I DIDN’T THINK
If all the troubles in the world
Were traced back to their start,
We’d find not one in ten begun
From want of willing heart.
But there’s a sly, woe-working elf
Who lurks about youth’s brink,
And sure dismay he brings alway—
The elf, ‘I didn’t think.’
He seems so sorry when he’s caught;
His mien is all contrite;
He so regrets the woe he wrought,
And wants to make things right.
But wishes do not heal a wound
Or weld a broken link;
The heart aches on, the link is gone,
All through—‘I didn’t
think.’
I half believe that ugly sprite,
Bold, wicked, ‘I don’t care,’
In life’s long run less harm has done
Because he is so rare;
And one can be so stern with him,
Can make the monster shrink;
But, lack a day, what can we say
To whining ‘Didn’t think’?
This most unpleasant imp of strife
Pursues us everywhere.
There’s scarcely one whole day of life
He does not cause us care;
Small woes and great he brings the world,
Strong ships are forced to sink,
And trains from iron track are hurled, alack,
By stupid ‘Didn’t think.’
When brain is comrade to the heart,
And heart from soul draws grace,
‘I didn’t think will quick depart
For lack of resting-place.
If from that great, unselfish stream,
The Golden Rule we drink,
We’ll keep God’s laws, and have no cause
To say ‘I didn’t think.’
A BURIAL
To-day I had a burial of my dead.
There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed—
I only turned a picture to the wall.
A picture that had hung within my room
For years and years; a relic of my youth.
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom
To see those eyes of earnestness and truth.
At hours wherein no other dared intrude,
I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace.
Silent companion of my solitude,
My soul held sweet communion with that face.
I lived again the dream so bright, so brief,
Though wakened as we all are by some Fate;
This picture gave me infinite relief,
And did not leave me wholly desolate.
To-day I saw an item, quite by chance,
That robbed me of my pitiful poor dole:
A marriage notice fell beneath my glance,
And I became a lonely widowed soul.
With drooping eyes, and cheeks a burning flame,
I turned the picture to the blank wall’s
gloom.
My very heart had died in me of shame,
If I had left it smiling in my room.
Another woman’s husband. So, my friend,
My comfort, my sole relic of the past,
I bury thee, and, lonely, seek the end.
Swift age has swept my youth from me at last.
THEIR FACES
O Beautiful white Angels! who control
The inner workings of each poet soul,
Thou who hast touched my mind with tender graces
Come near to me that I may see thy faces.
Me, didst thou bless before I came to earth;
Me, hast thou kissed, and dowered at my birth,
With such a wealth of sweet imaginings,
That, even in sleep, my dreaming fancy sings.
Sometimes when seeing snow-white clouds at noon,
Or watching silver shadows from the moon,
Within my soul has stirred a joy like fear,
As if some kindred spirit lingered near.
Come closer, Angels! thou whose haloed wings
Do gild for me the meanest ways and things,
With beauty borrowed from the Infinite—
Stand forth, let me behold thee in the light.
O thought supreme! O death! O life! unknown
I shall not solve thy mystery alone.
The angels who have kissed me at my birth
Shall take again my soul when done with earth,
And as we soar through vast, star-lighted spaces,
At last, at last I shall behold their faces.
THE LULLABY
When the long day leans to the twilight,
When the Evening star climbs to the moon,
With a heart that is silently breaking,
I sit in the gloaming and croon.
I croon a low song for my darling,
My wee one, my baby, my own;
Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet,
Sleeps out in the churchyard alone.
Alone with no arms to enfold her,
Alone with no pillowing breast,
Alone with no hand on her cradle,
To rock her to soundlier rest.
But each day in the hush of the twilight,
Is silenced my broken heart’s cry;
And I sit where I sat with my darling,
And sing her the old lullaby.
Oh! the dreams that come back to me mocking,
The sorrow that makes the days long;
As I sit in the twilight there rocking,
And singing that lullaby song.
But I think my wee darling rests better
As the night shadows lengthen, and creep
Across her low bed, in the churchyard,
If her mother’s voice sings her to sleep.
And so with a heart that is breaking
I sing the old ‘Lullaby dear’
That hushed her so oft into slumber—
O baby—my own—do you hear?
MIRAGE
When the beautiful mountain ash is turning—
As lovely a sight as the eyes desire;
When the leaves of the sumac bush are burning,
Like the steady flame of a winter fire;
When the weeds by the roadside all grow golden,
When maples are glowing and asters gleam,
It is then that the new is changed to the olden,
And back to my heart comes the past like a
dream.
Like a mirage I see the blue haze o’er me,
The City of Youth that I left behind.
Oh! whitely its turrets are gleaming before me,
And out of the window lean faces kind.
