There must be lonely moments when God feels
The need of prayer -
Such lonely moments, knowing not anywhere,
In any spot or place,
In all the far recesses of vast space,
Dwells any one to whom His prayers may rise,
And then, methinks - so urgent is His need -
    God bids His prayers descend.
He that has ears to hear, let him take heed,
    For much God's prayers portend.

God flings His solar system forth to be
    Finished by beings who befit each sphere.
Not ours to pry the secrets out of Mars;
    Our work lies here.
To star-folk leave the stars.
There must be many worlds that give God care:
    Young worlds that glow and burn,
Old worlds that freeze and fade.
    This world is man's concern.
Methinks God must be very much dismayed,

(ACROSTIC)

Born on the breast of the prairie, she smiles to her sire - the sun,
Robed in the wealth of her wheat-lands, gift of her mothering soil,
Affluence knocks at her gateways, opulence waits to be won.
Nuggets of gold are her acres, yielding and yellow with spoil,
Dream of the hungry millions, dawn of the food-filled age,
Over the starving tale of want her fingers have turned the page;
Nations will nurse at her storehouse, and God gives her grain for wage.

As seamen, shipwreck'd on some happy shore,
Discover wealth in lands unknown before;
And, what their art had labour'd long in vain,
By their misfortunes happily obtain:
So my much-envied Muse, by storms long tost,
Is thrown upon your hospitable coast,
And finds more favour by her ill success,
Than she could hope for by her happiness.
Once Cato's virtue did the gods oppose;
While they the victor, he the vanquish'd chose:
But you have done what Cato could not do,
To choose the vanquish'd, and restore him too.
Let others triumph still, and gain their cause
By their deserts, or by the world's applause;
Let merit crowns, and justice laurels give,
But let me happy by your pity live.
True poets empty fame and praise despise;
Fame is the trumpet, but your smile t...

Low in the east, against a white, cold dawn,
The black-lined silhouette of the woods was drawn,
And on a wintry waste
Of frosted streams and hillsides bare and brown,
Through thin cloud-films, a pallid ghost looked down,
The waning moon half-faced!

In that pale sky and sere, snow-waiting earth,
What sign was there of the immortal birth?
What herald of the One?
Lo! swift as thought the heavenly radiance came,
A rose-red splendor swept the sky like flame,
Up rolled the round, bright sun!

And all was changed. From a transfigured world
The moon's ghost fled, the smoke of home-hearths curled
Up the still air unblown.
In Orient warmth and brightness, did that morn
O'er Nain and Nazareth, when the Christ was born,
Break fairer than our own?

Why do we lie

’Why do we lie,’ she questioned, her warm eyes
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,
’all afternoon wasted in bed like this?’
’Because we cannot lie all night together.’
’Yes,’ she said, satisfied at my reasoning,
but going on to search her cruel mind
for better excuses to leave my narrow bed.

Too many flesh suppers

Abstracted in art,
in architecture,
in scholars’ detail;

absorbed by music,
by minutiae,
by sad trivia;

all to efface her,
whom I can forget
no more than breathing.

Theatregoer

Somewhere some nights she sees
curtains rise on those rites
we also knew and felt

I sit here desolate
in spite of company

Love is between people

And sho...

Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English that might strive thine ear to please.
But Elfin Poet 'tis impossible
For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise like Phoebus with a golden quill
Fire-wing'd and make a morning in his mirth.
It is impossible to escape from toil
O' the sudden and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:
Be with me in the summer days, and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

    The dew was gone,
The morn was bright, the skies were fair,
The flowers smiled neath the sunbeams ray,
Tall cedars grew in beauty there.
As Adoniram took his way,
    To Lebanon.

    Praise his heart filled,
More than four hundred years had fled,
Since from stern Egypt marched the bands,
Whose sons, with Solomon at their head,
And Tyrian brethern's skilful hands,
    Prepare to build.

    He watched them there,
Round every block, and every stone,
Masonic implements were laid,
But around one were many thrown,
And yet it seemed already made,
    Tried, true and square.

    He wandering spake,
"Are not all from one mountain brought
As jewels for a diadem,
Why, have they at this one stone wrought,
Will not...

I wish that I could understand
The moving marvel of my Hand;
I watch my fingers turn and twist,
The supple bending of my wrist,
The dainty touch of finger-tip,
The steel intensity of grip;
A tool of exquisite design,
With pride I think: "It's mine! It's mine!"

Then there's the wonder of my Eyes,
Where hills and houses, seas and skies,
In waves of light converge and pass,
And print themselves as on a glass.
Line, form and color live in me;
I am the Beauty that I see;
Ah! I could write a book of size
About the wonder of my Eyes.

What of the wonder of my Heart,
That plays so faithfully its part?
I hear it running sound and sweet;
It does not seem to miss a beat;
Between the cradle and the grave
It never falters, stanch and bra...

