Death

I 've journeyed 'roun' consid'able, a-seein' men an' things,
An' I 've learned a little of the sense that meetin' people brings;
But in spite of all my travelling an' of all I think I know,
I 've got one notion in my head, that I can't git to go;
An' it is that the folks I meet in any other spot
Ain't half so good as them I knowed back home in Possum Trot.

I know you 've never heerd the name, it ain't a famous place,
An' I reckon ef you 'd search the map you could n't find a trace
Of any sich locality as this I 've named to you;
But never mind, I know the place, an' I love it dearly too.
It don't make no pretensions to bein' great or fine,
The circuses don't come that way, they ain't no railroad line.
It ain't no great big city, where the schemers plan an' plot,
But je...

That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had!
And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad!
And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad!

To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart,
Of the day when the war would be over, and each would be true to his part,
Upbuilding a Palace of Beauty to the wonder and glory of Art . . .

Yon's Barret, the painter of pictures, yon carcass that rots on the wire;
His hand with its sensitive cunning is crisped to a cinder with fire;
His eyes with their magical vision are bubbles of glutinous mire.

Poor Fanning! He sought to discover the symphonic note of a shell;
There are bits of him broken and bloody, to show you the place where he fell;
I've reaso...

Since green earth is awake
Let us now pastime take,
Not serving wantonness
Too well, nor niggardness,
Which monks of men would make.

But clothed like earth in green,
With jocund hearts and clean,
We will take hands and go
Singing where quietly blow
The flowers of Spring's demesne.

The cuckoo haileth loud
The open sky; no cloud
Doth fleck the earth's blue tent;
The land laughs, well content
To put off winter shroud.

Now, since 'tis Easter Day,
All Christians may have play;
The young Saints, all agaze
For Christ in Heaven's maze,
May laugh who wont to pray.

Then welcome to our round
They light on homely ground:--
Agnes, Saint Cecily,
Agatha, Dorothy,
Margaret, Hildegonde;

Next come with B...

Why do eyes that were tender,
    Averted, turn away?
Why has our dear love's splendour
    All faded into gray?
Why is it that lips glow not
    That late were all aglow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
    I only know 'tis so.

Why do you no more tremble
    Now when I kiss your cheek?
Why do we both dissemble
    The thoughts we used to speak?
Why is it that words flow not
    That used to fondly flow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
    I only know 'tis so.

Have we outlived the passion
    That late lit earth and sky?
And is this but the fashion
    A fond love takes to die?
Is it, that we shall know not
    Again love's rapture glow?
I trust not, sweet, I trust not -
    And yet it may be so.

I am a pilgrim far from home,
    A wanderer like Mars,
And thought my wanderings ne'er should come,
    So fixed behind the bars!

I left my sunny Southern home
    Beneath the silver stars;
A northward path began to roam,
    Not seeking prison bars.

I sought a higher, holier life,
    Which never virtue mars;
But Fate had spun a net of strife
    For me behind the bars!

My mother's lowly thatched-roofed cot
    My nobler senses jars;
And so I seek to aid her lot,
    But not behind the bars!

'Tis said, forsooth, the poet learns
    Through sufferings and wars
To sing the song which deepest burns
    Behind the prison bars!

Thus I resign myself to Fate,
    Regardless of her scars;
For soon she'll op...

The earth may ring, from shore to shore,
With echoes of a glorious name,
But he, whose loss our tears deplore,
Has left behind him more than fame.

For when the death-frost came to lie
On Leggett's warm and mighty heart,
And quenched his bold and friendly eye,
His spirit did not all depart.

The words of fire that from his pen
Were flung upon the fervent page,
Still move, still shake the hearts of men,
Amid a cold and coward age.

His love of truth, too warm, too strong
For Hope or Fear to chain or chill,
His hate of tyranny and wrong,
Burn in the breasts he kindled still.

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital, and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?

As evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun -
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,
"There's solace everywhere!"

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood
I dealt me silently
As one perverse misrepresenting Good
In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel
A form rose, strange of mould:
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel
Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even ...

I

Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower
Ring on, ring on unendingly,
Make all the hours a single hour,
For when the dusk begins to flower,
The man I love will come to me!...

But no, go slowly as you will,
I should not bid you hasten so,
For while I wait for love to come,
Some other girl is standing dumb,
Fearing her love will go.

II

Oh white steam over the roofs, blow high!
Oh chimes in the tower ring clear and free !
Oh sun awake in the covered sky,
For the man I love, loves me I...

