John Hay

“ Hope and devotion
The good may gain;
I am but worthy
Of passion and pain.
So noble a Lord
None serves in vain,
For the pay of my love
Is my love's sweet pain.
I love Thee, to love Thee,—
No more I desire;
By faith is nourished
My love's strong fire.
I kiss Thy hands
When I feel their blows;
In the place of caresses
Thou givest me woes.
But in Thy chastising
Is joy and peace.
O Master and Love,
Let Thy blows not cease.
Thy beauty, Belovèd,
With scorn is rife,
But I know that Thou lovest me
Better than life. ”

“ The stain of sinful loving, and may find
In glory again the love I lost below,
With all of fair and bright and unattained,
Beautiful in the cherishing smile of God,
By the glad waters of the River of Life!
Night hangs above the valley; dies the day
In peace, casting his last glance on my cross,
And warns me to my prayers. Ave Maria!
Mother of God! the evening fades
On wave and hill and lea,
And in the twilight's deepening shades
We lift our souls to thee!
In passion's stress—the battles strife,
The desert's lurking harms,
Maid-Mother of the Lord of Life
Protect thy men-at-arms! ”

“ The wreath will wither if you stay,
So pass along your earnest way—
Memento mori.
Hear but not heed, though wild and shrill,
The cries of faction transitory;
Cleave to your good, eschew your ill,
A Hundred Years and all is still—
Memento mori.
When Old Age comes with muffled drums,
That beat to sleep our tired life's story,
On thoughts of dying, (Rest is good!)
Like old snakes coiled i' the sun, we brood—
Memento mori.
Blondine
I wandered through a careless world
Deceived when not deceiving,
And never gave an idle heart
The rapture of believing. ”

“ Do you remember ever
The eyes and skies so blue
On a summer day that shone here,
When we were all alone here,
And the blue eyes were too wise
To speak the love they knew?
O stern impassive River!
O still unanswering River!
The shivering willows quiver
As the night-winds moan and rave.
From the past a voice is calling,
From heaven a star is falling,
And dew swells in the bluebells
Above her hillside grave.
Una
In the whole wide world there was but one,
Others for others, but she was mine,
The one fair woman beneath the sun. ”

“ The bird laughed loud
"I am the Devil," he said.
The monks on their faces fell, the bird
Away through the twilight sped.
A horror fell on those holy men,
(The faithful legends say,)
And one by one from the face of earth
They pined and vanished away.
IV. So goes the tale of the monkish books,
The moral who runs may read,—
He has no ears for Nature's voice
Whose soul is the slave of creed.
Not all in vain with beauty and love
Has God the world adorned;
And he who Nature scorns and mocks,
By Nature is mocked and scorned. ”

“ Defend thy men-at-arms!
Ay! Heaven keep them! and ye angel-hosts
That wait with fluttering plumes around the great
White throne of God, guard them from scathe and harm!
For in your starry records never shone
The memory of desert so great as theirs.
I hold not first, though peerless else on earth,
That knightly valor, born of gentle blood
And war's long tutelage, which hath made their name
Blaze like a baleful planet o'er these lands;
Firm seat in saddle, lance unmoved, a hand
Wedding the hilt with death's persistent grasp;
One-minded rush in fight that naught can stay. ”

“ O'erarched a drowning world.
The Law said, As you keep me,
It shall be done to you;
But Calvary prays, Forgive them;
They know not what they do.
Almighty God! direct us
To keep Thy perfect Law!
O blessed Saviour, help us
Nearer to Thee to draw!
Let Sinai's thunders aid us
To guard our feet from sin;
And Calvary's light inspire us
The love of God to win.
The Vision of St. Peter
To Peter by night the faithfullest came
And said, "We appeal to thee!
The life of the Church is in thy life;
We pray thee to rise and flee. ”

“ To life, love, lying at thy feet!
In a Graveyard
In the dewy depths of the graveyard
I lie in the tangled grass,
And watch, in the sea of azure,
The white cloud-islands pass.
The birds in the rustling branches
Sing gayly overhead;
Gray stones like sentinel spectres
Are guarding the silent dead.
The early flowers sleep shaded
In the cool green noonday glooms;
The broken light falls shuddering
On the cold white face of the tombs,
Without, the world is smiling
In the infinite love of God,
But the sunlight fails and falters
When it falls on the churchyard sod. ”

“ Or bear our banner's starry light
Far-flashing through the Gulf's blue water.
For where one strikes for light and truth
The right to aid, the wrong redressing,
The mother of his spirit's youth
Sheds o'er his soul her silent blessing.
She gained her crown a gem of flame
When KNEASS fell dead in victory gory;
New splendor blazed upon her name
When IVES' young life went out in glory!
Thus bright forever may she keep
Her fires of tolerant Freedom burning,
Till War's red eyes are charmed to sleep
And bells ring home the boys returning. ”

“ How the red flush of her shame mars the proud beauty of Spain!
V. Has the red blood run cold that boiled by the Xenil and Darro?
Are the high deeds of the sires sung to the children no more?
On the dun hills of the North hast thou heard of no plough-boy Pizarro?
Roams no young swine-herd Cortés hid by the Tagus' wild shore?
VI. Once again does Hispania bend low to the yoke of the stranger!
Once again will she rise, flinging her gyves in the sea!
Princeling of Piedmont! unwitting thou weddest with doubt and with danger,
King over men who have learned all that it costs to be free. ”

“ I must leave what I wrote in the midst of the stirring scenes of the interregnum between the secular monarchy and the short-lived Republic—whose advent I foresaw, but whose sudden fall was veiled from my sanguine vision—without defense or apology, claiming only that it was written in good faith, from a heart filled with passionate convictions and an ardent love and devotion to what is best in Spain. ”

