I know!    I know!--
The ceaseless ache, the emptiness, the woe,--
The pang of loss,--
The strength that sinks beneath so sore a cross.
"--Heedless and careless, still the world wags on,
And leaves me broken ...    Oh, my son!    my son!"

Yet--think of this!--
Yea, rather think on this!--
He died as few men get the chance to die,--
Fighting to save a world's morality.
He died the noblest death a man may die,
Fighting for God, and Right, and Liberty;--
And such a death is Immortality.

"He died unnoticed in the muddy trench."
Nay,--God was with him, and he did not blench;
Filled him with holy fires that nought could quench,
And when He saw his work below was done,
He gently called to him,--"My son!    My son!
I need thee for a...

    Just to be good -
            This is enough - enough!
    O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
    Do we not feel how more than any gold
    Would be the blameless life we led of old
    While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
            Ah! though we miss
            All else but this,
    To be good is enough!

    It is enough -
            Enough - just to be good!
    To lift our hearts where they are understood;
    To let the thirst for worldly power and place
    Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
    With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
            Ah! though we miss
            All else but this,
    To be good is enough!

        This little book's a letter,
            I send direct to you;
        I hope that you will like it,
            And read it thru and thru.
        And after you have read it,
            Just send a thot to me;
        Your thots will help to make me
            The "Poet" I would be.

                        Yours very truly,

                                    ALAN L. STRANG,

                        Redwood City, California.

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space sphere of unnumber'd spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech the senses the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all,
In the satisfac...

Turn thy face to me, my love,
I come from out the morning;
Give thy hand to me, my love,
I'm dewy from the dawning.

Touch my lips with thine, my love,
I've tasted air at daybreak;
Gaze into my eyes, my love,
At the sky's waking they wake.

1.

Oh! did those eyes, instead of fire,
With bright, but mild affection shine:
Though they might kindle less desire,
Love, more than mortal, would be thine.


2.

For thou art form'd so heavenly fair,
Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam,
We must admire, but still despair;
That fatal glance forbids esteem.


3.

When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth,
So much perfection in thee shone,
She fear'd that, too divine for earth,
The skies might claim thee for their own.


4.

Therefore, to guard her dearest work,
Lest angels might dispute the prize,
She bade a secret lightning lurk,
Within those once celestial eyes.


5.

These might the boldest Sylph appall,
When gleaming...

Within each living man there doth reside,
In some unrifled chamber of the heart,
A hidden treasure: wayward as thou art
I love thee, man, and bind thee to my side!
By that sweet act I purify my pride
And hasten onward--willing even to part
With pleasant graces: though thy hue is swart,
I bear thee company, thou art my guide!
Even in thy sinning wise beyond thy ken
To thee a subtle debt my soul is owing!
I take an impulse from the worst of men
That lends a wing unto my onward going;
Then let me pay them gladly back again
With prayer and love from Faith and Duty flowing!

Methinks I see your mirror frame,
    Ornate with photographs of them.
Place mine therein, for, all the same,
    I'll have my little laughs at them.

For girls may come, and girls may go,
    I think I have the best of them;
And yet this photograph I know
    You'll toss among the rest of them.

I cannot even hope that you
    Will put me in your locket, dear;
Nor costly frame will I look through,
    Nor bide in your breast pocket, dear.

For none your heart monopolize,
    You favour such a nest of them.
So I but hope your roving eyes
    Seek mine among the rest of them.

For saucy sprite, and noble dame,
    And many a dainty maid of them
Will greet me in your mirror frame,
    And share your kisses laid on them.

In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blossomless bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.

The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,
To the low last edge of the long lone land.
If a step should sound or a word be spoken,
Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?
So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,
Through branches and briars if a man make way,
He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless
Night and day.

The dense hard passage is blind and stifled
That crawls b...

Going to Mass by the will of God, the day came wet and the wind rose; I met Mary Hynes at the cross of Kiltartan, and I fell in love with her there and then.

I spoke to her kind and mannerly,    as by report was her own way; and she said "Raftery my mind is easy; you may come to-day to Ballylee."