When the heavy, midnight shadows
    Gather o'er a slumbering world,
And the banner folds of darkness
    Are in gloomy pomp unfurled, -
Think, lone watcher, pale and tearful,
    In thy sad, unpitied lot,
By the death couch waking, weeping,
    There is One who slumbers not! -
One who, though no mourning brother
    Share thy vigils lone and drear,
Loving, pitying, as no other
    Loves or pities, watches near!

When the waves, o'erwrought by tempest,
    Lift their strong arms to the skies,
And amid the inky darkness
    Shrieks of winds and waters rise, -
Mariner, 'mid doubt and danger,
    Wildly tossed upon the deep,
Think, o'er all in power presiding
    There is One who does not sleep -
One who holds the risen tempest
    I...

O Saint whose thousand shrines our feet have trod
    And our eyes loved thy lamp's eternal beam,
Dim earthly radiance of the Unknown God,
    Hope of the darkness, light of them that dream,
Far off, far off and faint, O glimmer on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.

O Word whose meaning every sense hath sought,
    Voice of the teeming field and grassy mound,
Deep-whispering fountain of the wells of thought,
    Will of the wind and soul of all sweet sound,
Far off, far off and faint, O murmur on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.

Clear shone the moon, my mansion walls
Towered white above the wood,
Near, down the dark oak avenue
An humble cottage stood.

My gardener's cottage, small and brown,
Yet precious unto me;
For there she dwelt, who sat by me
That night beside the sea.

So sweet, the white rose on her neck
Was not more fair than she,
As silently her soft brown eyes
Looked outward o'er the sea.

So still, the muslin o'er her heart
Seemed with no breath to stir,
As silently she sat and heard
The tale I told to her.

"It was a knight of Normandy,
He vowed on his good sword
He would not wed his father's choice,
The Lady Hildegarde.

"Near dwelt the beauteous Edith,
A lowly maiden she - "
Ah! still unmoved, her dark sweet eyes

Thou sail'st with others in this Argus here;
Nor wreck or bulging thou hast cause to fear;
But trust to this, my noble passenger;
Who swims with virtue, he shall still be sure
(Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure,
And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure.

How quick the change from joy to woe,
How chequer’d is our lot below!
Seldom we view the prospect fair;
Dark clouds of sorrow, pain, and care
(Some pleasing intervals between),
Scowl over more than half the scene.
Last week with Delia, gentle maid!
Far hence in happier fields I stray’d.
Five suns successive rose and set,
And saw no monarch in his state,
Wrapt in the blaze of majesty,
So free from every care as I.
Next day the scene was overcast—
Such day till then I never pass’d,—
For on that day, relentless fate!
Delia and I must separate.
Yet ere we look’d our last farewell,
From her dear lips this comfort fell,—
“Fear not that time, where’er we rove,
Or absence, shall abate my love.”

A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound
Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke
Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke!
How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned
By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound
Into the darkness and the veiling spray;
Or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day
Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound!
So poured the avenging streams upon the world
When swung the ark upon the deluge wave,
And, o'er each precipice in grandeur hurled,
The endless torrents gave mankind a grave.
God's voice is mighty, on the water loud,
Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!

Tune - "Deil tak the wars."



I.

    Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion
        Round the wealthy, titled bride:
    But when compar'd with real passion,
        Poor is all that princely pride.
            What are the showy treasures?
            What are the noisy pleasures?
    The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art:
            The polish'd jewel's blaze
            May draw the wond'ring gaze,
            And courtly grandeur bright
            The fancy may delight,
    But never, never can come near the heart.

II.

    But did you see my dearest Chloris
        In simplicity's array;
    Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is,
        Shrinking from the gaze of day;
            O then the heart al...

    I.


A    dream of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof,
Of the entangling waltz.    Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, dazzling snow
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.
Hark to the music!    How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.



    II.


Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus' miracles?    This subtl...

O beautiful Stars, when you see me go
    Hither and thither, in search of love,
Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow
    Serene and fixed in the blue above?
    O Stars, so golden, it is not so.

But there is a garden I dare not see,
    There is a place where I fear to go,
Since the charm and glory of life to me
    The brown earth covered there, long ago.
    O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know.

Hither and thither I wandering go,
    With aimless haste and wearying fret;
In a search for pleasure and love?    Not so,
    Seeking desperately to forget.
    You see so many, O Stars, you know.

    In high Olympus' sacred shade
    A gift Minerva wrought
    For her beloved philosopher
    Immersed in deepest thought.

    A shield to guard his aged breast
    With its enchanted mesh
    When he his nectar and ambrosia took
    To strengthen and refresh.

    Long may he live to use the life
    The hidden goddess gave,
    To keep unspotted to the end
    The gentle, just, and brave.

December, 1887.