“ Hearts of my music—them dark earth covers;
Comrades to die, and to die for, were they;
In the width of the world there were no such rovers—
Back to back, breast to breast, it was ours to stay;
And the highest on earth was the vow that we cherished,
To spur forth from the crowd and come back never more,
And to ride in the track of great souls perished
Till the nests of the lark shall roof us o’er.
Yet lingers a horseman on Altai highlands,
Who hath joy of me, riding the Tartar glissade,
And one, far faring o’er orient islands
Whose blood yet glints with my blade’s accolade ”

“ With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke
Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.
“I, too, have rocked my little one,
O, He was fair!
Yea, fairer than the fairest sun,
And like its rays through amber spun
His sun-bright hair.
Still I can see it shine and shine.”
“Even so,” the woman said, “was mine.”
“His ways were ever darling ways,”—
And Mary smiled,—
“So soft, so clinging! Glad relays
Of love were all His precious days.
My little child!
My infinite star! My music fled!” ”

“ Are all the passions of our bleeding heart
That vex the awful patience of the earth.
II Thine are the large winds and the splendid sun
Glutting the spread of heaven to the floor
Of waters rhythmic from far shore to shore,
And thine the stars, revealing one by one,
Thine the grave, lucent night’s oblivion,
The tawny moon that waits below the skies,—
Strange as the dawn that smote their blistered eyes
Who watched from Calvary when the Deed was done.
And thine the good brown earth that bares its breast
To thy benign October, thine the trees
Lusty with fruitage in the late year’s rest ”

“ Take the pipe and go thy ways,—quick now, for the sun
Reels across the hot west and stumbles dazzled to the sea.
Take the pipe, and oh-one kiss! then run, run, run! run!”
Silence on the mountain. Lonely stands the high cairn,
All the leaves a-shivering, all the stones dead-gray.
O thou cold small pipe, which way is fled that Satyr’s bairn?
I am lost and all alone, and down drops the day.
I was on the mountain, wandering, wandering
There I got this Pipe o’ dreams. Strange, when I blow,
Something deep as human love starts a-crying, troubling.
Is it only sky-music, earth-music low? ”

“ Are the great companions’ voices that have hallowed year on year,
Shall we know an instant’s grieving as we pass?
Shall we pause a fleeting moment ere we grasp the eager hands,
Take one last long look of wonder at the dimming of the lands,
Love the earth one glowing moment ere we pass from its demands,
Cull all beauty in its essence as we gaze?
Or with not one backward longing shall we leap the last abyss,
Scale the highest crags glad-hearted, fearful only lest the bliss
Of an earth-remembering instant should delay the great sun’s kiss—
Consuming us within the flame? ”

“ Like thrushes singing in the rain
A song of long ago.
And on into the silver night
We strove to win the race with light
And bring the vision home,
And bring the wonder home again
Unto the sleeping eyes of men
Across the singing foam.
And down the river of the world
Our glowing, limbs in glory swirled
As spring within a flower,
And stars in music of delight
Streamed gayly down our shoulders white
Like petals in a shower. ”

“ And our laughter peals, and the mad world reels,
To a carnival of death.
“Slaves of sloth and the senses,
Clippers of Freedom’s wings,
Come back to the Pilgrim’s Army
And fight for the King of Kings;
Come back to the Pilgrim’s conscience;
Be born in the nation’s birth;
And strive again as simple men
For the freedom of the earth.
Freedom a free-born nation still shall cherish,
Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure:
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
Freedom and Truth immortal shall endure.” ”

“ Woman, clad only in youth and in gallant perfection,
Standing up in a great burst of sunshine, you dazzle my eyes
Like a snow-star, a moon, your effulgence burns up in a halo,
For you are the chalice which holds all the races of men.
You slip into the pool and the water folds over your shoulder,
And over the tree-tops the clouds slowly follow
your swimming, To behold the way they act. ”

“ And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch,
One great good limpid world—so still, so still!
For no sound echoes from its crystal curve
Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird
Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn,
And has no heart to finish, for the awe
And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn.
Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars!
Light, the revealer of dread beauty’s face!
Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad!
Mighty libation to the Unknown God!
Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst
And little leaves drink sweet delirium! ”

