Spider-webs in Verse: A Collection of Lyrics for Leisure Moments, Spun at Idle Hours

Oh, my heart grows weak and faint,

And it sighs in sad complaint

As it dreams its dreams of woe

Of the silent long ago.

And a pain is at my heart,

Not alone for wisdom’s lore,

For ’twas pierced by sorrow’s dart

In those happy days of yore.

What strange tale could this be I was listening to? I turned to the second weaver of words to mournful melody, and caught the same spirit in these similar words.—

I’d have read that revelation

Traced by our Creator’s hand

Over all our glorious planet,

In the sky and sea and land.

High and bright the lamp of knowledge

Shone for all who’d seek its light;

Ah, how oft I scorned to seek it

In the glare of pleasures bright!

Oft upon the dreary mountain

Have my weary footsteps strayed:—

But ’tis not for wisdom only

That my vain regrets are made.

So! what a train of unutterable sadness the last words of each called up, suggesting some strange sorrow that must force itself into expression of sorrowing strains of music, tuned to even sadder words. Ah yes! to the first, listen!—

She was like a radiant rose

That with sweetness overflows.

Her bright eyes were darkest blue

And her hair a golden hue.

She was lovely as the day,

And within her breast she bore

Heart as light and bright and gay

As those happy days of yore.

Breathlessly I turned to the cadence of the other.—

In those days of idle dreaming,

Ere life’s toils I’d entered in,

Fancy framed for me an image

Of the one I’d woo and win.

It was in an idle romance

My ideal played a part;

But that image, framed in fancy,

Soon was graven on my heart,

And I said, “That maiden only

Of my ideal’s charms complete

Shall have power to lead me captive

And to bring me to her feet.”

Ah, ’tis the old, old story that ever sings itself in the human heart, the story of love. But can it be these spiders are human that they should thus weave their gold-enlighted words to silver chords of harmony?

Once more!—To the first rhythmic weaver, a pleasing recollection.—

We were playmates, she and I,

In that happy time gone by:

Oft we’d walk the meadows over

Hunting for the four-leaved clover

As we’d seen the lovers do;

We the woods would oft explore

Where the fragrant flowers grew

In those happy days of yore.

And then to the second, the same image, lifting upward and away, above the clover-blooms and forest-flowers of sweet memory, comes like the peace of a benediction; and the words weave to quicker though to still sad notes.—

Time passed on and boyish fancies

Were by youth’s bright hopes replaced;

Gay companions were around me,—

Every pleasure we embraced.

And among those friends and schoolmates,

There was one surpassing fair:

Light her heart and light her footstep,

Blue her eyes and gold her hair.

Then her pure and gentle spirit

Shone abroad like smiles from heaven.—

Ah, such divine gifts of beauty

Seldom are to mortals given.

The first one had now finished two pages; the second, three. How much more they would weave I neither knew nor thought. I was too much fascinated by the weirdness and reality of it all to think of anything but the two stories that were being thus wonderfully—thus psychologically though not supernaturally—revealed to me in beauty by ugly spiders that wrought together; each, I knew, unconscious of the other. This fact of each being unconscious of the words, thoughts, and music of the other, and the fact that the web of one was woven into characters to represent my handwriting, while that of the other was the illuminated work of my old chum, gave the two songs an interest that no one else can even approach. No, not even if the same situation should present itself to him, and the spiders should be actually before him, as their work, robbed of all these fascinating features, now is.

Both now wove more and more rapidly, and it was only when the first had woven the following whole page of manuscript that I turned to the other.—

Oft when twilight slowly crept

Over hill and vale that slept,

We would wander side by side

In the golden eventide

By the school-house on the hill

Where so oft we’d been before,

Or beside the water-mill

In those happy days of yore.

Oh those days,—sweet, happy days!

Ever round my mind there plays

Fitful Fancy’s dear delight,

Bringing back the time so bright

When we wandered hand in hand

To the little country store,

And the mystic future planned

In those happy days of yore.

New years came as old ones went;

Childhood’s years at last were spent;

We from friends to lovers grew

And nor pain nor sorrow knew.

