(THEN UNFINISHED.)


    Though all the nations now
    Peace gathers under her white wings,
    The minds of Italy will ne'er be free
    From the restraints of their old lethargy,
    Till our ill-fated land cling fast
    Unto the glorious memories of the Past.
    Oh, lay it to thy heart, my Italy,
    Fit honor to thy dead to pay;
    For, ah, their like walk not thy streets to-day!
    Nor is there one whom thou canst reverence!
    Turn, turn, my country, and behold
    That noble band of heroes old,
    And weep, and on thyself thy anger vent,
    For without anger, grief is impotent:
    Oh, turn, and rouse thyself for shame,
    Blush at the thought of sires so great,
    Of children so degenerate!

    Alien in mien, in geni...

    John Dillinger and Baby-Faced Nelson
    in a dream together
    - one shooting holes thru
    theories of his untimely death,
    the other frying in an old-time
    (e) Electric Chair
    with balloons waving, bonbons
    going off, the crowd in a joyous,
    boisterous mood.

    The marquee reads:
    "Public Enemy Number One
    laid to rest in a
    shallow grave as
    gravelly as the heart
    that beat in his stoney chest."

    An adjacent sign noted,
    crime does pay the undertaker
    but other, good-hearted folks
    need look no further than
    the Dempsey-Tunney fight
    to see which has the
    bigger box office draw.

(Written on the day of President McKinley's death)



In the midst of sunny waters, lo! the mighty Ship of State
Staggers, bruised and torn and wounded by a derelict of fate,
One that drifted from its moorings in the anchorage of hate.

On the deck our noble Pilot, in the glory of his prime,
Lies in woe-impelling silence, dead before his hour or time,
Victim of a mind self-centred in a Godless fool of crime.

One of earth's dissension-breeders, one of Hate's unreasoning tools,
In the annals of the ages, when the world's hot anger cools,
He who sought for Crime's distinction shall be known as Chief of Fools.

In the annals of the ages, he who had no thought of fame
(Keeping on the path of duty, caring not for praise or blame),
Close beside the deathle...

The roses mourn for her who sleeps
Within the tomb;
For her each lily-flower weeps
Dew and perfume.

In each neglected flower-bed
Each blossom droops its lovely head,
They miss her touch, they miss her tread,
Her face of bloom,
Of happy bloom.

The very breezes grieve for her,
A lonely grief;
For her each tree is sorrower,
Each blade and leaf.

The foliage rocks itself and sighs,
And to its woe the wind replies,
They miss her girlish laugh and cries,
Whose life was brief,
Was very brief.

The sunlight, too, seems pale with care,
Or sick with woe;
The memory haunts it of her hair,
Its golden glow.

No more within the bramble-brake
The sleepy bloom is kissed awake
The sun is sad for her dear sake,<...

Like a flower in the frost
    Sweet Jenny lies,
With her frail hands calmly crossed,
    And close-shut eyes.

Bring a candle, for the room
    Is dark and cold,
Antechamber of the tomb -
    O grief untold!

Like a snowdrift is her bed,
    Dinted the snow,
Faint frozen lines from foot to head, -
    She lies below.

Turn from off her shrouded face
    The frigid sheet....
Death hath doubled all her grace -
    O Jenny, sweet!

I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.
Thro’ Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in Hell o’er my pale people peace;
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek.
And every feathered mother’s callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness.
Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns
Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,
Upon my image at Athenai here;
And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,
Was dearest to me. He my buskined step
To follow thro’ the wild-wood leafy ways,
And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts
Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,
Neglected homage to another God:<...

My simple story is of those times ere the magic power of steam
First whirled the traveller o'er the plains with the swiftness of a dream,
Reducing to a few days' time the journey of many a week,
That fell of old to the miner's lot ere he "sighted" tall Pikes Peak.

'Neath liquid sunshine filling the air, 'mid masses of wild flowers gay,
A prairie waggon followed the track that led o'er the plains away;
And most of those 'neath its canvas roof were of lawless type and rude -
Miners, broad-chested and strongly built, a reckless, gold-seeking brood.

Yet two of the number surely seemed most strangely out of place,
A girl with fragile, graceful form, shy look, and beauteous face,
One who had wrought out the old, old tale, left her home and friends for aye,
Braved family frowns a...

I.

There's a tear in your eye, little Sybil,
Gathering large and slow;
Oh, Sybil, sweet little Sybil,
What are you thinking of now?

Push back the velvet curtains
That darken the lonely room,
For shadows peer out of the crimson depths,
And the statues gleam white in the gloom.

How the cannons' thunder rolls along,
And shakes the lattice and wall,
Oh, Sybil, sweet little Sybil,
What if your father should fall?

The smoky clouds sweep up from the field
And darken the earth and sea,
"God save him! God save him!"
Wherever he may be.


II.

Oh, pretty dark-eyed bird of the South,
With your face so mournful and white
There is many a little Northern girl
That is breathing that prayer to-night.

T...

The natural thirst, ne'er quench'd but from the well,
Whereof the woman of Samaria crav'd,
Excited: haste along the cumber'd path,
After my guide, impell'd; and pity mov'd
My bosom for the 'vengeful deed, though just.
When lo! even as Luke relates, that Christ
Appear'd unto the two upon their way,
New-risen from his vaulted grave; to us
A shade appear'd, and after us approach'd,
Contemplating the crowd beneath its feet.
We were not ware of it; so first it spake,
Saying, "God give you peace, my brethren!" then
Sudden we turn'd: and Virgil such salute,
As fitted that kind greeting, gave, and cried:
"Peace in the blessed council be thy lot
Awarded by that righteous court, which me
To everlasting banishment exiles!"

"How!" he exclaim'd, nor from his spe...

