  Each shining light above us
    Has its own peculiar grace;
  But every light of heaven
    Is in my darling's face.

  For it is like the sunlight,
    So strong and pure and warm,
  That folds all good and happy things,
    And guards from gloom and harm.

  And it is like the moonlight,
    So holy and so calm;
  The rapt peace of a summer night,
    When soft winds die in balm.

  And it is like the starlight;
    For, love her as I may,
  She dwells still lofty and serene
    In mystery far away.

  I strove, like Israel, with my youth,
    And said, "Till thou bestow
  Upon my life Love's joy and truth,
    I will not let thee go."

  And sudden on my night there woke
    The trouble of the dawn;
  Out of the east the red light broke,
    To broaden on and on.

  And now let death be far or nigh,
    Let fortune gloom or shine,
  I cannot all untimely die,
    For love, for love is mine.

  My days are tuned to finer chords,
    And lit by higher suns;
  Through all my thoughts and all my words
    A purer purpose runs.

  The blank page of my heart grows rife
    With wealth of tender lore;
  Her image, stamped upon my life,
    Gives value evermore.

  She is so noble, firm, and true,
    I drink truth from her eyes,
  As violets gain the heaven's own blue
    In gazing at the skies.

  No matter if my hands attain
    The golden crown or cross;
  Only to love is such a gain
    That losing is not loss.

  And thus whatever fate betide
    Of rapture or of pain,
  If storm or sun the future hide,
    My love is not in vain.

  So only thanks are on my lips;
    And through my love I see
  My earliest dreams, like freighted ships,
    Come sailing home to me.

  When violets were springing
    And sunshine filled the day,
  And happy birds were singing
    The praises of the May,
  A word came to me, blighting
    The beauty of the scene,
  And in my heart was winter,
    Though all the trees were green.

  Now down the blast go sailing
    The dead leaves, brown and sere;
  The forests are bewailing
    The dying of the year;
  A word comes to me, lighting
    With rapture all the air,
  And in my heart is summer,
    Though all the trees are bare.

  My short and happy day is done,
  The long and dreary night comes on;
  And at my door the Pale Horse stands,
  To carry me to unknown lands.

  His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof,
  Sound dreadful as a gathering storm;
  And I must leave this sheltering roof,
  And joys of life so soft and warm.

  Tender and warm the joys of life,—
  Good friends, the faithful and the true;
  My rosy children and my wife,
  So sweet to kiss, so fair to view.

  So sweet to kiss, so fair to view,—
  The night comes down, the lights burn blue;
  And at my door the Pale Horse stands,
  To bear me forth to unknown lands.

           [C. K. Loquitur.]

  I dreamed I was in fair Niphon.
  Amid tea-fields I journeyed on,
  Reclined in my jinrikishaw;
  Across the rolling plains I saw
  The lordly Fusi-yama rise,
  His blue cone lost in bluer skies.

  At last I bade my bearers stop
  Before what seemed a china-shop.
  I roused myself and entered in.
  A fearful joy, like some sweet sin,
  Pierced through my bosom as I gazed,
  Entranced, transported, and amazed.

  For all the house was but one room,
  And in its clear and grateful gloom,
  Filled with all odours strange and strong
  That to the wondrous East belong,
  I saw above, around, below,
  A sight to make the warm heart glow,
  And leave the eager soul no lack,—
  An endless wealth of bric-a-brac.

  I saw bronze statues, old and rare,
  Fashioned by no mere mortal skill,
  With robes that fluttered in the air,
  Blown out by Art's eternal will;
  And delicate ivory netsukes,
  Richer in tone than Cheddar cheese,
  Of saints and hermits, cats and dogs,
  Grim warriors and ecstatic frogs.