Oh how fondly did I dream

Folding close my fond Lenore

As we sailed adown life’s stream

In those happy days of yore!

Here the sad-voiced dreamer paused a moment, then glided to the top of the page and waited for me to remove the leaf, while I read and half aloud chanted from the illuminated page of the other this master-melody:—

When she came, ’twas like the sunbeam

Shedding gladness o’er the lea;

When she’d gone, ’twas like the ceasing

Of enchanting melody.

Oft when daily tasks were over,

She and I together strolled

From the hamlet to the seaside

Where the restless billows rolled.

Hours and hours we’d wander, gathering

Treasures from the shifting sand

As each ebbing tide receding

Left its wonders on the strand.

Long we’d watch the stately vessels

Riding proudly o’er the foam,

Some for distant countries steering,

Some returning—bound for home.

Then we’d seek the peaceful harbor

Where our little sail-boat lay,

And while skimming o’er the waters

Laugh and sing the hours away.

Then at twilight, when all nature

Save the sea was hushed and still,

We would turn our footsteps homeward

To the hamlet on the hill.

So pleasing was this recollection that I could not yet turn away, but listened rather than read, as the musician continued on the next page; for he had finished this, and the harmony continued unbroken.

And that image framed in boyhood

Of the one I’d woo and win,

Ah, my ideal!—I had found her

In my darling Evylyn.

But the dim, uncertain future!—

Oh that we could raise the veil

And by gazing down the valley

Know what fortune would prevail;

Whether joy or blinding sorrow,

Gladness or unending woe,

Should forever be our portion

While we linger here below.

Two short summers I had known her,

Years that seemed like one bright day;

But at last the spell was broken,

And my gladness fled away:

Duty called me from that hamlet

Where youth’s happy days were spent

Out into the great, free, wide world,

And with brightest hopes I went.

Ah, that parting by the seaside

One bright evening in the spring

By the dear old friendly ocean—

There I gave the engagement ring.

Just here a sharp pain in my right forefinger interrupted the music, and reminded me that I had not removed the completed page of the first harmony-breathing minstrel. I immediately did so, and at once the billows of subdued music swept through the room to the perfect time of the weaver’s words in portentous minstrelsy.—

In the bright and merry spring,

Then I gave the engagement ring;

And in sweet and holy bliss

Sealed our vow with Love’s own kiss.

Heart and hope and thought were one

As we walked as heretofore

Where the brooklet used to run

In those happy days of yore.

But the future none can tell

And, or weal or woe, ’tis well;

For, if it were otherwise,

When the mystic veil should rise

And reveal what is to come,

Happiness would be no more;—

Hearts would call to hearts but dumb

In those happy days of yore.

Could we gaze on life’s emprise,

Frozen tears would dim our eyes;

Rippling laughs on lips would freeze

As the future’s death-cold breeze

Chilled the life of loving hearts;

Happy days would come no more,

And we’d sigh with fitful starts

For those happy days of yore.

Here I noticed the striking difference (the only difference throughout the two poems) between the wishes of the two, both passionately and beautifully put, and paused a moment to grasp the full meaning. But only a moment, for I was too interested in this enchanting symphony to wait longer. Already the poet in spider’s form that was the more delicate, beautiful, and pathetic was continuing.—

In a distant western city

Far away from that loved spot,

I began the strife in earnest,

Not complaining of my lot;

For in two years from our parting

I’d return and claim my own.

So I worked and dreamed and waited,

Cheered by that one thought alone.

Fortune smiled on my endeavors,

And each week a message brought

From that one beside the seashore

Who was ever in my thought.

But at last the darkness gathered,—

Clouds as dark as Ethiop’s land.

One dark day there came a letter

Written by a stranger’s hand.

Evylyn, it said, was drooping,

Drooping, fading very fast;

Though she would admit no danger,

Her short life would soon be past.

Many months, the message stated,

She had faded day by day;

Yet to me each cherished letter

Had been cheerful, bright, and gay.

I found myself so in sympathy with the two spiders—or poets and musicians, rather, in spider form—that I pitied them deeply, and—shall I say?—loved them. The first melodist continued more mournfully, and to slower, sad, and muffled music.—

All the spring and summer long

Did I list the seraph-song.