Oh drifting steam disperse and die,
Oh tower stand shrouded toward the south,
Fate heard afar my happy cry,
And laid her finger on my mouth.

III

The dusk was blue with blowing mist,
The lights were spangles in...

Labor with what zeal we will,
    Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
    Waits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,
    At the threshold, near the gates,
With its menace or its prayer,
    Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away;
    Waits, and will not be gainsaid;
By the cares of yesterday
    Each to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seems
    Greater than our strength can bear,
Heavy as the weight of dreams,
    Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,
    Like the dwarfs of times gone by,
Who, as Northern legends say,
    On their shoulders held the sky.

Non numero horas nisi serenas

When Fall drowns morns in mist, it seems
In soul I am a part of it;
A portion of its humid beams,
A form of fog, I seem to flit
From dreams to dreams....
An old château sleeps 'mid the hills
Of France: an avenue of sorbs
Conceals it: drifts of daffodils
Bloom by a 'scutcheoned gate with barbs
Like iron bills.
I pass the gate unquestioned; yet,
I feel, announced. Broad holm-oaks make
Dark pools of restless violet.
Between high bramble banks a lake,
As in a net
The tangled scales twist silver, shines....
Gray, mossy turrets swell above
A sea of leaves. And where the pines
Shade ivied walls, there lies my love,
My heart divines.
I know her window, slimly seen
From distant lanes with hawthorn hedged...

When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country’s gods,


Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.


Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
‘Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.


Rome shall perish—write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr’d,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.


Rome, for empire far renown’d,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!


Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier’s name;
Sou...

ELIZABETH TO WALTER


He has come and he has gone,
    Meeting, parting, both are o'er;
And I feel the same dull pain,
Aching heart and throbbing brain
    Coming o'er me once again
That I often felt before.


For he is my father's son,
    And, in childhood's loving time
He and I so lone, so young,
No twin blossoms ever sprung,
No twin cherries ever clung,
    Closer than his heart and mine.

He is changed, ah me! ah me!
    Have we then a different aim?
Shall earth's glory or its gold
Make his heart to mine grow cold?
Or can new love kill the old?
    Leaving me for love and fame

Oh, my brother fair to see!
    Idol of my lonely heart,
Parting is a time of test,
Father, give him what is best,
...

Frost-locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
What shall make their sap ascend
That they may put forth shoots?
Tips of tender green,
Leaf, or blade, or sheath;
Telling of the hidden life
That breaks forth underneath,
Life nursed in its grave by Death.

Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
Swollen with sap put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;
Birds sing and pair again.

There is no time like Spring,
When life's alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
A...

When, with bowed head,
And silent-streaming tears,
With mingled hopes and fears,
To earth we yield our dead;
The Saints, with clearer sight,
Do cry in glad accord,--
"A soul released from prison
Is risen, is risen,--
Is risen to the glory of the Lord."

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage
Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells -
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,
Both sing sometimes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sometimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest -
Why, hear him, hear him babble and drop down to his nest,
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,
But uncumbered: meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

For the courage which comes when we call,
While troubles like hailstones fall;
For the help that is somehow nigh,
In the deepest night when we cry;
For the path that is certainly shown
When we pray in the dark alone,
    Let us give thanks.

For the knowledge we gain if we wait
And bear all the buffets of fate;
For the vision that beautifies sight
If we look under wrong for the right;
For the gleam of the ultimate goal
That shines on each reverent soul:
    Let us give thanks.

For the consciousness stirring in creeds
That love is the thing the world needs;
For the cry of the travailing earth
That is giving a new faith birth;
For the God we are learning to find
In the heart and the soul and the mind:
    Let us give thanks.
<...

Blessed be Thou for all the joy
My soul has felt to-day!
Oh, let its memory stay with me,
And never pass away!

I was alone, for those I loved
Were far away from me;
The sun shone on the withered grass,
The wind blew fresh and free.

Was it the smile of early spring
That made my bosom glow?
'Twas sweet; but neither sun nor wind
Could cheer my spirit so.

Was it some feeling of delight
All vague and undefined?
No; 'twas a rapture deep and strong,
Expanding in the mind.

Was it a sanguine view of life,
And all its transient bliss,
A hope of bright prosperity?
Oh, no! it was not this.

It was a glimpse of truth divine
Unto my spirit given,
Illumined by a ray of light
That shone direct from heaven.
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