John Charles McNeill

“ Would, in thy beauty, we might all forget Dead days and old regret, And through thy realm might fare us forth to roam, Having no thought for home! And yet I feel, beneath thy queen's attire, Woven of blood and fire, Beneath the golden glory of thy charm Thy mother heart beats warm, And if, mayhap, a wandering child of thee, Weary of land and sea, Should turn him homeward from his dreamer's quest To sob upon thy breast, Thine arm would fold him tenderly, to prove How thine eyes brimmed with love, And thy dear hand, with all a mother's care, Would rest upon his hair. ”

“ Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf To blind the eyes of grief; Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit That sorrow may be mute; A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep, Ere the gray dusk may creep Sober and sad along thy dusty ways, Like a lone nun, who prays; High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls; Thy lazy lizard sprawls On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep About thy hedge, asleep; The sun swings farther toward his love, the south, To kiss her glowing mouth; And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers, Is deeply hid in flowers. ”

“ The ancient charms Of dew and dusk Still lure her nomad odors from the musk, And, at each day's millennial eclipse, On new men's lips, Some old song starts, Made of the music of millennial hearts, Whereto one listens as from long ago And learns to know That one day's tears And love and life are as a thousand years', And that some simple shepherd, singing of His pain and love, May haply find His heart-song speaks the heart of all his kind. ”

“ Oh, can it be the gates ajar Wait not her humble quest, Whose life was but a patient war Against the death that stalked from far With neither haste nor rest; To whom were sun and moon and cloud, The streamlet's pebbly coil, The transient, May-bound, feathered crowd, The storm's frank fury, thunder-browed, But witness of her toil; Whose weary feet knew not the bliss Of dance by jocund reed; Who never dallied at a kiss! If heaven refuses her, life is A tragedy indeed! ”

“ No foe need fear his arm again, Nor love, nor praise can make him whole; But o'er the farthest sons of men Will brood the glory of his soul. Careless though cenotaph or tomb Shall tower his country's monument, Let banners float and cannon boom, A million-throated shout be spent, Until his widowed sea shall laugh With sunlight in her mantling foam, While, to his tomb or cenotaph, We bid our hero welcome home. Twice exiled, let his ashes rest At home, afar, or in the wave, But keep his great heart with us, lest Our nation's greatness find its grave ”

“ Each year will bring Another brood of birds to nest and sing. At dawn will go New ploughmen to the fields we used to know. Night will call home The hunter from the hills we loved to roam. She will not ask, The milkmaid, singing softly at her task, Nor will she care To know if I were brave or you were fair. No one will think What chalice life had offered us to drink, When from our clay The sun comes back to kiss the snow away.
Now! Her brown hair knew no royal crest, No gems nor jeweled charms, No roses her bright cheek caressed, No lilies kissed her arms. ”

“ The little cares and carols that belong To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres, And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong. If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep, And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes; Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies, More worth than legions in the dust of strife, Time, looking back at last, should count my life. ”

“ An Invalid I care not what his name for God may be, Nor what his wisdom holds of heaven and hell, The alphabet whereby he strives to spell His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee, Since, with his grave before him, he can see White Peace above it, while the churchyard bell Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell, Seems but the waiting tongue of liberty. ”

“ Our spirits are his breath, our hearts Beat from his heart; Hence we have played as little gods And called it art. Lacking his power, we shared his dream Of perfect things; Between the tents of hope and sweet Rememberings Have sat in ashes, but our souls Went forth on wings. Where life fell short of some desire In you and me, Feeling for beauty which our eyes Could never see, Behold, from out the void we willed That it should be, And sometimes dreamed our lisping songs Of humanhood Might voice his silent harmony Of waste and wood, And he, beholding his and ours, Might find it good. ”

“ When dogwood blossoms mingle With the maple's modest red, And sweet arbutus wakes at last From out her winter's bed, 'T would not seem strange at all to meet A dryad or a gnome, Or Pan or Psyche in the woods Away down home. Then come with me, thou weary heart! Forget thy brooding ills, Since God has come to walk among His valleys and his hills! The mart will never miss thee, Nor the scholar's dusty tome, And the Mother waits to bless thee, Away down home.
For Jane's Birthday If fate had held a careless knife And clipped one line that drew, Of all the myriad lines of life, From Eden up to you ”

“ When I Go Home When I go home, green, green will glow the grass, Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pass; Long lines of wood-ducks through the deepening gloam Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass, And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam, When I go home. When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash The solemn woods above the bearded ash, The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath clomb, Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash, And every orchard flaunt its polychrome, When I go home. ”

“ And, as he guides the blade that gropes Up from the barren sod, So, from the ashes of our hopes, Will beauty grow toward God. Whate'er thy name, O Soul of Life,— We know but that thou art,— Thou seest, through all our waste of strife, One groping human heart, Weary of words and broken sight, But moved with deep accord To worship where thy lilies light The altar of its Lord. ”

“ If I were the driver who handles her reins, Up hill and down hill and over the plains, To watch the slow mountains give back in the west, To know the new reaches that wait every crest, To hold, when she swerves, with a confident clutch, And feel how she shivers and springs to the touch, With the snow on her back and the sun in her face, And nothing but time as a quarry to chase, I should grip hard my teeth, and look where she led, And brace myself stooping, and give her her head, And urge her, and soothe her, and serve all her need, And exult in the thunder and thrill of her speed. ”