But when autumn came around

With a sighing, mournful sound,

My sweet blossom faded fast;

And my radiant, fond Lenore

Yielded to the chilling blast

In those autumn days of yore!

As the flowers fade and die

’Neath the cold and cloudless sky,

So my Darling drooped and died!

And my dear intended bride

With a long and last farewell

Crossed the silent waters o’er

While we tolled her funeral knell

In those parting days of yore!

In the deepest dearth of night

When the starry dome was bright,

Came the angels round her bed;

And they numbered with the dead

My angelic, radiant Love

Whom the seraphs named Lenore,

Wafting here away above,—

Saddest, saddest days of yore!

I am not a man who easily gives way to feeling; but the plaintiveness of the music and the mournfulness of the simple words made me forget the mysterious bard that was weaving this tale of pathos, and I bowed my head in sorrow, with my heart full of pity and love for both the afflicted and the noble-hearted sweet departed. As I did so, the threnodic notes, as if dying away in the echoing distance of the blue dome above, thus came from the heart of the other minne-singer.—

With an aching heart I started

For her home beside the sea,

Once again to see my Darling

Ere Death snatched his prize from me.

But a cruel fate hung o’er me;

Ere I reached that eastern home,

Her angelic soul was wafted

Far beyond the starlit dome.

Through the distant shining portals,

Breathing of eternal love,

Passed my Evylyn, my treasure,

To the brighter world above.

Surely, surely, I thought, these breathers of harmony cannot be ugly spiders. They are too human—or shall I say too divine?—for that. I had been so absorbed in the two songs that, strange perhaps to say, though I think not, I had scarcely noticed the spiders themselves nor their illuminated web-woven words. I felt now that the songs were nearly ended; and through tear-dimmed eyes, I looked once more at the page on my desk. How strangely brighter the light seemed to be, yet so softer!

Could it be possible! Wasn’t this, after all, some dream?—I dashed the tears from my eyes with my left hand.—No, I was wide awake. No doubt about that. There, too, that light from the words was even brighter than when it was seen through my tears.

Surely, surely, these were not spiders; but spirits, rather, in this disguise. As this thought flew through my brain, I removed the fifth finished page of manuscript, when lo! I almost screamed for mercy that no more revelations be made to me. For the spider glided to the top of the new page, and as he did so, I saw and marveled how much smaller he had grown, as if he had spun his whole body away in his glowing web. But still stranger transformation: All about him, like a spirit embodying the body, was a dim halo of light, such as a star often forms of the mists, that doubtless had been forming from the first although I had not noticed it, having been too absorbed in the songs themselves.

As I looked steadily, transfixed by this new revelation, I saw that haloing light, as true as I live, shape itself in a half human form; and like a light-enhaloed star moving across the scroll of the Almighty in spheric music set to angel words, this transformed being of light trembled across the page before me and trailed these gold-enlighted words through the solemn rhythm of the olden melody.—

By the babbling little brook,

In a quiet, shaded nook,

Sleeps my loved and lost one now.

Over pallid lip and brow

Grow the scented flowers wild

Bright as when I wandered o’er

This same spot when but a child

In those happy days of yore.

Many years have come and gone

Since that face I’ve looked upon;

Many weary paths I’ve trod

Since we laid her ’neath the sod.

Still I wander, sad and lone;

Still my heart is grieved and sore,

For she sleeps beneath the stone

Since those happy days of yore.

Thoughts of the dead always affect me beyond expression. The thought of the death of this darling girl, glorious in her own true heart, I can but feel, and glorified even more by the unfailing constancy and eternal love of him who, grown old and gray, still keeps her ever in his heart, so affected me that my own heart seemed almost broken. I could endure no more, and turned away. But as I did so,—O sweet angels of mercy! was there no escape?—there the other heaven-gifted musician, spirit-embodied, halo-enshrouded like the first, met my eyes, and I was forced against my will to listen to the most plaintive, most pathetic melody that had yet grieved my heart.—

In a grave down by the seashore,

She was laid by loving hands

Where old ocean sings a requiem

Evermore upon the sands.

