Herbert Randall

“ And dreams to set you free.
Leagues to the East, forever,
Your spirit outward bound,
Life’s squadrons e’er returning
With treasure yet unfound.
Your soul the soul of Nation,
Your heart the heart of Youth,
Remembering our living dead!
Your sword the sword of Truth.
[62] LOVE O’ MY HEART.
Give me the same old road,
With its old stone walls and vines,
The same old hearth and the same old friends,
And the same old love that never ends;
Stars in the self-same-sky,
And the long lost dreams of bliss,
In the old-time way,
And my gods of clay,
And the same dear lips to kiss. ”

“ And the axes will not tarry till the old elm tree is down.
[83]
’Tis a century, they tell us, since it sprung up by the wall,
Full of love for all God’s creatures, yet the old elm tree must fall;
But its strong sap mounting skyward with its tidings of good will,
With its sturdy flow of courage for a soul that’s standing still,
Will forever thread my dreamings with the wonder unimpaired,
And the spirit of devotion for its blessings I have shared.
Yes, the robins, heavy-hearted, still their laughter for a day,
And the orioles are weeping by the roadside down the way. ”

“ Are rusting in the mountain-side,
By thick roots intertwined,
Unmindful of the broken hearts
Their madness left behind;
While Peace, Thy benediction,
With outspread wings hath spanned
Our country; God of battles,
We feel Thy clasping hand.
[86] “THE PILGRIM SPIRIT.”
Its argent unassailed,
Its purposes undimmed,
Its soul a crystal-hearted star
The conqueror hath rimmed
With broken swords, a restless shape,
Where birth and love are one,
Where death lies dead and worlds divide,
Still shoulders toward the sun. ”

“ Of bygone days is haloed by bayonet and scroll,
Where millions read a simple creed that binds a nation’s soul.
High on the walls of Heaven it crowns a lifting sky;
Hats off! ye peoples of the earth, America goes by!
Written on the return of the Plymouth Boys from the World War.
[13]
BURIAL HILL.
How many years have ripened, gone to seed, and died,
Since first this Holy Precinct of the Dead was set apart and sanctified.
Sunset and purple cloud have kept their vestal watch,
The morning breezes played,
And noontide spanned the waters, day by day ”

“ And the heart of the world is mine.
[29] OFF.
The wind is where we want it with a hornpipe in its heels,
The harbor-bar is spouting like a whale;
There’s the flash and splash of morning spun behind a dozen keels,
And a nixie-band a-whistling in the sail.
There’s a rolling path of glory for a hundred leagues or more,
With a streak of tumbling shadows breaking through;
O these foaming hills of wonder, where the siren trumpets roar,
While the seraphs are a-singing in the blue!
O the huddle of the waters, O the babble of the brine,
And the swing and tip and dip that sets you free ”

“ The madrigals that lift the dampness hanging over graves.
[14] THE OLD ROAD DOWN TO PLYMOUTH.
The old road down to Plymouth can never change for me,
In vagabond abandon it roams a century,
Braids through the dusky mornings, and evening’s afterglow,
An irridescent sunbeam, no matter where I go.
The old road down to Plymouth leads from a farmhouse door,
Leads like a jewelled ribbon, a thousand miles or more;
The door has lost its hinges, the barn has tumbled down,
But the old road down to Plymouth, the only road in town,
Winds in and out the bluets, the butterflies and hay ”

“ On the back of a balky wave!
O, we whistle a song as we swash along
Through gullies and mountain high,
As we hunt the dark, and we hunt the rain,
And we hunt the haunts of the wind’s domain,
For a glim in the inky sky.
O, the bloom of the night as she heaves in sight,
On the desolate water’s wings!
O, the bellying sheer (and no Chaplain near)
Where the old ship’s ladder swings.
O, the pomp and the rift, the slip and the shift,
The wheel of the Stygian foam;
O, the shimmering shroud where the thunders crowd,
And wilder our dreams of home.
[22]
THE DERELICT.
Make way! ”

