(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...

    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! ...

    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.

She stood by my side with a queenly air,
Her face it was young and proud and fair;
She held my rose in her hands of snow;
It crimsoned her face with a deeper glow;
The sunlight drooped in her eyes of fire
And quickened my heart to a wild desire;
I envied the rose in her hands so fair,
I envied the flowers that gleamed in her hair.

Ah! many a suitor I knew before
Had knelt at her feet in the days of yore;
And many a lover as foolish as I,
Had proudly boasted to win or die.
She had scorned them all with a careless grace
And a woman's scorn on her beautiful face.
Yet now in the summer I knelt at her feet,
And dreamed a dream that was fair and sweet.

The roses drooped in her gold-brown hair,
And quivered and glowed in the sun-lit air;
The jew...

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:<...

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.

Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
Thou art low! thou mighty one,
How is the brilliance of thy diadem,
How is the lustre of thy throne
Rent from thee, and thy sun of fame
Darken’d by the shadowy pinion
Of the Roman bird, whose sway
All the tribes of earth obey,
Crouching ’neath his dread dominion,
And the terrors of his name!

How is thy royal seat–whereon
Sate in days of yore
Lowly Jesse’s godlike son,
And the strength of Solomon,
In those rich and happy times
When the ships from Tarshish bore
Incense, and from Ophir’s land,
With silken sail and cedar oar,
Wafting to Judea’s strand
All the wealth of foreign climes–
How is thy royal seat o’erthrown!
Gone is all thy majesty:
Salem! Salem! city of kings,
Thou sittest desolate and lone,...

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...

Oh, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,
Though with a pierced and broken heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.

For God h...

"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 ...

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...

("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...

(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...

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...

AFTER THE BATTLE OF BADE, BENEATH THE CANOPY OF HEAVEN.


MAHOMET (Speaks).

Let the foeman sorrow o'er his dead,

Ne'er will they return again to light;
O'er our brethren let no tear be shed,

For they dwell above yon spheres so bright.

All the seven planets open throw

All their metal doors with mighty shock,
And the forms of those we loved below

At the gates of Eden boldly knock.

There they find, with bliss ne'er dream'd before,

Glories that my flight first show'd to eye,
When the wondrous steed my person bore

In one second through the realms on high.

Wisdom's trees, in cypress-order growing,

High uphold the golden apples sweet;
Trees of life, their spreading shadows throwing,

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:
Future or Past no richer secret folds,
O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.