“ Live on through the years!
NORREYS JEPHSON O’CONOR
EVENSONG A shepherd piping, herald of the Night
Who comes with Silence up the coloured vale,
Treading low gently, clad in greyish white,
Poignantly piping, sound your reedy wail!
For Day departed moves in funeral train
Tended by Twilight and, in deepest rose,
The splendid Sunset melts beneath the main
While sweet the Sea-wind with cool softness blows.
As when a mother gathers to her breast
The child who frets for Dad’s remembered smart,
Now Light fades quickly in the ashen west,
And Night-Peace falls across my troubled heart. ”

“ The jealous sun conceals all but his arrogant face,
You bid the Milky Way and a million suns to shine.
Each star to numberless planets gives light and motion and heat,
But you enmantle them all, the nearest and most remote;
And the lustres of all the suns are but spangles under your feet,—
Mere bubbles and beads of noon, they circle and shine and float. ”

“ A purple aster flower and a red one
Standing alone in a withered desolation.
The garden plants are shattered and seeded,
One brittle leaf scrapes against another,
Fiddling echoes of a rush of petals.
Now only you and I nodding together.
Many were with us; they have all faded.
Only we are purple and crimson,
Only we in the dew-clear mornings,
Smarten into color as the sun rises. ”

“ Being and breath and potion! living soul
And all-informing heart of all that lives!
How can we magnify thine awful name
Save by its chanting: Light! and Light! and Light!
An exhalation from far sky retreats,
It grows in silence, as ’twere self-create,
Suffusing all the dusky web of night.
But one lone corner it invades not yet,
Where low above a black and rimy crag
Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield,
The holy, useless shield of long-past wars,
Dinted and frosty, on the crystal dark. ”

“ Play-mate, Pipe-mate, thou askest one good boon too much.
I could never find thee horns, though day-long I seek.
“Yet, keep the pipe, Thou: I will cut another one.
Keep the pipe and play on it for all the world to hear.
Ah, but it was good once to sit together in the sun!
Though I have but half a soul, it finds thee very dear!
“Wise Thing, Mortal Thing, yet my half-soul fears thee! ”

“ Came that far smile, from what long-strayed sun-beam
Caught thou the radiance, from what fostering vine
The power to build and mould the deep design?
Knowest thou the secret that thy brush would tell,
Is all the dream a bubbled splendor white,
Beyond those castles cloud-bound, does there dwell
The eternal silence of the dark—or light? ”

“ HOME-BOUND The moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips,
The water makes a quietness of sound;
Night is an anchoring of many ships
Home-bound.
There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs
Of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin
The silence into nets, and tenanters
Move softly in.
I step on shadows riding through the grass,
And feel the night lean cool against my face ”

“ And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the splashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her. ”

“ L’ENVOI When the time for parting comes, and the day is on the wane,
And the silent evening darkens over hill and over plain,
And earth holds no more sorrow, no more grief, and no more pain,
Shall we weary for the battle and the strife? ”

“ And live in one perpetual distress?
Some evil power must such love inspire,
And with it masquerade in Cupid’s dress!
CHARLES GIBSON
TO MUSIC
“Music, the language, the atmosphere of the Soul.”
Fly back where Melodies like lilies grow,
My weary heart is bending low;
Fly higher yet to joyful realms above,
Where holy Angels dwell in love.
Fly higher still and hear the Angel throng
And bring to me their Glory-song:
Ah Music, thou and I above the World
May dwell where heaven with shining song is pearled! ”

“ I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is torn
With a battle of desires making all my life forlorn.
There are moments when I would untread the paths that I have trod.
I’m a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God. ”

“ Your bright, naked body advances, blown over by leaves,
Half-quenched in their various green, just a point of you showing,
A knee or a thigh, sudden glimpsed, then at once blotted into
The filmy and flickering forest, to start out again
Triumphant in smooth, supple roundness, edged sharp as white ivory,
Cool, perfect, with rose rarely tinting your lips and your breasts,
Swelling out from the green in the opulent curves of ripe fruit,
And hidden, like fruit, by the swift intermittence of leaves. ”