There the summer tide is flowing

As I stand upon the shore,

And it calls up sacred mem’ries

Of the happy times of yore.

Fragments of a wreck are drifting

On the surface of a wave—

Emblem of my hopes and prospects,

Wrecked, and lying in her grave.

Many weary years have vanished,

Years of wand’ring, sad and lone,

Since that pure angelic spirit

Joined the seraphs round the throne.

O’er her grave beside the ocean,

Lovingly the stars still shine,

While the tide’s wild song of gladness

Seems to bear her voice divine.

Oft in dreams I see my lost one,

Hear her voice as soft and low

As a strain of far-off music;—

But the dawn brings back my woe.

Bowed with unutterable grief,—grief that was so severe that it choked back every tear into my heart,—I buried my head in my arms to shut out both sight and sound, and wept as tearless grief alone can weep. The angel-images of the two that had gone Home, forever to await the happier marriage in eternal union there, I saw looking down compassionately, while the two mourners left behind were constantly reaching upwards toward those loved ones beyond their ken in the dim unknown, and sometimes almost touching the finger-tips of the hands unseen! Yes; and the music! I heard it over, and over, and over again, sometimes near, sometimes far, always sweet and tremulous, sometimes sounding in my ear, sometimes dying away and echoing back from the dome of that Home above.

When again my fevered eyes looked upon the page, I wondered if it could be that these embodiments of both verse and music could be changing so rapidly, or if the change had been going on constantly without my notice. Both transformed—I know not now what to call them—had now become so small that I could scarcely distinguish their bodies through the spirit-like halo. And that halo every moment grew more and more human—no, not human; but, though an embodying spirit, it grew more and more like a disembodied human soul. Less and less visible became the body of each, more and more like a human soul became the halo of each as the first wove itself away into the final web.—

Oh, my heart is sad and lone

And it sighs with heaving groan

As it dreams its dreams of woe

Of the silent long ago.

But I’ve reached the river’s brink;

Soon I’ll dip the golden oar,

And beneath the waves will sink

All those happy days of yore.

Soon I’ll greet my bright Lenore

Where we’ll meet to part no more;

Soon I’ll reach the golden sands

Where I’ll clasp her angel hands;

Soon I’ll kiss her seraph brow

On that bright angelic shore,

Where I’ll dream no more, as now,

Of those happy days of yore.

The two spirits, thus transforming, were passing away, slipping, slipping away from me back into the mysteriousness whence they came, I felt, as both moved across the page to dirge-like yet a kind of happy and hope-inspiring music. The music of each was so blended with that of the other that I could scarcely distinguish the words of the two as the second soul-dreamer mused through the melody.—

Lost! ah lost!—But not forever:

I have reached the golden strand;

Soon beyond the crystal ocean

We will wander hand in hand;

Soon across the deep, dark waters

I will go to claim my own

From among the shining angels,

Where she waits for me alone.

We will part no more forever

Underneath that heavenly dome;

Love and joy shall reign together

In that bright eternal home.

But look—look!—there, there just before you. See! see it struggling to rise away. Oh, what wonderful transformation can this be!

As both neared the close, their bodies grew imperceptible, the web-woven words more and more brightly illuminated, and the haloing spirit larger, and larger, more and more distinct, yet more and more attenuated, until—no, no! it—but yes! I must believe it, must believe my eyes!—each took on the form of an angel! As the last word of each was woven, simultaneously, and as the low, faint, plaintive echoes of the music went trembling through the blue distance that still trembles in unison with the hearts of millions, the two meistersingers, perfect in angel form with a rarer beauty than I ever saw before, the rarest beauty I ever expect to see, shone radiantly in the night for a moment, like a glory struck out of darkness by a beam from heaven, and vanished like that glory passing out of darkness into heaven again. With my eyes following these disembodied embodiments of Beauty, and my palms out-reaching toward them, thus I sat until, when their passing glory at the same time closed the portals through which they vanished and gave the keys to memory, my nerves relaxed, the intense mingled pain and rapture, which had never ceased, seemed to snap my very heart-chords, and consciousness slid like lead into the lethean flow of the river of oblivion.

