Betrayal

Not all the pageant of the setting sun
Should yield the tired eyes of man delight,
No sweet beguiling power had stars at night
To soothe his fainting heart when day is done,
Nor any secret voice of benison
Might nature own, were not each sound and sight
The sign and symbol of the infinite,
The prophecy of things not yet begun.
So had these lips, so early sealed with sleep,
No fruitful word, life no power to move
Our deeper reverence, did we not see
How more than all he said, he was, how, deep
Below this broken life, he ever wove
The finer substance of a life to be.

The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
Cool, faery flowers against his knee;
In places where the way lay dim
The branches, arching suddenly,
Made tomblike mystery for him.

The wild-rose and the elder, drenched
With rain, made pale a misty place, -
From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;
He walking with averted face,
And lips in desolation clenched.

For far within the forest, - where
Weird shadows stood like phantom men,
And where the ground-hog dug its lair,
The she-fox whelped and had her den, -
The thing kept calling, buried there.

One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,
Dark-green with toppling trailers, shoved
Its wild wreck o'er the bush; one bower
Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
The one who haunted him each hou...

A shallow stream, from fountains
Deep in the Sandwich mountains,
Ran lake ward Bearcamp River;
And, between its flood-torn shores,
Sped by sail or urged by oars
No keel had vexed it ever.

Alone the dead trees yielding
To the dull axe Time is wielding,
The shy mink and the otter,
And golden leaves and red,
By countless autumns shed,
Had floated down its water.

From the gray rocks of Cape Ann,
Came a skilled seafaring man,
With his dory, to the right place;
Over hill and plain he brought her,
Where the boatless Beareamp water
Comes winding down from White-Face.

Quoth the skipper: “Ere she floats forth;
I’m sure my pretty boat’s worth,
At least, a name as pretty.”
On her painted side he wrote it,
And the flag that o...

I was not; now I am--a few days hence
I shall not be; I fain would look before
And after, but can neither do; some Power
Or lack of power says "no" to all I would.
I stand upon a wide and sunless plain,
Nor chart nor steel to guide my steps aright.
Whene'er, o'ercoming fear, I dare to move,
I grope without direction and by chance.
Some feign to hear a voice and feel a hand
That draws them ever upward thro' the gloom.
But I--I hear no voice and touch no hand,
Tho' oft thro' silence infinite I list,
And strain my hearing to supernal sounds;
Tho' oft thro' fateful darkness do I reach,
And stretch my hand to find that other hand.
I question of th' eternal bending skies
That seem to neighbor with the novice earth;
But they roll on, and daily shut their eyes

BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER

Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year;
Are Autumn's blasts fit music for thee, fragile one, to hear;
Will thy clear blue eye, upward bent, still keep its chastened glow,
Still tearless lift its slender form above the wintry snow?

Why wilt thou live when none around reflects thy pensive ray?
Thou bloomest here a lonely thing in the clear autumn day.
The tall green trees, that shelter thee, their last gay dress put on;
There will be nought to shelter thee when their sweet leaves are gone.

O Violet, like thee, how blest could I lie down and die,
When summer light is fading, and autumn breezes sigh;
When Winter reigned I'd close my eye, but wake with bursting Spring,
And live with living nature, a pure rejoicing thing.

With the old gods thou walkest, 'mid the leaf
And bloom of ancient morning and of light;
Thou die'st with Christ, and with the nailed thief
That dies upon his left hand and his right.

Yea, thou descendest into hell, and then
To the last heaven dost take thy road sublime;
Thine hostelries the secret souls of men,
Thy servants all the fleeting things of time!

    Sweet brook! I've met thee many a summer's day,
    And ventured fearless in thy shallow flood,
    And rambled oft thy sweet unwearied way,
    'Neath willows cool that on thy margin stood,
    With crowds of partners in my artless play--
    Grasshopper, beetle, bee, and butterfly--
    That frisked about as though in merry mood
    To see their old companion sporting by.
    Sweet brook! life's glories then were mine and thine;
    Shade clothed thy spring that now doth naked lie;
    On thy white glistening sand the sweet woodbine
    Darkened and dipt its flowers. I mark, and sigh,
    And muse o'er troubles since we met the last,
    Like two fond friends whose happiness is past.

    Moss was a little man, and a little mare did buy,
    For kicking and for sprawling none her could come nigh;
    She could trot, she could amble, and could canter here and there,
    But one night she strayed away - so Moss lost his mare.

    Moss got up next morning to catch her fast asleep,
    And round about the frosty fields so nimbly he did creep.
    Dead in a ditch he found her, and glad to find her there,
    So I'll tell you by and bye, how Moss caught his mare.

    Rise! stupid, rise! he thus to her did say;
    Arise, you beast, you drowsy beast, get up without delay,
    For I must ride you to the town, so don't lie sleeping there;
    He put the halter round her neck - so Moss caught his mare.