“ No sickly taper as a monolith should burn, and flicker out,
Had I the mystic power to chant a deathless rigadoon
With this elusive pan;
’Tis not for me.
But I would plant a live-oak by your wigwam door,
So safely closed,
Whose grandsire knew your clan;
I’d woo the goshawk come and build among its knotty boughs, and year by year,
And nevermore should pale-face desecrate your name, that evermore should rustle in the leaves;
By light of every harvest moon, the noble footed deer should follow up the trail to that sequestered spot,
And kneel in reverence ”

“ You will miss the calm enchantment of its leafy choirs in June,
And its heavenly benediction on an August afternoon.
You will miss the sunset glory where it yellowed in the fall,
And the swarm of stars that gathered in the branches at the call
Of the sparrow at his vespers; you will miss the joy and glow
Of the melting moonlight blended with its legion flowers of snow. ”

“ O Dawn of Love’s completion, though earth still trembles
we no longer fear imperial will, and, phoenix-like, the
peasant rises from the dust, stares with his blinded eyes,
and praises God.
Cold Royalty, intolerable, an outcast, false and dull, the
cruel lines about its lips still tightly drawn—lost in the
art of savagery—sees not the new rich dawn, hears not
the herald-trumpetings, knows not the meaning of a
broken crown.
Written for the Pilgrim Tercentenary, Plymouth, 1921.
[9] PLYMOUTH ROCK. ”

“ More delicate than touch of moonbeams in the grass;
’Tis then the thoughts arise like incense from a silver bowl.
We never hurry through the flowers,
Or miss the color of a dreaming rose,
Nor kiss too long. ”

“ As they nose an’ dip in the mornin’ sky,
“How I’d love to go!” An’ I would, ’tis true,
For I love to sail in a boat, don’t you?
I love the slide o’ the slantin’ deck,
An’ the old blue shirt folded in at the neck;
I love the slip o’ the greasy coat,
An’ the feel o’ the brine on my face an’ throat,
An’ the things I hears, an’ the things I see,
When the skipper is drivin’ his helm hard-a-lee,
Wall—I love the tune, an’ I love the view,
But I don’t guess much it’s consarnin’ you.
But the best of all is the smell I get,
When the tides is out an’ the flats is wet ”

“ When the fisherman tacks for home;
I crouch in the track where the green-bills whirl,
And hide in the gullied foam.
O, the long-wide waves, with their snowy bloom,
When the winds are at rest, are mine ”

“ I’ve sometimes made the journey a dozen times a day.
And yonder lies the vision, a sheltered, calm retreat,
For the old road down to Plymouth is a balm for weary feet.
[15] ROSE OF PLYMOUTH. (THE SABBATIA) . ”

“ The incense on my breath,
Like Alp-horn notes that echo on
Oblivious of death.
Plymouth,
September 21, 1920.
[57] THE COLONIAL PIONEER.
A soul that like a column white
Survives the wind and rain,
Immortal as the Infinite,
Thy precepts shall remain
While man shall reverence motherhood,
Or galleons sail the seas,
While Earth shall clothe thy mortal frame,
Or leaves shall clothe the trees. ”

“ The men who followed Lafayette are marching up and down.
The spirit born at Lexington, and all the men are here,
With fife and drum, and here they come, and each a brigadier!
The heirs of Freedom ne’er broke ranks, or failed to face the brunt,
In every fight for righteousness our men are at the front ”

“ Nor acolyte of incense, nor robed Te Deum choirs,
E’er awed my soul with mysteries, so free from vain desires,
As cherubim and seraphim,
Who stay their phantom flight,
Amid the choirs of God’s green spires,
To tune their harps of light,
When evening’s drowsy whisper, the new moon in the west,
Broods Nature’s benediction, where lapwings float at rest.
[17] PLIMOTH THROUGH AN OLD SPY GLASS. (A SKETCH) .
Deep nestled in my heart there glows,
Against an azure sky,
A picture I would paint for you,
But O, how dare I try? ”