How long I sat there, drowned in unrefreshing forgetfulness allied to sleep, I have no recollection, and no possible means of knowing. When again I opened my eyes, the morning was far spent. There was a dull pain in my head, but the circumstances I have just related were all so vivid that the whole scene instantly flashed across my mind. I thought surely it must be a dream. Could it be? I was sitting in my night-dress. I got up from my chair and went to my bed-room. There was my bed, just as I had left it when I rose to follow the strange spirit that controlled me. I went to the wall where I had seen the spider. True enough, there was the thread, but no longer illuminated, just where I had seen it. I put my hand to my forehead as one often does in wondering. When I removed it, there, clinging to my forefinger, was the web that had clung to my forehead. No, I had not been asleep and dreamed all this; that was plain enough. I returned to my chair. There on my desk, as I involuntarily glanced at the well-remembered spot, I saw a still more remarkable confirmation of my having been awake; for there lay the whole poem that I had seen woven by the first spirit, as perfect in every way as if it had been written by human hand. But the characters were no longer illuminated. They had burnt into the paper, and were as black as my own ink. They were all made out, too, in my own style of handwriting, though I declare and affirm to all the world that never before this occurrence had I written one line of poetry. Perhaps it would have been better for me and for you if I had stopped with this—palmed it off as my own on account of the similarity of handwriting; and if I had never trifled with the tricks of the muses thereafter.

I looked on my desk for the other poem, but alas! it could not be found; for, as I have said before, it was only psychologically present to me, while it was really present to some one else. In a few days I had the most remarkable confirmation of this—even more remarkable than what I have related in the preceding.

By the very next mail (I was teaching in the country and got my mail but once a week, on Saturday) I received a letter from my old chum, dated May 8, 1885. As I opened it, behold! that identical poem that I had in my mind seen wrought by the second spirit of beauty fell on my table. In a letter of sixteen quarto pages, he told one substantially the same experience of himself with two spirit-singers—one of them present, the other psychologically present, each unconscious of the other, yet each influencing the other in some indefinable way—as I have here related.

In speaking of the vanishing of the two spirit-forms, he wrote:—

“I firmly believe those two spirits were none other than the angel-forms of the two maidens the poems celebrate; that they have woven their spirits of beauty into these two embodiments of verse that we mortals may be the better for it; and that, when they vanished, they entered these two poems, where they still abide.”

Strange, but this is the same thought that I had had, and still do have. I most sincerely believe it is the only correct conclusion, though I cannot solve the mysteries that are connected with it. Indeed, it would be sacrilege to attempt it.

I still have these original manuscripts that were thus mysteriously wrought. They are lying here on the desk before me as I write; and as I glance across this page at them, the whole scene of that memorable night, more vivid, far, far more vivid than my pen has delineated it for you, comes flashing across my brain. In this quick, bright light of memory, reason marshals the long line of causes that produced this psychological phenomenon; I follow the approaching lines with my mind’s eye, until I am lost in the dim distance of their vanishing perspective, then return, follow again, only to lose myself in the same unfathomable mystery, and so again and again. Though I know some of the causes that produced it, I cannot reach the hidden ones. I could almost fancy still that I had dreamed all this did not these original manuscripts before me constantly remind me of the reality of what I have here set down. They are free for the inspection of all who wish to verify the facts I have related.

I challenge the world to produce two such similar poems, good, bad, or indifferent, written under such remarkable circumstances.

The events I have here recorded are the events of my boyhood, or early manhood, rather, faithfully told. I have long hesitated to publish them for fear that there might be a few in these days of fiction who would doubt their reality. But what makes them a hundredfold more wonderful to me is the truth of all their seemingly impossible facts.

My friend, you think this a strange, strange story, I know. Indeed, I think so too; far more strange to me than to you, for I have felt the truth of it and you have only read it. As true as these two poems exist, the circumstances under which they were written are far, far more strange to me than I can possibly make the story; far, far more strange to me than the weirdest, most wonderful story pen can write.