My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree,
And waster than a warren:
Yet say the neighbours when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all
That grows within the woodland.

O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion!
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!

'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove
He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.

Dear Sir, Since you in humble wise
    Have made a recantation,
From your low bended knees arise;
    I hate such poor prostration.

'Tis bravery that moves the brave,
    As one nail drives another;
If you from me would mercy have,
    Pray, Sir, be such another.

You that so long maintain'd the field
    With true poetic vigour;
Now you lay down your pen and yield,
    You make a wretched figure.

Submit, but do't with sword in hand,
    And write a panegyric
Upon the man you cannot stand;
    I'll have it done in lyric:

That all the boys I teach may sing
    The achievements of their Chiron;
What conquests my stern looks can bring
    Without the help of iron.

A small goose-quill, yclep'd a pen,
    From m...

The dream fell on him one calm summer night,
    Stealing amid the waving of the corn,
    That waited, golden, for the harvest morn--
The dream fell on him through the still moonlight.

The land lay silent, and the new mown hay
    Rested upon it like a dreamy sleep;
    And stealing softly o'er each yellow heap,
The night-breeze bore sweet incense-breath away.

The dew lay thick upon the unstirr'd leaves;
    The glow-worm glisten'd brightly as he pass'd;
    The thrush still chaunted, but the swallows fast
Hied to their home beneath lone cottage eaves.

He had been straying through the land that day,
    Dreaming of beauty as some dream of love;
    And all the earth beneath, the heaven above,
In mirror'd glory on his spirit lay.

And, a...

All you who turn the sturdy soil,
Or ply the loom with daily toil,
And lowly on through life turmoil
For scanty fare,
Attend, and gather richest spoil
To soothe your care.

I write with tender, feeling heart,
Then kindly read what I impart;
'Tis freely penned, devoid of art,
In homely style,
'Tis meant to ward off Satan's dart,
And show his guile.

I write to ope your sin-closed eyes,
And make you great, and rich, and wise,
And give you peace when trials rise,
And sorrows gloom;
I write to fit you for the skies
On Day of Doom.

What, though you dwell in lowly cot,
And share through life a humble lot?
Some thousands wealth and fame have got,
Yet know no rest:
They build, pull down, and scheme and plot,
And die u...

Fly, fly, my friends; I haue my deaths wound, fly;
See there that Boy, that murthring Boy I say,
Who like a theefe hid in dark bush doth ly,
Till bloudy bullet get him wrongfull pray.
So, tyran he no fitter place could spie,
Nor so faire leuell in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heau'nly eye;
There with his shot himself he close doth lay.
Poore passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And staid, pleas'd with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the the bad guest hid:
But straight I saw the motions of lightning grace,
And then descried the glistrings of his dart:
But ere I could flie thence, it pierc'd my heart.

I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened,
Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind.
Summon me loudly, and you’ll hear slow footsteps
Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind.
You’ll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway;
Peer darkly through some corner of a pane,
You’ll see me with a faint light coming slowly,
Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . .
I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening
Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair;
I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances
Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair.
She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened,
She extends herself in me, and I am sleep.
It is my pride that starlight is above me;
I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep.
I am a door . . . b...

Dearest of all, whose tenderness could rise
    To share all sorrow and to soothe all pain;
The blessings breathed for thee with weeping eyes
    Will come to thee as sunshine after rain.

My spirit clings to thine, dear, in this hour;
    Thy sorrow touches me as though 'twere mine;
And pleading prayers for thee shall have the power
    To draw down comfort from my Lord and thine.

For thou hast felt the sorrow and the care
    Of other lives, as though they were thine own;
And grateful prayers, for a memorial are
    Laid up for thee before the great white throne.

You sit bereaved, and I sit with you there
    In sympathy, my soul and yours can meet;
Missing the face that was so very fair,
    Missing the voice that was so very sweet.

I...

Ah God! the petty fools of rhyme
That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars
Before the stony face of Time,
And look’d at by the silent stars;

Who hate each other for a song,
And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brethren in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite;

And strain to make an inch of room
For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom
On them and theirs and all things here;

When one small touch of Charity
Could lift them nearer Godlike state
Than if the crowded Orb should cry
Like those who cried Diana great.

And I too talk, and lose the touch
I talk of. Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such
Is perfect stillness when they brawl.

Hear now the Song of the Dead, in the North by the torn berg-edges,
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South, in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East, in the heat-rotted jungle-hollows,
Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof, in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.

Song of the Dead in the West in the Barrens, the pass that betrayed them,
Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-rnound they made them;
Hear now the Song of the Dead!

I

We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whis...

I Whispered, ‘I am too young,’
And then, ‘I am old enough’;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
‘Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,’
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.