When I heard her offer I did not linger; when her talk went to my heart my heart rose. We had only to go across the three fields; we had daylight with us to Ballylee.

The table was laid with glasses and a quart measure; she had fair hair and she sitting beside me; and she said, "Drink, Raftery, and a hundred welcomes; there is a strong cellar in Ballylee."

O star of light and O sun in harvest; O amber hair, O my share of the world! Will you come with me on the Sunday, till we agree together before all t...

Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend,
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green fields of flowers.

Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk,
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.

Was it worth while to forego our wings
To gain these dextrous hands ?
Truly they fashion us wonderful things
As the fancy of man demands.

But - to fly! to sail through the lucid air
From crest to violet crest
Of these great grey mountains, quartz-veined and bare,
Where the white clouds gather and rest.

Even to flutter from flower to flower, -
To skim the tops of the trees, -
In the roseate light of a sun-setting hour
To drift on a sea-going breeze.

Ay, the hands have marvellous skill
To create us curious things, -
Baubles, playthings, weapons to kill, -
But - I would we had chosen wings!

A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I!)

Oh the years we waste and the tears we waste
And the work of our head and hand,
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand.

A fool there was and his goods he spent
(Even as you and I!)
Honor and faith and a sure intent
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(And it wasn't the least what the lady meant),
(Even as you and I!)

Oh the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned,
Belong to the woman who didn't know why
(And now we know sh...

When, looking deeply in thy face,
I catch the undergleam of grace
That grows beneath the outward glance,
Long looking, lost as in a trance
Of long desires that fleet and meet
Around me like the fresh and sweet
White showers of rain which, vanishing,
'Neath heaven's blue arches whirl, in spring;
Suddenly then I seem to know
Of some new fountain's overflow
In grassy basins, with a sound
That leads my fancy, past all bound,
Into a region of retreat
From this my life's bewildered heat.
Oh if my soul might always draw
From those deep fountains full of awe,
The current of my days should rise
Unto the level of thine eyes!

That woman, did she try to attract my attention?
Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
It is better to think of work or god.
The clouds pile coldly above the houses
Slow wind revolves the leaves:
It begins to rain, and the first long drops
Are slantingly blown from eaves.
But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
Her eyes were those of a child.
It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
And turned away, afraid to look too long!
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.
. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
With a trowel in my hands;
Or the vagu...

FEBRUARY 6, 1881


Come not again! I dwell with you
Above the realm of frost and dew,
Of pain and fire, and growth to death.
I dwell with you where never breath
Is drawn, but fragrance vital flows
From life to life, even as a rose
Unseen pours sweetness through each vein
And from the air distills again.
You are my rose unseen; we live
Where each to other joy may give
In ways untold, by means unknown
And secret as the magnet-stone.

For which of us, indeed, is dead?
No more I lean to kiss your head -
The gold-red hair so thick upon it;
Joy feels no more the touch that won it
When o'er my brow your pearl-cool palm
In tenderness so childish, calm,
Crept softly, once. Yet, see, my arm
Is strong, and still my blood runs warm.

Mæcenas, thou of royalty's descent,
Both my protector and dear ornament,
Among humanity's conditions are
Those who take pleasure in the flying car,
Whirling Olympian dust, as on they roll,
And shunning with the glowing wheel the goal;
While the ennobling palm, the prize of worth,
Exalts them to the gods, the lords of earth.

Here one is happy if the fickle crowd
His name the threefold honor has allowed;
And there another, if into his stores
Comes what is swept from Libyan threshing-floors.
He who delights to till his father's lands,
And grasps the delving-hoe with willing hands,
Can never to Attalic offers hark,
Or cut the Myrtoan Sea with Cyprian bark.
The merchant, timorous of Afric's breeze,
When fiercely struggling with Icarian seas
Praises ...

Too frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have followed when his brow
Was wreathed "The Vision" tells us how
With holly spray,
He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng
Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief
Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,
Let us beside this limpid Stream
Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right
His course was true,
When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.