“ If it be better so, that Babel noises, Losing all course and ken, And grief that wails and gladness that rejoices Should never wake again To shock a world of modulated voices And mediocre men, Then he is blest who wears the painted feather And may not turn about To dusks when muses romped the dewy heather In unrestricted rout And dawns when, if the stars had sung together, The sons of God would shout! ”

“ To-day the dove Will mark the ancient amorous date With moans of love; The crow will change his call to prate His hopes thereof. The starling will display the red That lights his wings; The wren will know the sweet things said By him who swings And ducks and dips his crested head And sings and sings. They are obedient to their blood, Nor ask a sign, Save buoyant air and swelling bud, At hands divine, But choose, each in the barren wood, His valentine. In caution's maze they never wait Until they die ”

“ We leave our shoes right where we pulled them off at night, And, barefooted once again, we run and shout it: You may take the country over— When the bluebird turns a rover, And the wind is soft and hazy, And you feel a little lazy, And the hunters quit the possums— It's the time for dogwood blossoms. ”

“ Jesse Covington If I have had some merry times In roaming up and down the earth, Have made some happy-hearted rhymes And had my brimming share of mirth, And if this song should live in fame When my brief day is dead and gone, Let it recall with mine the name Of old man Jesse Covington. ”

“ Homeless forever, at her bosom close She holds the purchase of her love and life, Of motherhood, unglorified as wife; And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn The knowing her child were happier never born. Whence are the halo and the fiery shame That fashion thus a crown and curse of love? Have roted words such power to bless and blame? Ay, men have stained a raven from many a dove, And all the grace and all the grief hereof Are the two words which bore one's lips apart And which the other hoarded in her heart. ”

“ Thou great God-heart, heed thou thy people's cry, Bare-browed and empty-handed where they die, Sea-sundered from wall-girt Jerusalem, There being no sword that wills to succor them,— And Miriam's song, long hushed, will rise to thee, And all thy people lift their eyes to thee, When, for the darkness' horror over them, Thou comest, a cloud of light to cover them. ”

“ Dawn The hills again reach skyward with a smile. Again, with waking life along its way, The landscape marches westward mile on mile And time throbs white into another day. Though eager life must wait on livelihood, And all our hopes be tethered to the mart, Lacking the eagle's wild, high freedom, would That ours might be this day the eagle's heart! ”

“ Attraction He who wills life wills its condition sweet, Having made love its mother, joy its quest, That its perpetual sequence might not rest On reason's dictum, cold and too discreet; For reason moves with cautious, careful feet, Debating whether life or death were best, And why pale pain, not ruddy mirth, is guest In many a heart which life hath set to beat. ”

“ For now, when every songster finds his love And makes his nest where woods are deep and green, Free as the winds, thy song should mock the dove. If I were thou, my grief in moans should move At thinking—otherwhere, by others' art Charmed and forgetful—of mine own sweetheart. But I, who weep when fortune seems unkind To prison me within a space of walls, When far-off grottoes hold my loves enshrined And every love is cruel when it calls ”

“ To ——— Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds Her frost upon your hair, And you together sit at dusk, May I come to you there? And lightly will our hearts turn back To this, then distant, day When, while the world was clad in flowers, You two were wed in May. When we shall sit about your board Three old friends met again, Joy will be with us, but not much Of jest and laughter then; For Autumn's large content and calm, Like heaven's own smile, will bless The harvest of your happy lives With store of happiness. ”

“ The true stars came to their stations in heaven, The false stars shivered deep down in the sea, And the white crests went like monsters, driven By winds that never would let them be, And there, where the elements mingled and muttered, We stood, each man with a lone dumb heart, Full of the vastness that never was uttered By symbol of words or by echo of art. ”

“ Lines To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray Above this page to-day, Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care, Grows year by year more fair, Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme, That haply passing time May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay When we have gone our way ”

“ May you, who, flankt about with flowers, Will plight your faith to-day, Hold, evermore enthroned, the love Which you have crowned in May; And Time will sleep upon his scythe, The swallow rest his wing, Seeing that you at autumntide Still clasp the hands of spring. ”

“ The hazy horizon is all she sees, Nor cares for the meadows, stirred with bees, Nor the long, straight stretches of silent land, Nor the ploughman, that shades his eye with his hand, Nor the cots and hamlets that know no more Than a shriek and a flash and a flying roar; But, bearing her tidings, she trembles and throbs, And laughs in her throat, and quivers and sobs; And the fire in her heart is a red core of heat, That drives like a passion through forest and street, Till she sees the ships in their harbor at rest, And sniffs at the trail to the end of her quest. ”

“ There are lights in the windows; a blue spire of smoke Climbs from the grange grove of elm and oak. The smell of the Earth, where the night pours to her Its dewy libation, is sweeter than myrrh, And an incense to Toil is the smell of the loam On the last load home.
Two Pictures One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm, A halo, like an angel's, on her hair. She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm. A holy presence hovers round her there, And she, for all her mother-pains more fair, Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that stir The hearts of men bear worship unto her. ”

“ For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath, And cant and creed, the progeny of strife, Thronging the safe, companioned streets of life, Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of death, And learn too late why dying lips can smile: That goodness is the only creed worth while. ”

“ Or is it but a nameless fear, A wordless joy, that calls the tear In dumb appeal to rise, When, looking on him where he stands, You yield up all into his hands, Pleading into his eyes? For days that laugh or nights that weep You two strike oars across the deep With life's tide at the brim ”