And I hear the echo of jubilant voices;
There are cheeks of beauty and eyes of truth:
And every pulse in my heart rejoices—
There’s no other place like the City of
Youth.
And lo! the City is full of splendour,
And a voice in my soul breaks into song.
Yes, a passionate love, as fair as tender,
Creeps out of the grave where it slept so long.
As the strings of a harp by winds are shaken,
To endless music my heart is stirred,
When my name is breathed and my hand is taken,
Though I cannot utter a single word.
But with souls that are full of the beautiful weather,
And the perfect peace that has no name,
Under the autumn skies together
We stray, by the sumacs all aflame.
And the forest flushes to fuller glory:
Brighter glow asters and golden rod,
As eye unto eye tells the old, old story,
And the sunlight seems like the smile of God.
Alone I stand and sorrowful hearted;
The dead leaves fall in the chilly wind.
The mirage is fled, and the glory departed,
And the City of Youth is far behind.
ALONE IN THE HOUSE
I am all alone in the house to-night;
They would not have gone away
Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight
I have held with my heart to-day.
With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain
I have battled hour by hour;
But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.
Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,
And I yield myself to their power.
Yield myself to the old time charm
Of a dream of vanished bliss,
The thrill of a voice, and the fold of an arm,
And a red lip’s lingering kiss.
It all comes back like a flowing tide;
That brief, but beautiful day.
Though it oft is checked by the dam of pride,
Till the waters flow back to the other side,
To-night it has broken away.
I gave you all that I had to give,
O love, the lavish whole.
And you threw it away, and now I live
A starved and beggared soul.
And I feed on crumbs that memory throws
From her table over-filled,
And I lay awake when others repose,
And slake my thirst when no one knows,
With the wine that she has spilled.
I go my way and I do my part
In the world’s great scene of strife,
But I do it all with an empty heart,
Dead to the best of life.
And ofttimes weary and tempest tossed,
When I am not ruled by pride,
I wish ere the die was throne and lost,
Ere I played for love without counting the cost,
That I, like my heart, had died.
AN OLD BOUQUET
I opened a long closed drawer to-day,
And among the souvenirs stored away
Were the faded leaves of an old bouquet.
Those faded leaves were as white as snow,
With a background of green, to make them show,
When you gave them to me long years ago.
They carried me back in a flash of light
To a perfumed, perfect summer night,
And a rider who came on a steed of white.
I can see it all—how you rode down
Like a knight of old, from the dusty town,
With a passionate glow in your eyes of brown.
Again I stand by the garden gate,
While the golden sun slips low, and wait
And watch your coming, my love, my fate.
Young and handsome and debonair
You leap to my side in the garden there,
And I take your flowers, and call them fair.
Out of the west the glory dies,
As we stand under the sunset skies,
With love in our hearts, and love in our eyes.
Love too tender and love too great
To die with death, or to yield to fate;
But your restless steed tells the hour is late.
You mount him again and you ride away
Into the west that is growing gray.
Oh! turn the key on that dear bouquet.
It is dry and faded and I am old:
And the hand that gave it is green with mould,
And the winter of life is cold—so cold.
AT THE BRIDAL
Oh! but the bride was lovely,
Oh! but the scene was bright,
And why was the bridegroom’s face as pale
As his lady’s robe of white?
Did you not see beside him
A guest unasked, unbid?
Who came up the aisle with silent feet
And gazed at him? he did!
He saw her eyes upon him,
He felt her icy breath;
And under the bride’s warm clinging hand
There crept the touch of death.
And above the low responses
There fell upon his ear
A voice forbidding the nuptial banns;
But no one else could hear.
And when the ring was given,
And when the prayer was said,
He knew, as he led his bride away,
That he was not truly wed.
And while they sat at the banquet,
And mirth flowed like the wine,
A dead girl’s voice hissed in his ear,
‘You are not hers, but mine.’
Oh! never beside his hearthstone,
And never in any place,
Shall he be free from the haunting thought
Of that accusing face.
BEST
In the gruesome night and the wintry weather,
I watched two dear friends die,
And I buried them both in one grave together.
Oh! who is so sad as I?
For the old love, and the old year,
They both have passed away;
And I never can find the old cheer
Come what will or may.
I heard the bell in the tall church steeple
Clang out a joyful strain.
And I thought, ‘Of all the great world’s people,
I have the bitterest pain.’
For the old year was a good year,
And the old love was sweet;
And how could my heart hold any cheer
When both lay dead at my feet.
Life may smile and the skies may brighten,
Winter will pass with its snows;
Grief will wane and the burden lighten—
And June will come with the rose.
But it cannot bring the old cheer
To fill my empty breast;
For the old year was the one year,
And the old love was best.