  And here and there those wondrous masks,
  More living flesh than sandal-wood,
  Where the full soul in pleasure basks
  And dreams of love, the only good.
  The walls were all with pictures hung:
  Gay villas bright in rain-washed air,
  Trees to whose boughs brown monkeys clung,
  Outlineless dabs of fuzzy hair.
  And all about the opulent shelves
  Littered with porcelain beyond price:
  Imari pots arrayed themselves
  Beside Ming dishes; grain-of-rice
  Vied with the Royal Satsuma,
  Proud of its sallow ivory beam;
  And Kaga's Thousand Hermits lay
  Tranced in some punch-bowl's golden gleam.
  Over bronze censers, black with age,
  The five-clawed dragons strife engage;
  A curled and insolent Dog of Foo
  Sniffs at the smoke aspiring through.

  In what old days, in what far lands,
  What busy brains, what cunning hands,
  With what quaint speech, what alien thought,
  Strange fellow-men these marvels wrought!

  As thus I mused, I was aware
  There grew before my eager eyes
  A little maid too bright and fair,
  Too strangely lovely for surprise.
  It seemed the beauty of the place
  Had suddenly become concrete,
  So full was she of Orient grace,
  From her slant eyes and burnished face
  Down to her little gold-bronzed feet.
  She was a girl of old Japan;
  Her small hand held a gilded fan,
  Which scattered fragrance through the room;
  Her cheek was rich with pallid bloom,
  Her eye was dark with languid fire,
  Her red lips breathed a vague desire;
  Her teeth, of pearl inviolate,
  Sweetly proclaimed her maiden state.
  Her garb was stiff with broidered gold
  Twined with mysterious fold on fold,
  That gave no hint where, hidden well,
  Her dainty form might warmly dwell,—
  A pearl within too large a shell.
  So quaint, so short, so lissome, she,
  It seemed as if it well might be
  Some jocose god, with sportive whirl,
  Had taken up a long lithe girl
  And tied a graceful knot in her.
  I tried to speak, and found, oh, bliss!
  I needed no interpreter;
  I knew the Japanese for kiss,—
  I had no other thought but this;
  And she, with smile and blush divine,
  Kind to my stammering prayer did seem;
  My thought was hers, and hers was mine,
  In the swift logic of my dream.
  My arms clung round her slender waist,
  Through gold and silk the form I traced,
  And glad as rain that follows drouth,
  I kissed and kissed her bright red mouth.

  What ailed the girl?  No loving sigh
  Heaved the round bosom; in her eye
  Trembled no tear; from her dear throat
  Bubbled a sweet and silvery note
  Of girlish laughter, shrill and clear,
  That all the statues seemed to hear.
  The bronzes tinkled laughter fine;
  I heard a chuckle argentine
  Ring from the silver images;
  Even the ivory netsukes
  Uttered in every silent pause
  Dry, bony laughs from tiny jaws;
  The painted monkeys on the wall
  Waked up with chatter impudent;
  Pottery, porcelain, bronze, and all
  Broke out in ghostly merriment,—
  Faint as rain pattering on dry leaves,
  Or cricket's chirp on summer eves.

  And suddenly upon my sight
  There grew a portent:  left and right,
  On every side, as if the air
  Had taken substance then and there,
  In every sort of form and face,
  A throng of tourists filled the place.
  I saw a Frenchman's sneering shrug;
  A German countess, in one hand
  A sky-blue string which held a pug,
  With the other a fiery face she fanned;
  A Yankee with a soft felt hat;
  A Coptic priest from Ararat;
  An English girl with cheeks of rose;
  A Nihilist with Socratic nose;
  Paddy from Cork with baggage light
  And pockets stuffed with dynamite;
  A haughty Southern Readjuster,
  Wrapped in his pride and linen duster;
  Two noisy New York stockbrokers,
  And twenty British globe-trotters.
  To my disgust and vast surprise,
  They turned on me lack-lustre eyes,
  And each with dropped and wagging jaw
  Burst out into a wild guffaw:
  They laughed with huge mouths opened wide;
  They roared till each one held his side;
  They screamed and writhed with brutal glee,
  With fingers rudely stretched to me,—
  Till lo! at once the laughter died,
  The tourists faded into air;
  None but my fair maid lingered there,
  Who stood demurely by my side.
  "Who were your friends?" I asked the maid,
  Taking a tea-cup from its shelf.
  "This audience is disclosed," she said,
  "Whenever a man makes a fool of himself."