Meredith Nicholson

“ Yes, Death and Love have hither come and gone,
With slow, sad songs, with anthems glad and free;
And still, without, the world treads on and on
In aisles that lead to darkness—or the Dawn,
O God, and Thee!
[74] RUIN.
THE slowly crumbling wall, the broken gate,
O’er which soft silvery threads of Time are spun;
Through turrets tall, once grim and stern as Fate,
Now unresisted steals the changeless sun. ”

“ Let firm be the footstep to tally with firm beat of heart.
But more willing am I forever to steadily plod,
Inspired by a thought that my soul is not linked to a clod,
Than failing in flight, to fall, stricken again to the sod,
And stumble along in the pathway that leads me to God.
[77] A KIND OF MAN.
I like a man who all mean things despises,
A man who has a purpose firm and true ”

“ Then downward fell, forever lost to sight.
And so it is, I thought, that poor hearts yearning
For more of life, charmed by its outward sheen,
Must backward fall, the truth too quickly learning,
That death, cold and unyielding, stands between. ”

“ Alluring are, because no man has trod;
The restless slopes are tempting from below,
Yet seekers will not in the safe paths plod;
Like the weak children are taught to know
That man must always follow after God.
[93] BY SHERIDAN’S GRAVE.
I STOOD upon the heights at Arlington,
And saw Potomac’s waters seaward flowing,
While all about me, past our human knowing
The soldiers lay—men who that soil had won
From enemies as brave, who would not shun
The wrath that followed on their whirlwind sowing,
And there among their graves the flowers were growing,
And on Virginia shone the springtime sun. ”

“ The train that followed in the headlight’s glare,
Bound for the city and a larger world,
Made emphasis of her poor life of care
As from her sight it whirled.
Thus from all lonely hearts the great earth rolls,
Indifferent though one woman grieve and die,
Along its iron track are many souls
That watch the world go by.
[36] RIGHTEOUS WRATH.
HOW splendid is the righteous wrath
Born in a good man’s soul! ”

“ The birds along the hedge they do not even start
When she comes by, sometimes to her big hounds a-talking.
“Good morrow” says my lady, (she whose heart is gold) ,
And gold out of her heart makes bright the gateway;
The sunshine of her face in winter time does hold
Green meadows and sweet flowers and makes a summer straightway. ”

“ CARDINAL NEWMAN.
“To the last I never recognized the hold I had over young men.”—Apologia pro Vita Sua.
NO more the sun may know the strength it hath
To stir the bark in spring with quickening blood:
No more a storm controlleth its great wrath,
Or doleth out the measure of its flood!
There is a quality of lasting youth
That knoweth not the force that gave it birth ”

“ Has blossomed to its form complete;
Before the hidden fragrance knows
How rare it is, and sweet.
A time it is when hearts are light,
And shadows are a thing as far
Away as darkness from the sight
Of evening’s brightest star. ”

“ The evening creeps along in somber guise,
Her face in misty shadows thickly furled
To hide her eyes.
O heartache of the earth, so near to us
These barren fields have on a sudden grown!
Cool hand of twilight touch us—tremulous,
Sick and alone.
[82]
O skies of gray, come often in our need!
Come fall, O mists, efface the marks of tears,—
The lessons of our heartache with us read,
And soothe our fears!
Dear barren field, we lay our hearts on thine,
And leafless shrub, we make thy grief our own;
Come, Spring, and touch our hearts with life divine,
All heartache flown! ”

“ Victorious cries of warriors brave and loyal,
A people’s loud acclaim;
With words that gladdened hearts of earliest lovers,
And curses since night’s robes trailed Eden’s sky,
While vague as half-remembered dreams there hovers
Each mother’s lullaby. ”

“ Fair-haired, strong-limbed path-blazers of the deep!
How full a life was theirs, how broad and free,—
Passing one day Gibraltar’s tropic steep,
Seeking a while some Northern coast and drear,
Or sailing far to find the Western hemisphere!
[95] VIOLIN.
GENTLY, beneath her perfect rounded chin,
The instrument is clasped, as mothers hold
Across their hearts a much-loved child, to fold
It from the world of misery and sin.
She draws the bow across the strings to win
To life the tones now soft, now strong and bold,
(But ever breathing some grand truth untold)
That dormant lie within the violin. ”

“ His look of pain (soft are the hearts of men!)
Made me think deeply of the soldier’s part,
(As when on Memory’s day the quick tears start
To see the line each spring becoming less,
The slowing step, heads’ winter snowiness!)
And vowed I then that while my blood should run
I should not be a son
To speak a word not kindly of a soldier true;
To utter naught but praise of all who dared to do,
Whether in mail of gray or clad in honest blue!
[26]
He who cares not
That his sire fought ”