Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

“ I know worth a life-time to win,
As you waken to love and this hour your violin!
GERTRUDE.
[In Memory: 1877.]
What shall I say, my friend, my own heart healing,
When for my love you cannot answer me?
This earth would quake, alas! might I but see
You smile, death's rigorous law repealing!
Pale lips, your mystery so well concealing,
May not the eloquent, varied minstrelsy
Of my inspired ardor potent be
To touch your chords to music's uttered feeling?
Friend, here you cherished flowers: send me now
One ghostly bloom to prove that you are blessed. ”

“ Its force until our hopes are old,
And, skyward, God's star-beacons burn
The brighter as our hearts grow cold.
If all we miss,
In the great plans that shake
The world, still God has need of this,—
Even our mistake.
A PASSING VOICE.
"Turn me a rhyme," said Fate,
"Turn me a rhyme:
A swift and deadly hate
Blows headlong towards thee in the teeth of Time.
Write! or thy words will fall too late."
"Write me a fold," said Fate,
"Write me a fold,
Life to conciliate,
Of words red with thine heart's blood, hotly told.
Then, kings may envy thine estate!" ”

“ Of our dusk tombs our spirits glide;
We hear the echoing of the wind,
We breathe the sighs we living sighed.
LIFE'S BURYING-GROUND.
My graveyard holds no once-loved human forms,
Grown hideous and forgotten, left alone,
But every agony my heart has known,—
The new-born trusts that died, the drift of storms.
I visit every day the shadowy grove;
I bury there my outraged tender thought;
I bring the insult for the love I sought,
And my contempt, where I had tried to love.
BEYOND UTTERANCE.
There in the midst of gloom the church-spire rose,
And not a star lit any side of heaven ”

“ You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;
Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:
The longed-for words, which of us ever says?
THE VIOLIN.
Touch gently, friend, and slow, the violin, So sweet and low,
That my dreaming senses may be beckoned so
Into a rest as deep as the long past "years ago!"
So softly, then, begin;
And ever gently touch the violin,
Until an impulse grows of a sudden, like wind
On the brow of the earth,
And the voice of your violin shows its wide-swung girth
With a crash of the strings and a medley of rage and mirth ”

“ In that rare world we wonder o'er,
Half disbelieve, and prize the more!
Yet spruce I am, and still can mix
My wits with all the sparkling tricks,
A youth and girl
At twenty's whirl
Play round each other's bosom fires,
On this brisk earth I once enjoyed:—
But now I'm otherwise employed!
Am I a thing without a name;
A sort of dummy in the game?
"Not young, not old:"
A world is told
Of misery in that lengthened phrase;
Yet, gad, although my coat be smooth,
My forehead's wrinkled,—that's the truth!
I hardly know which road to go.
With youth? Perhaps. With age? Oh no! ”

“ Drawn, too, by webs of shadow, like thine hair;
For, Sweet, the mystery
Of thy dark hair the deepening dusk hath caught.
In early moonlight gleamings, lo, I see
Thy white hands beckon to the garden, where
Dim day and silvery darkness are inwrought
As our two lives, where, joining soul with soul,
The tints shall mingle in a fairer whole.
Oh! dost thou hear? I call, beloved, I call,
My stout heart trembling till thy words return;
Hope-lifted, I float faster with the fall
Of fear toward joy such fear alone can earn! ”

“ The world was air, and all things only seemed,
Except the thoughts we grow by; for in prayer
We change to spirits such as God has dreamed.
A PROTEAN GLIMPSE.
Time and I pass to and fro,
Hardly greeting as we go,—
Go askant, like crossing wings
Of sea-gulls where the brave sea sings.
Time, the messenger of Fate!
Cunning master of debate,
Cunning soother of all sorrow,
Ruthless robber of to-morrow;
Tyrant to our dallying feet,
Though patron of a life complete ”

“ Touch my lips with thine, my love,
I've tasted air at daybreak;
Gaze into my eyes, my love,
At the sky's waking they wake.
LOOKING BACKWARD.
Gray towers make me think of thee,
Thou girl of olden minstrelsy,
Young as the sunlight of to-day,
Silent as tasselled boughs in May!
A wind-flower in a world of harm,
A harebell on a turret's arm,
A pearl upon the hilt of fame
Thou wert, fair child of some high name. ”

“ To fashion his greater worth;
Since he will live in heaven,
I shall lie content in the earth.
LOST REALITY.
O soul of life, 't is thee we long to hear,
Thine eyes we seek for, and thy touch we dream;
Lost from our days, thou art a spirit near,—
Life needs thine eloquence, and ways supreme.
More real than we who but a semblance wear,
We see thee not, because thou wilt not seem!
CLOSING CHORDS.
I.
Death's Eloquence. ”

“ Bell, laurels would we o'er thy pulsing twine,
And sing thee songs of triumph with glad tears,
If to the warring of our haggard years
Thy clang should herald peace along the line!
OURS TO ENDURE.
We speak of the world that passes away,—
The world of men who lived years ago,
And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow
Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.
We hear of death that is not our woe,
And see the shadow of funerals creeping
Over the sweet fresh roads by the reaping;
But do we weep till our loved ones go? ”

“ With her sweet lips the great world's way,
Yet sad and slow she stoops to touch
The still wheel with her hands.
"Forsaken wheel! when you first came
To clothe young hearts and old,
Our ancestors were glad to wear
Your woof, nor knew the shame
Which later days have bred, to share
The homespun's simple fold!
"My lover's gone to win for me,
With tender pride and care,
Riches to garnish all our days;
But love thrives in simplicity
As well as in the prouder ways,
If noble thought is there! ”

“ Whose keen-strung souls will quiver at your touch;
The utmost reverence is not too much
For eyes that weep, although the lips may sneer.
ONE AND ONE.
The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can only die alone:
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone! ”

“ On the sky's mountains, in the evening gloom!
Give me an entrance to the limpid lake
When moonbeams shine across its purity!
A life there is, within the life we take
So commonly, for which 't were well to die.
THE SHELL AND THE WORLD.
The world was like a shell to me,—
Its voice with distant song was low ”

“ We feel the wind of Spring, from blossoms winging;
We meet with souls tender as tints in May:
For these large ecstasies what are we bringing?
There is no price, best friend, for greatest meed.
Laid on the altar of our true affection,
Wild flowers of love for me must intercede:
And lo! I win your unexcelled protection.
CONTENTS
Inlet And Shore
Impersonality
A Protean Glimpse
Power Against Power
Life's Priestess
Love Now
One And One
The Violin
Gertrude
Unity In Space
The Shell And The Word
The Clock-Tower Bell
Ours To Endure
Broken Waves
Why Sad To-Day? ”