Helen Gray Cone

“ Being giant-strong to save the souls of men.
But Hate came to us, richly masked, and we
Esteemed him Love; and now among us ten
Sits very Hate. The life we prized is ours
For aye! Yet not so far, I deem, this den
From sound of suffering as our fields of flowers.”
With that weird smile, she turned as if to go.
Loud groaned the lurid City, the sullen fen
Of Styx, and all that grief that lies below.
“Farewell,” I sighed, “Fiammetta!” But she, “Not so!
What life is thine? Perchance we meet again!” ”

“ Who from the seat of mine own soul dost lower,—
Darkness itself, that doth the light devour,—
I feel thine urgency upon me laid
To voice despair! Thou shalt not be obeyed;
Thou art my master only for thine hour! ”

“ I learned it from the Ninth-month Equinoctial, from the redwood tree, and the Civil War, and the hermit-thrush, and the telephone, and the Corliss engine,
The secret of the Universe is not Beauty, dear son, nor is it Art the perpetuator of Beauty,
The secret of the Universe is to admire one’s self. ”

“ Such days are gone, and strange things come instead;
For she has looked on other faces white,
Pale bloom of fear, before war’s whirlwind blown;
Has stooped, ah Heaven! in some low sheltering shed
To tend dark wounds, the leaping arrow’s bite,
While the cold death that hovered seemed her own.
And in her hurt heart, o’er some grizzled head,
The mother that shall never be has yearned ”

“ And colder than soft snow yet hard as stone;
Fate, that makes daily fare of heart’s desire,
Being found thereunto a devouring fire:
Death, that is friend to fate and fair love’s foe;
Death, that makes waste the wolds of life with snow ”

“ When Helios rising shakes the splendor of his hair.
[82]
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
—With that Sir Gawain departed, joyful and sorrowful: joyful because of what Merlin had assured him should happen to him; and sorrowful, that Merlin had thus been lost.
Morte d’Arthur.
Thou Merlin, shut in the still wood of Death,
Yet living! who through forest-calm dost roll
A voice of guidance to the venturous soul
As when thou hadst the common blood and breath:
Far for thy praise my Fancy wandereth
Through all wide lands, and fain would spoil the whole
To heap crown-jewels at thine oak-tree’s bole. ”

“ Sitting in the cell of Galileo, learning at his elder’s lips the truth.
Haply they shall liken these dear moments, safely held in History’s amber clear,
Unto Dante’s converse bland with Virgil, on the margin of that gloomy mere! ”

“ Beauty is all very good as far as it goes, and Art the perpetuator of Beauty is all very good as far as it goes, but you can tell your folks, [113]
Your folks in London, or in Dublin, or in Rome, or where the Arno flows, or where Seine flows,
Your folks in the picture-galleries, admiring the Raphaels, the Tintorettos, the Rubenses, Vandykes, Correggios, Murillos, Angelicos of the world,
(I know them all, they have effused to me, I have wrung them out, I have abandoned them, I have got beyond them,) —
Narcissus (aside, with tenderness) . ”

“ This little claspéd cup, and charm of wine
Love singing trod with feet of heavenly sheen,
I set away: it shall be always thine.
Thine to restore, with magic strong and strange,
The might of meeting eyes and near, warm breath ”

“ Warm Joy, that, generous, gives the pale one place,
And in the tremulous lines of her fair face
An exquisite and soft remorse appears
That Love, of right, must take the sovereign seat,
And Friendship lower pass, for all his years. ”

“ Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ,
And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew “The Polish Boy.”
It’s not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul
Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll ”

“ In careless Arden, Arden green to-day,
Parrying with gallant wit the question gay
Touching his lady’s stature. When of us
Lips yet to be, in years lying yet before,
Make question of the stature of thy fame,
The words that we shall answer are the same:
High as our hearts he stood.
What man would more? ”

“ To those that died as any dull brute dies,
And propped the Future but with bleaching bones?
O Man to be, if perfect thou indeed,
A horror thine inheritance appears,
A Titan torture-fire thy rising day! ”

“ Galileo was admirable once, Milton was admirable,
Dante the I-talian was a cute man in his way,
But he was not the maker of poems, the Answerer!
I Paumanokides am the maker of poems, the Answerer,
And I calculate to chant as long as the earth revolves,
To an interminable audience of haughty, effusive, copious, gritty, and chipper Americanos! [117]
Narcissus. ”

“ Oh, not alone this crooked blade unsheathes,
Empowered at last, one wan and patient Jew:
Just Judah stands for law. A spirit new
Gives answer gracious as from heaven it rained.
A powerful angel through a woman breathes:
“The quality of mercy is not strained.” ”

“ A fine old russet folio—give me these!
Birds’ twitterings at the dawn my ear displease,
My dreams disturb. What eye could ever tire
Of orderly white ways? could e’er desire
The foolish haze of May? Such wishes tease
No sober mind! ”

“ I am he that loves the young men, whosoever and wheresoever they are or may be hereafter, or may have been any time in the past,
Loves the eye-glassed literat, loves also and probably more the vender of clams, raucous-throated, monotonous-chanting,
Loves the Elevated Railroad employee of Mannahatta, my city ”

“ Of the painted butterflies;
And the arras, wrought with fights,
Grows alive before his eyes.
Lo, its giant shapes of Danes,
As without a wind it waves,
Live more nobly than his thanes,
Sullen carpers, ale-fed slaves! ”

“ Nor doubts some deed he did to-day?
That taunt was harsh, that boast was loud.
How failed his eyes to recognize
The god behind the foeman bold?
Why gave he, under friendship’s guise,
That mail of brass for mail of gold? [75]
Oh, is there one, of either host,
Who never, sighing, weighs his cause
At this grave hour, nor feels a ghost,
Cool-handed, bid his courage pause?
Two: dog-like droops the dreaming head
Of mean Thersites evil-eyed;
And Paris on his broidered bed
Sleeps well at swan-white Helen’s side.
No scruple sharp the selfist finds ”

“ Also patched by the heaven-ambitious citizens with the yellow handbill, the advertisement of patent soaps, the glaring and vari-colored circus poster:
Mine, too, for reasons, such arrays;
Such my unfettered verse, scorning the delicatesse of dilettantes.
Try it, I’ll stake you my ultimate dollar you’ll like it. [116]
Narcissus (gracefully waiving the point) .
Haply in the far, the orient future, in the dawn we herald like the birds,
Men shall read the legend of our meeting, linger o’er the music of our words ”

“ THE RHYME OF THE HERCULES CLUB. BEING A BALLAD OF TO-DAY, DESIGNED TO ILLUSTRATE THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION, AND TO SET FORTH HOW THERE MAY BE TOO MUCH OF AN EXCELLENT THING.
There was once a young man of the medium size,
Who, by keeping a ledger, himself kept likewise. ”

“ When the pale primsie moon she is walkin’ aboon,
But nae lass below her gaes roamin’ alane!
A lad I hae seen, he has witchin’ black e’en—
O Jamie MacPherson, ye’re wonderfu’ slee!
Ye hae stown my ain mither, hae stown my ain brither,
But Robin has stown my ain heart frae me! III.
MY AIN, AIN LASS.
I’m fain for toys o’ Fortune whyles ”