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by
Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky.
They do not stay for question, do not hear
Any old human speech: their tongue and ear
Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not
And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not.
--Until I slept or, musing, on a heap
Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep
Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought
Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought.
For thinking of that unforgettable thing,
The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing
On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright,
Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light;
Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate,
The cruelty most dark, most desolate;
Thinking of the English dead--"How can you d...

(In Three Books.)





The clock struck twelve; o'er half the globe
Darkness had spread her pitchy robe:
Morpheus, his feet with velvet shod,
Treading as if in fear he trod,
Gentle as dews at even-tide,
Distill'd his poppies far and wide.
Ambition, who, when waking, dreams
Of mighty, but fantastic schemes,
Who, when asleep, ne'er knows that rest
With which the humbler soul is blest,
Was building castles in the air,
Goodly to look upon, and fair,
But on a bad foundation laid,
Doom'd at return of morn to fade.
Pale Study, by the taper's light,
Wearing away the watch of night,
Sat reading; but, with o'ercharged head,
Remember'd nothing that he read.
Starving 'midst plenty, with a face
Which might the court of Famine gr...

DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED AT THE DARDANELLES.


Where stern grey busts of gods and heroes old
Frown down upon the corridors' chill stone,
On which the sunbeam's amber pale is thrown
From leaf-fringed windows, one of quiet mould
Gazed long at those white chronicles which told
Of honours that the stately School had known.
He read the names: and wondered if his own
Would ever grace the walls in letters bold.

He knew not that he for the School would gain
A greater honour with a greater price -
That, no long years of work, but bitter pain
And his rich life, he was to sacrifice -
Not in a University's grey peace,
But on the hilly sun-baked Chersonese.

H.M.S. "Manica,"
    Dardanelles, 1915.

    We never say, "Good Night;"
For our eager lips are fleeter
Than the tongue, and a kiss is sweeter
    Than parting words,
    That out like swords;
So we always kiss Good Night.

    We never say "Good Night."
Words are precious, love, why lose 'em?
Fold them up in your maiden bosom;
    There let them rest,
    Like love unconfessed,
While we kiss a sweet Good Night.

    There comes a last Good Night.
Human life - not love - is fleeting;
Heaven send many a birth-day greeting;
    Dim years roll on
    To life's gray-haired dawn,
Ere we kiss our last Good Night.

            -    -    -

    We've kissed our last Good Night!
Love's warm tendrils torn and bleeding,
Vain all human interceding!
    Oh, life! ...

("Laissons le glaive à Rome.")

[Bk. III. xvi., October, 1852.]


Pray Rome put up her poniard!
And Sparta sheathe the sword;
Be none too prompt to punish,
And cast indignant word!
Bear back your spectral Brutus
From robber Bonaparte;
Time rarely will refute us
Who doom the hateful heart.

Ye shall be o'ercontented,
My banished mates from home,
But be no rashness vented
Ere time for joy shall come.
No crime can outspeed Justice,
Who, resting, seems delayed -
Full faith accord the angel
Who points the patient blade.

The traitor still may nestle
In balmy bed of state,
But mark the Warder, watching
His guardsman at his gate.
He wears the crown, a monarch -
Of knaves and stony hearts;
But tho...

Mahadeva,* Lord of earth

For the sixth time comes below,

As a man of mortal birth,

Like him, feeling joy and woe.

Hither loves he to repair,

And his power behind to leave;

If to punish or to spare,

Men as man he'd fain perceive.
And when he the town as a trav'ller hath seen,
Observing the mighty, regarding the mean,
He quits it, to go on his journey, at eve.


He was leaving now the place,

When an outcast met his eyes,

Fair in form, with painted face,

Where some straggling dwellings rise.

"Maiden, hail!" "Thanks! welcome here!

Stay! I'll join thee in the road.'

"Who art thou?" "A Bayadere,

And this house is love's abode."
The cymbal she hastens to play ...

"Euclid, we are told, is at last dead, after two thousand years of an immortality that he never much deserved." - The Times Literary Supplement.

    A THRENODY for EUCLID! This is he
    Who with his learning made our youth a waste,
    Holding our souls in fee;
    A god whose high-set crystal throne was based
    Beyond the reach of tears,
    Deeper than time and his relentless years!

    Come then, ye Angle-Nymphs, and make lament;
    Ye little Postulates, and all the throng
    Of Definitions, with your heads besprent
    In funeral ashes, ye who long
    Worshipped the King and followed in his train;
    For he is dead and cannot rise again.

    Then from the shapes that beat their breasts and wept,
    Soft to the light a gentle Problem ...

There's a sudden, fierce clang of the knocker, then the sound of a voice in the shaft,
Shrieking words that drum hard on the centres, and the braceman goes suddenly daft:
‘Set the whistle a-blowing like blazes! Billy, run, give old Mackie a call,
Run, you fool! Number Two’s gone to pieces, and Fred Baker is caught in the fall!
Say, hello! there below,any hope, boys, any chances of saving his life?
‘Heave away!’ says the knocker. ‘They’ve started. God be praised, he’s no youngsters or wife!’

Screams the whistle in fearful entreaty, and the wild echo raves on the spur,
And the night, that was still as a sleeper in soft, charmed sleep, is astir
With the fluttering of wings in the wattles, and the vague frightened murmur of birds,
With far cooeys that carry the warning, running feet, inarticu...

        A soaking sedge,
        A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,

        Low clouds and rain,
        And loneliness and languor worse than pain.

        Mottled with moss,
        Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.

        Shrill streaks of light
        Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,

        And low between,
        The sombre cedar and the ivy green.

        Upon the stone
        Of each in turn who called this land his own

        The gray rain beats
        And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,

        And at my eaves
        A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and grieves.