Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage.


Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings
Where the noisome insect stings
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air;
Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters;
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice-swamp dank and lone
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash
Shall a mother's kindness bless them
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, g...

Art thou alive?    Nay, not too soon reply,
Tho' hand, and foot, and lip, and ear, and eye,
Respond, and do thy bidding yet may be
Grim death has done his direst work with thee.
Life, as God gives it, is a thing apart
From active body and from beating heart.
It is the vital spark, the unseen fire,
That moves the mind to reason and aspire;
It is the force that bids emotion roll,
In mighty billows from the surging soul.

It is the light that grows from hour to hour,
And floods the brain with consciousness of power;
It is the spirit dominating all,
And reaching God with its imperious call,
Until the shining glory of His face
Illuminates each sorrowful, dark place;

It is the truth that sets the bondsman free,
Knowing he will be what he wills to be....

I sought Him on the purple seas,
I sought Him on the peaks aflame;
Amid the gloom of giant trees
And canyons lone I called His name;
The wasted ways of earth I trod:
In vain! In vain! I found not God.

I sought Him in the hives of men,
The cities grand, the hamlets gray,
The temples old beyond my ken,
The tabernacles of to-day;
All life that is, from cloud to clod
I sought. . . . Alas! I found not God.

Then after roamings far and wide,
In streets and seas and deserts wild,
I came to stand at last beside
The death-bed of my little child.
Lo! as I bent beneath the rod
I raised my eyes . . . and there was God.

’Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth
Gave instant birth
To springs that ne’er did flow
That in the sun
Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale
Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,...

He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room below, his floor her ceiling,
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,

His watch, the same he has heard these cycles of ages,
Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.
The clock, upon her mantelpiece, strikes nine.
The night wears on. She hears dull steps above her.
The world whirs on. . . .New stars come up to shine.

His youth, far off, he sees it brightly walking
In a golden cloud. . . .Wings flashing about it. . . . Darkness
Walls it around with dripping enormous walls.
Old age, far off, her death, what do they matter?
Down the smooth purple night a streaked star falls.

    Winter froze both brook and well;
Fast and fast the snowflakes fell;
Children gathered round the hearth
Made a summer of their mirth;
When a boy, so lately come
That his life was yet one sum
Of delights--of aimless rambles.
Romps and dreams and games and gambols,
Thought aloud: "I wish I knew
What makes summer--that I do!"
Father heard, and it did show him
How to write a little poem.

    What makes summer, little one,
Do you ask? It is the sun.
Want of heat is all the harm,
Summer is but winter warm.
'Tis the sun--yes, that one there,
Dim and gray, low in the air!
Now he looks at us askance,
But will lift his countenance
Higher up, and look down straighter.
Rise much earlier, set much later,
Till we sing out, "Hail, Well...

Absent from thee I languish still;
Then ask me not, when I return?
The straying fool 'twill plainly kill
To wish all day, all night to mourn.

Dear! from thine arms then let me fly,
That my fantastic mind may prove
The torments it deserves to try
That tears my fixed heart from my love.

When, wearied with a world of woe,
To thy safe bosom I retire
where love and peace and truth does flow,
May I contented there expire,

Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
I fall on some base heart unblest,
Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven,
And lose my everlasting rest.

When, to the attractions of the busy world,
Preferring studious leisure, I had chosen
A habitation in this peaceful Vale,
Sharp season followed of continual storm
In deepest winter; and, from week to week,
Pathway, and lane, and public road, were clogged
With frequent showers of snow. Upon a hill
At a short distance from my cottage, stands
A stately Fir-grove, whither I was wont
To hasten, for I found, beneath the roof
Of that perennial shade, a cloistral place
Of refuge, with an unincumbered floor.
Here, in safe covert, on the shallow snow,
And, sometimes, on a speck of visible earth,
The redbreast near me hopped; nor was I loth
To sympathise with vulgar coppice birds
That, for protection from the nipping blast,
Hither repaired. A single beech-tree grew<...

Summer is gone on swallows' wings,
And Earth has buried all her flowers:
No more the lark,--the linnet--sings,
But Silence sits in faded bowers.
There is a shadow on the plain
Of Winter ere he comes again,--
There is in woods a solemn sound
Of hollow warnings whisper'd round,
As Echo in her deep recess
For once had turn'd a prophetess.
Shuddering Autumn stops to list,
And breathes his fear in sudden sighs,
With clouded face, and hazel eyes
That quench themselves, and hide in mist.

Yes, Summer's gone like pageant bright;
Its glorious days of golden light
Are gone--the mimic suns that quiver,
Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river.
Gone the sweetly-scented breeze
That spoke in music to the trees;
Gone--for damp and chilly breath,
A...

I

Looking seaward, o’er the sand-hills stands the fortress, old and quaint,
By the San Francisco friars lifted to their patron saint,

Sponsor to that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed,
On whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel’s golden reed;

All its trophies long since scattered, all its blazon brushed away;
And the flag that flies above it but a triumph of to-day.