“ Themselves on thy fair young head,
And pray the good God to keep thee alway
As good and lovely, as pure and gay,—
When I and my wild love are dead.
To the Young.
AFTER HEINE. Letyour feet not falter, your course not alter
By golden apples, till victory's won!
The sword's sharp clangor, the dart's shrill anger,
Swerve not the hero thundering on.
A bold beginning is half the winning,
An Alexander makes worlds his fee. ”

“ Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages,
"Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"
Most fatal, most futile, of questions!
Wherever the heart of man beats,
In the spirit's most sacred retreats,
It comes with its sombre suggestions,
Unanswered forever and aye.
The blessing may come and may stay,
For the wrestler's heroic endeavor;
But the question, unheeded forever,
Dies out in the broadening day. ”

“ O goodliest fellowship that the world has known,
True hearts and stalwart arms! above your breasts
Glitters no flash of wreathen amulet
Forged against sword-stroke by the chanted rhythm
Of charms accurst; but in each steadfast heart
Blazes the light of cloudless purity,
That like a splendid jewel glorifies
With restless fire the gold that spheres it round,
And marks you children of our God, whose lives
He guards with the awful jealousy of love. ”

“ Up to him with rapid questions:
"I would know thy name, thy nation,
Whence thou comest, who thou art."
And the young slave said, "My name is
Mahomet, I come from Yemmen.
I am of the sons of Azra,
Men who perish if they love."
Good and Bad Luck.
AFTER HEINE. Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay,
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.
But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays,—no fancy has she for flitting,—
Snatches of true love-songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting. ”

“ Within thy blue eyes shine.
Not statelier in their prisoning seas
The icebergs grandly move,
But in thy smile is youth and joy,
And in thy voice is love.
Thou art like Hecla's crest that stands
So lonely, proud, and high,
No earthly thing may come between
Her summit and the sky.
The sun in vain may strive to melt
Her crown of virgin snow—
But the great heart of the mountain glows
With deathless fire below. ”

“ Saloman looked from his donjon bars,
Where the Danube clamors through sedge and sand,
And he cursed with a curse his revolting land,—
With a king's deep curse of treason and wars.
He said: "May this false land know no truth!
May the good hearts die and the bad ones flourish,
And a greed of glory but live to nourish
Envy and hate in its restless youth.
"In the barren soil may the ploughshare rust,
While the sword grows bright with its fatal labor,
And blackens between each man and neighbor—
The perilous cloud of a vague distrust! ”

“ When every land under Heaven was flecked by the shade of thy banner,—
When every beam of the sun flashed on thy conquering steel?
IV. Then through red fields of slaughter, through death and defeat and disaster,
Still flared thy banner aloft, tattered, but free from a stain,
Now to the upstart Savoyard thou bendest to beg for a master! ”

“ May he wring their hearts as they wrung mine,
Till they pour their blood for his revels like wine,
And to women and monks their birthright fling!"
The mad king died; but the rushing river
Still brawls by the spot where his donjon stands,
And its swift waves sigh to the conscious sands
That the curse of King Saloman works forever.
For flowing by Pressbourg they heard the cheers
Ring out from the leal and cheated hearts
That were caught and chained by Theresa's arts,—
A man's cool head and a girl's hot tears! ”

“ XVI. Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues;
But in your secret heart 't is of your faults you are proud.
XVII. Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters;
Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.
XVIII. Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting,
Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life. ”

“ And so I hope, and so my crescent faith
Gains daily power, that all my prayers and tears
And toils and blood and anguish borne for him
May blot the accusing of my deadly sin
From heaven's high compt, and give me rest in death ”

“ I. Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.
This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.
II. There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going,
When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs.
III. Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection,
As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.
IV. As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.
V. What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second? ”

“ Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.
VII. Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it the fouler,
But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.
VIII. Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient:
Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel. ”

“ Where the Muezzin's cry floats from his spire;
In the vaulted Cathedral's dim shades,
Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire
Through art's highest miracles higher,
This question of questions invades
Each heart bowed in worship or shame;
In the air where the censers are swinging,
A voice, going up with the singing,
Cries, "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!" ”

“ I left Madrid in the memorable August of that year, passing through Paris when that beautiful city was lying in the torpor which followed the wild excitement of the declaration of war, and preceded the fury of despair that came with the catastrophe of Sedan. I then intended to return to Spain before long; and, in fact, few years have passed since that time in which I have not nourished the dream of revisiting the Peninsula and its scenes of magic and romance. But many cares and duties have intervened ”

“ As its regicide note rang there,
When he laid his tired life down
And grew brave in his last despair.
And a woman frail and fair
Who weeps at leaving a world
Of love and revel and sin
In the vast Unknown to be hurled ”

“ Into this cheerful world you came,
And gained by right your vernal name.
I think the springs have changed of late,
For "Arctics" are my daily wear,
The skies are turned to cold gray slate,
And zephyrs are but draughts of air;
But you make up whatever we lack,
When we, too rarely, come together,
More potent than the almanac,
You bring the ideal April weather;
When you are with us we defy
The blustering air, the lowering sky ”

“ The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes
That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still
We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill,
Housed from its rage, dear friend; and fancy flies,
Lured by the hand of beckoning memories,
Back to those summer evenings on the hill
Where we together watched the sun go down
Beyond the gold-washed uplands, while his fires
Touched into glittering life the vanes and spires
Piercing the purpling mists that veiled the town.
The wintry night thy voice and eyes beguile,
Till wake the sleeping summers in thy smile. ”