“ Some of Love’s fire still burns within your breast!
Forgiveness finds its home in hearts at rest,
On dead volcanoes only lies the snow.
THE ROSE One deep red rose I dropped into his grave,
So small a thing to give so great a friend! ”

“ Beneath the guardianship of forest trees,
And some yearn upward as with thought of wings,
Yet the eyes of the dwellers therein are dark
To the upper forest and they
Fearful of the windy freedom of its top.
They have forgotten
That the greatest roof is but a banner
And that it was a tree that made a Cross.
CHARLES R. MURPHY
MAGIC TO W.S.B. I ran into the sunset light
As hard as I could run:
The treetops bowed in sheer delight
As if they loved the sun:
And all the songs of little birds
Who laughed and cried in silver words
Were joined as they were one. ”

“ While below runs the water impatient, impatient to take you,
To splash you, to run down your sides, to sing you of deepness,
Of pools brown and golden, with brown-and-gold flags on their borders,
Of blue, lingering skies floating solemnly over your beauty,
Of undulant waters a-sway in the effort to hold you
To keep you submerged and quiescent while over you glories
The summer. ”

“ Long is the wailing of man’s breath,
Short is the wail of death.
JEANNETTE MARKS
SLEEPY HOLLOW, CONCORD Four graves there are upon the wooded crest,
Each one a shrine to pilgrims ever dear.
Uncovered, mute, are those who tarry here.
Romance’s dreaming master lies at rest
Beneath the cedars. Near is one whose breast
Held Mother Nature’s lore. Beyond, the seer
And sage. There, one who saw her duty clear,
Her name by little men and women blessed. ”

“ Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music low!
I said “Good-day, Thou!” He said, “Good-day, Thou!”
Wiped his reed against the spotted doe-skin on his back,
He said, “Come up here, and I will teach thee piping now.
While the earth is singing so, for tunes we shall not lack.”
Up scrambled I then, furry fingers helping me.
Up scrambled I. So we sat beside the cairn.
Broad into my face laughed that hornèd Thing so naughtily.
Oh, it was a rascal of a woodland Satyr’s bairn!
So blow, and so, Thou! Move thy fingers faster, look!
Move them like the little leaves and whirling midges. So! ”

“ THE SWORD OF ARTHUR A castle stands in Yorkshire
(Oh, the hill is fair and green!)
And far beneath it lies a cave
No living man has seen.
It is the cave enchanted
(Oh, seek it ere ye die!)
And there King Arthur and his knights
In dreamless slumber lie.
One time a peasant found it
(Oh, the years have hurried well!) ”

“ There is no one now who presses my side;
By the African chotts I am riding asunder,
And with great joy ride I the last great ride.
I am fey; I am fein of sudden dying;
Thousands of miles there is no one near ”

“ And I will march through dying cheers
Past empires unreturning;
Ever the world flame reappears
Where mankind power is earning,
The nations’ hopes, the people’s tears,
One with the wild heart yearning. ”

“ I cried: “The stars are no less neighborly
In their ethereal remoteness swung,
Than these near human orbits wherein we
Live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue!
“Love seek through all—less there be one
Least soul unlit within the night—
And over all, the selfsame sun
Give each creation light!”
MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI
THE RIOT You may think my life is quiet. ”

“ The wild shriek of the winds that cannot die,
Give me the life that follows the bending sails,
Or none at all!
ERNEST BENSHIMOL
A BANQUET
ONE MEMORY FROM SOCRATES After the song the love, and after the love the play,
Flute girl and pretty boy blowing
Bubbles of sparkling
Wine into darkling
Beards of a former austerity, stern even now, but fast growing
Foolish, with less of a stately
Reserve that held them sedately. ”

“ And vagrant voices on a darkened plain,
And holy things, and outcast things, and things,
Far too remote, frail-bodied to be plain.
My pity and my joy are grown alike.
I cannot sweep the strangeness from my heart.
The Moods have laid swift hands across my hair:
The Moods have drawn swift fingers through my heart.
FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS
HILL-FANTASY Sitteth by the red cairn a brown One, a hoofed One,
High upon the mountain, where the grasses fail.
Where the ash-trees flourish far their blazing bunches to the sun,
A brown One, a hoofed One, pipes against the gale. ”