Betrayal

A white bird is the big sky.
Under it a cowering city stares.
The houses are half-dead old people.
A gaunt carriage-horse gapes grumpily.
Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly.
Their skins squeel on sharp corners.
In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you -
If only I could find you...
A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively.
Three little people play blind man's bluff -
A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands
Of afternoon over everything.

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ’scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,
And if no other misery, yet age!

Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such
As what he loves may never like too much.

Get up, get up for shame, the blooming Morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air;
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,
Above an hour since; yet you not drest,
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns, 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation, to keep in,
Whenas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

Rise; and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green;
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown, or hair;
Fear not, the leaves will strew
Gems in abunda...

A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.

The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages.
It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal.


I

Peace-of-the-Heart, my own for long,
Whose shining hair the May-winds fan,
Making it tangled as they can,
A mystery still, star-shining yet,
Through ancient ages known to me
And now once more reborn with me: -

This is the tale of the Tiger Tree
A hundred times the height of a man,
Lord of the race since the world began.

This is my city Springfield,
My home on the breast of the plain.
The state house towers to heaven,
By an ars...

Noëra, when sad Fall
Has grayed the fallow;
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl
In pool and shallow;
When, by the woodside, tall
Stands sere the mallow.

Noëra, when gray gold
And golden gray
The crackling hollows fold
By every way,
Shall I thy face behold,
Dear bit of May?

When webs are cribs for dew,
And gossamers
Streak by you, silver-blue;
When silence stirs
One leaf, of rusty hue,
Among the burrs:

Noëra, through the wood,
Or through the grain,
Come, with the hoiden mood
Of wind and rain
Fresh in thy sunny blood,
Sweetheart, again.

Noëra, when the corn,
Reaped on the fields,
The asters' stars adorn;
And purple shields
Of ironweeds lie torn
Among the wealds:

N...

Not always as you see us now,
    Have we been used to weep and sigh,
We too have grasped the sword, I trow,
    And seen astonished foemen fly!

We too have rushed into the fray,
    For our Belief the battle braved,
And through the spears have fought our way,
    And high the flag of vict'ry waved.

But generations go and come,
    And suns arise and set in tears,
And we are weakened now and dumb,
    Foregone the might of ancient years.

In exile where the wicked reign,
Our courage and our pride expired,
But e'en today each throbbing vein
    With Asmonean blood is fired.

Tho' cruel hands with mighty flail
    Have threshed us, yet we have not blenched:
The sea of blood could naught prevail,
    That fire is burning, stil...

I do not love my Empire’s foes,
Nor call ’em angels; still,
What is the sense of ’atin’ those
’Oom you are paid to kill?
So, barrin’ all that foreign lot
Which only joined for spite,
Myself, I’d just as soon as not
Respect the man I fight.
Ah there, Piet!, ’is trousies to ’is knees,
’Is coat-tails lyin’ level in the bullet-sprinkled breeze;
’E does not lose ’is rifle an’ ’e does not lose ’is seat,
I’ve known a lot o’ people ride a dam’ sight worse than Piet.

I’ve ’eard ’im cryin’ from the ground
Like Abel’s blood of old,
An’ skirmished out to look, an’ found
The beggar nearly cold.
I’ve waited on till ’e was dead
(Which couldn’t ’elp ’im much),
But many grateful things ’e ’s said
To me for doin’ such.
Ah there, Piet! whose time ’as co...

I.

O the hills of old Lincoln!--I can see them to-day
As they stretch in dim distance far, far away,
And on Fancy's swift pinions my spirit hath flown
To rest 'mid the scenes which my childhood has known--
Where the old Hanging Fork, with its silvery gleam,
Glides away 'tween the meadows like thoughts in a dream,
And far to the south, with their outlines so blue,
The rugged knobs blend into heaven's own hue!


II.

O the hills of old Lincoln!--how fondly I gaze
On their wildwoods and thickets and deep-tangled ways
When memory's mirror presents them to view,
And I dream once again that I tread them anew,
While raptured I listen to the music of love
That the song-birds are singing in the tree-tops above,
And the soul drifts away in a swoon o...

A Whirl-Blast from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;
Then, all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
And all the year the bower is green.
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze, no breath of air,
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there,
And all those leaves...

Oh! form'd to prompt the smile or tear,
At once so sweet, yet so severe!
As much for you as him I grieve;
Ah! thoughtless! if you thus can leave
A mind with wit and learning bright,
Where Temper sheds its cloudless light;
Where manly honour, taste refin'd,
With ev'ry virtue, are combin'd;
If you can quit a heart so true,
Which has so often throbb'd for you,
I'll pity, tho' I can't reprove;
And did I, such is Florio's love,
Eager he'd fly to take thy part,
E'en in a war against his heart.