I have therefore published this account of an incident of my life that it may please some with the strange facts that they will take for mere fancy; that it may waken some to the knowledge that in our most rational moments we are by no means independent, our minds are by no means our own, but are influenced by circumstances, by the psychological action of the minds of our most intimate friends, and by the spiritual power within us and at the same time above us; that it may teach others that out of the most despised creatures of God’s making and care, the Soul of Beauty may come and wed itself to Use by weaving its life into an angel-image of Love that shall dwell in the human heart forever.

BOY BARDS.
TO E. L. H.

Together we thought,

Together we wrought;

And ever and ever

The golden days were fraught

With the light and life of Time

That dripped like dews

From the heart of our Muse

Between the buds of rhyme.

Oh never, no never

Such rainbow colors were caught

From the dripping clouds in pain—

So sweet distraught

With the iris wrought

Of the mingled shine and rain.

Oh never, no never

Such scent in the summer was caught

From the morning-glory’s bloom

Where the humming-bird

Has gently stirred

The leaves by the open room.

THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH.

I.
FROM SUN TO SUN.

From sun to sun

Till life is done

We still aspire,

Still have some wish not gratified;

With every breath—

E’en unto death—

We still reach higher,

Our hearts are still unsatisfied.

II.
WHAT THE STRIVING?

What means this striving,

This toil, this endless labor,

This bargaining with our neighbor,

This too fast living,

This wishing, this longing,

This constant thronging

Of thoughts of—what?

Gods! I know not!—

What means it all,

Philosopher,

This rise and fall,

This hope and fear,

This constant changing station

Of every man and nation,

Or rich

Or poor,

With koh-i-noor

Or bacon flitch,

Still envying some other,

Still striving ’gainst some brother

And justling

And hustling

And rushing

And pushing

As by a mighty cyclone hurled

Headlong midway the narrow world,

And as it were

Made all too small

For half to gyrate in,

Or even half begin—

What means it all,

Philosopher?

The rich, the poor,

The high, the low,

The good, the bad,

(And who can tell?)

Keep bickering

And dickering

And chaffering

On everything

They buy and sell

For more and more

Of earth, as though

Gone staring mad.

Whether the cause

Be unequal laws

Of God, or man, or neither one, or both,

Activity o’ermatching tardy sloth,

Some must rise and some must fall

In the strife of all for all.

III.
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH OURS.

That there should be unjust division

Of wealth and life and station

Needs, calm, deliberate decision

Of every man and nation.

The world is too much ours,

And we too much of it.

The times are out of joint;

The heart is out of tune,

And needs the Master’s hand.

Like churlish curs we stand

And guard our little own,

And watch Death’s finger point

To Woes, while Pleasures sit

And glass the glossing hours.

Like demons, too, we rave

Because our neighbors have

One jot or tittle more than we;

And curse ourselves as slaves

Dumb driven to our graves

Fast bound from light of liberty.

The remedy lies not in force,

Nor in the frenzy of the hour

Engendered by the unreasoning mob.

’Tis in a nobler, gentler course

Of a higher, nobler power

New-born at every true heart-throb.

IV.
HAND AND HEART.

No vain philosophy,

That flows from ailing springs of earth

Can cure the cankered ills of mortal clay.

No, naught save that eternal fountain’s spray

That gives the heart immortal birth

Can heal humanity.

In every heart at birth

That fountain bubbles up

To purify this earth

With life and love and hope.

But in the hearts of all,

Ere life is scarce begun,

Some clay of earth must fall

To dim the mirrored sun.

True, all (’tis law) must labor;

But with the hand alone?

And that against a neighbor,

His heart our stepping stone?

Nay, with the hand and heart, the rather;

For each who climbs above

Must reach the door of Him our Father

On stepping-stones of love.

V.
COURTING THE CROWD.

Our wrongs we make that make us wrong:

We court the crowd; we tickle the public ear;

The crowd laughs, and we laugh with it always; we’re

Mere puppets dandled by the throng.

We jingle our laughter,—

The world follows after

As if it were money;

We bow in our sorrow,—

The world bids “good-morrow,”

Hey-nonny hey-nonny.