Never scar of siege or battle challenges the wandering eye,
Never breach of warlike onset holds the curious passer-by;

Only one sweet human fancy interweaves its threads of gold
With the plain and homespun present, and a love that ne’er grows old;

Only one thing holds its crumbling walls above the meaner dust,
Listen to the simple story of a woman’s love and trust.
...

What it was struck the terror into me?
This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn
I’ll tell you. Water’s warm (they ring inside)
At the eighth hour, till when no use to bathe.

Here in the vestibule where now we sit,
One scarce stood yesterday, the throng was such
Of loyal gapers, folk all eye and ear
While Lucius Varius Rufus in their midst
Read out that long-planned late-completed piece,
His Panegyric on the Emperor.
“Nobody like him,” little Flaccus laughed,
“At leading forth an Epos with due pomp!
Only, when godlike Cæsar swells the theme,
How should mere mortals hope to praise aright?
Tell me, thou offshoot of Etruscan kings!”
Whereat Mæcenas smiling sighed assent.
I paid my quadrans, left the Thermæ roar
Of rapture as the poet asked: “What p...

If I ever be worthy or famous,
Which I’m sadly beginning to doubt,
When the angel whose place ’tis to name us
Shall say to my spirit, ‘Pass out!’
I wish for no sniv’lling about me
(My work was the work of the land),
But I hope that my country will shout me
The price of a decent brass band.

Thump! thump! of the drum and ‘Ta-ra-rit,’
Thump! thump! and the music, it’s grand,
If only in dreams, or in spirit,
To ride or march after the band!
And myself and my mourners go straying,
And strolling and drifting along
With a band in the front of us playing
The tune of an old battle song!

I ask for no ‘turn-out’ to bear me;
I ask not for railings or slabs,
And spare me! my country, oh, spare me!
The hearse and the long string of cabs!
I as...

    Let penny-a-liners columns pour
        Of turgid efflorescence,
    Describe in language that would floor
        Our Cayleys, Rouths, and Besants,
    How Oxford oars as levers move,
        While Cambridge mathematics,
    Though excellent in theory, prove
        Unstable in aquatics.

    Our muse, a maiden ne'er renowned
        For pride, or self-reliance,
    Knows little of the depths profound
        Of "Telegraphic" science:
    But now her peace she cannot hold
        And like a true Camena,
    With look half-blushing and half-bold,
        Descends into the arena.

    Sing who was he that steered to win,
        In spite of nine disasters,
    And proved that men who ne'er give in
        Must in the end be masters?...

(For John McCormack)


June of the trees in glory,
June of the meadows gay!
O, and it works a story
To tell an October day.

Blooms of the apple and cherry
Toil for the far-off hours;
Never is idleness merry,
In song of the garden bowers.

Brooks to the sea from mountains,
Yea, and from field and vine:
Rain and the sun are fountains
That gather for wheat and wine.

Cellar and loft shall glory,
Table and hearth shall praise,
Hearing October's story
Of June and the merry days.

The night is loud with reeds of rain
Rejoicing at my window-pane,
And murmuring, "Spring comes again!"

I hear the wind take up their song
And on the sky's vibrating gong
Beat out and roar it all night long.

Then waters, where they pour their might
In foam, halloo it down the night,
From vale to vale and height to height.

And I thank God that down the deep
She comes, her ancient tryst to keep
With Earth again who wakes from sleep:

From death and sleep, that held her fast
So long, pale cerements round her cast,
Her penetential raiment vast.

Now, Lazarus-like, within her grave
She stirs, who hears the words that save,
The Christ-like words of wind and wave.

And, hearing, bids her soul prepare
The germs of blossom...

The cowboy's overriding presence in North America's mythology is not difficult to understand.

Perhaps the great lone land ethos of endurance, stamina, self-resourcefulness and "a man's got to do what a man's got to do," John Wayne brand of thoroughness, still endures more so than once admitted. Talking in these terms usually elicits a responsive chord. Everyone has felt that, at one time or the other, only his carabine (wits) stood between him and the fate accorded to the Sundance Kid. As life increases in complexity, in all probability there will be a tendency to create myths or revive tales from the past to help blaze trails. The westerner personifies close shaves with danger. So, too, surviving in the corporate jungle implies a similar fixation in manufacturing responsive heroes to see us through.

In one scenario,...

[Greek poem here--Euripides.]



Pleasant it was, when woods were green,
    And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene.
Where, the long drooping boughs between,
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
    Alternate come and go;

Or where the denser grove receives
    No sunlight from above,
But the dark foliage interweaves
In one unbroken roof of leaves,
Underneath whose sloping eaves
    The shadows hardly move.

Beneath some patriarchal tree
    I lay upon the ground;
His hoary arms uplifted he,
And all the broad leaves over me
Clapped their little hands in glee,
    With one continuous sound;--

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings
    The feelings of a dream,
As of innumerable wings,
A...

In the east a lightening;
Where the woods are chill
Moves an unseen finger,
Wakes a sudden thrill;

In my soul a glimmer,
Hush! no words are heard!
In heart-ambush hidden
Chirrup of a bird;

Tremble heart and forest
Like a frightened fawn,
Gleam the distant tree-tops,
Hither comes the dawn!