There is a village in a southern land,
By rounded hills closed in on every hand.
The streets slope steeply to the market-square,
Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair,
With roofs irregular, and steps of stone
Ascending to the front of every one.
The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth,
Live mostly by the tillage of the earth.

Upon the northern hill-top, looking down,
Like some sequestered saint upon the town,
Stands the great convent.

            On a summer night,
Ten years ago, the moon with rising light
Made all the convent towers as clear as day,
While still in deepest shade the village lay.
Both light and shadow with repose were filled,
The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled.
No foot in all the streets was now asti...

Paler than the water's white
Stood the maiden in the shade,
And more silent than the night
Were her lips together laid;

Eyes she hid so long and still
By lids wet with unshed tears,
Hands she loosely clasped at will,
Though her heart was full of fears.

Never, never, never more
May her soul with joy be moved;
Silent, silent, silent, - for
He was silent whom she loved.

From the well-springs of Hudson, the sea-cliffs of Maine,
Grave men, sober matrons, you gather again;
And, with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool,
Play over the old game of going to school.

All your strifes and vexations, your whims and complaints,
(You were not saints yourselves, if the children of saints!)
All your petty self-seekings and rivalries done,
Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one!

How widely soe'er you have strayed from the fold,
Though your "thee" has grown "you," and your drab blue and gold,
To the old friendly speech and the garb's sober form,
Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan, you warm.

But, the first greetings over, you glance round the hall;
Your hearts call the roll, but they answer not all
Through t...

As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the prophet,
And the raiment that was flesh is turned to dust;
Dust and flesh and dust again the likeness of it,
And the fine gold woven and worn of youth is rust.
Hours that wax and wane salute the shade and scoff it,
That it knows not aught it doth nor aught it must:
Day by day the speeding soul makes haste to doff it,
Night by night the pride of life resigns its trust.
Sleep, whose silent notes of song loud life's derange not,
Takes the trust in hand awhile as angels may:
Joy with wings that rest not, grief with wings that range not,
Guard the gates of sleep and waking, gold or grey.
Joys that joys estrange, and griefs that griefs estrange not,
Day that yearns for night, and night that yearns for day,
As a vesture shalt thou ...

Long ago to thee I gave
Body, soul, and all I have---
    Nothing in the world I keep:

All that in return I crave
Is that thou accept the slave
Long ago to thee I gave---
Body, soul, and all I have.

Had I more to share or save,
I would give as give the brave,
    Stooping not to part the heap;
Long ago to thee I gave
Body, soul, and all I have---
    Nothing in the world I keep.

Upon the utmost verge of a high bank,
By craggy rocks environ'd round, we came,
Where woes beneath more cruel yet were stow'd:
And here to shun the horrible excess
Of fetid exhalation, upward cast
From the profound abyss, behind the lid
Of a great monument we stood retir'd,

Whereon this scroll I mark'd: "I have in charge
Pope Anastasius, whom Photinus drew
From the right path.--Ere our descent behooves
We make delay, that somewhat first the sense,
To the dire breath accustom'd, afterward
Regard it not." My master thus; to whom
Answering I spake: "Some compensation find
That the time past not wholly lost." He then:
"Lo! how my thoughts e'en to thy wishes tend!
My son! within these rocks," he thus began,
"Are three close circles in gradation plac'd,

It was when
Whirls of thick waters laved me
Again and again,
That something arose and saved me;
Yea, it was then.

In that day
Unseeing the azure went I
On my way,
And to white winter bent I,
Knowing no May.

Reft of renown,
Under the night clouds beating
Up and down,
In my needfulness greeting
Cit and clown.

Long there had been
Much of a murky colour
In the scene,
Dull prospects meeting duller;
Nought between.

Last, there loomed
A closing-in blind alley,
Though there boomed
A feeble summons to rally
Where it gloomed.

The clock rang;
The hour brought a hand to deliver;
I upsprang,
And looked back at den, ditch and river,
And sang.

Gently, sorrowfully sang the maid
Sowing the ploughed field over,
And her song was only:
'Come, O my lover!'

Strangely, strangely shone the light,
Stilly wound the river:
'Thy love is a dead man,
He'll come back never.'

Sadly, sadly passed the maid
The fading dark hills over;
Still her song far, far away said:
'Come, O my lover!'