We praise and we flatter,—

The world with a clatter

Comes after the honey;

We ask when we’re needy,—

The world is too greedy,

Hey-nonny hey-nonny.

We’re loved while we’re living

If always we’re giving

The world something funny;

But dead, there’s erected,

A stone,—then neglected,

Hey-nonny hey-nonny.

So, so! the world is all a cheat

And yet we worship at its feet.

Deceived by dross of gold and gloss of art,

We too much court the hand and not the heart.

VI.
IMMORTAL AND GOD-GIVEN.

Sowing and reaping,

Glutting our greed,

Getting and keeping,

What do we need?

World ever spinning,

World never slack,

World ever winning,

What does it lack?

—What?

What not?—

—The greatest thing on earth,

The greatest, too, in heaven above,

The greatest good of greatest worth,

Immortal and God-given,—

Love!

Love that bids no stricken soul depart

With honeyed, sweet “good-morrow”;

Love that binds and balms the wounded heart

And sorrows, too, with sorrow.

Love that loves in field or shop or kirk,

Unselfish and ungreedy;

Love that teaches toilless hands to work,

And leaves no mortal needy.

Love that ne’er forgets a heart that sleeps,

Nor leaves its tomb neglected;

Love that laughs and weeps and ever keeps

The throne of Love erected.

VII.
ASKING HEARTS.

This pushing,

This driving,

This rushing,

This too fast living

Is an endless striving

Resulting from unsatisfied desire:

No peace, no rest,

An endless quest,

Forever reaching up for something higher,—

For the world is good by nature,

And though debased, still looks above.

(The heathen even hopes beyond this earth.)

Stamped in every line and feature,

There is the image still of Love,

Sweet Love, fast-graven in the heart at birth.

Our lives-long our asking hearts keep fretting:

We beat the tangles of the world’s wide wild-wood,

Remorsefully and endlessly regretting

The loss of that sweet innocence of childhood.

The world is like us.—We are it!

Time-long the noisy nations of the earth

Have searched, and only found regret

At the loss of Love the child-world had at birth.

And so, we strive, and strive,—we know not why.

And not attaining what the heart would have,

We set the hand to work; we sweat and slave;

Allured by lights around earth’s narrow zone

That, followed, fly, we follow on and on;

For fame and wealth and power we barter away

Our lives; we would be gods: but mortal clay

Still clings about our feet, still drags us down,

And fetters us to earth without a crown.

And so, still unattaining all through life,

We follow still the bootless, mortal strife,

And laugh, and weep, and flatter, and fret, and—die!—

Die still unsatisfied,

Some wish not gratified!

VIII.
THE CROWNING GLORY.

Labor night and day

Howsoe’er we may

And toil

And moil

With ceaseless sweating,

Forever fretting,

Still coping

In endless strife

And hoping

An easier life,

Yet with it all

Result must fall

Far short of aspiration.

’Tis the great Law of laws,

Nor far to seek the cause;

For in our heart of hearts we know

The Law of Life must needs be so

That man may climb

Through changing time

Above this clod

Of mouldy mortal earth

Back unto God,

His home of love at birth,

And find in endless life

Above

The crown of all our strife

Is Love,

—The crown of all creation.

Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious spelling, punctuation and printers’ errors haven been silently corrected.
2. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.
3. Hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been kept as in the original.

Spider-webs in Verse: A Collection of Lyrics for Leisure Moments, Spun at Idle Hours

About This Book

BOY BARDS. TO E. L. H.

THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH.

I. FROM SUN TO SUN.

II. WHAT THE STRIVING?

III. THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH OURS.

IV. HAND AND HEART.

V. COURTING THE CROWD.

VI. IMMORTAL AND GOD-GIVEN.

VII. ASKING HEARTS.

VIII. THE CROWNING GLORY.

BOY BARDS.
TO E. L. H.

I.
FROM SUN TO SUN.

II.
WHAT THE STRIVING?

III.
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH OURS.

IV.
HAND AND HEART.

V.
COURTING THE CROWD.

VI.
IMMORTAL AND GOD-GIVEN.

VII.
ASKING HEARTS.

VIII.
THE CROWNING GLORY.