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Poems List

Slain

Slain


Hollow a grave where the willows wave,
And lay him under the grasses,
Where the pitying breeze bloweth up from the seas,
And murmurs a chant as it passes.


Lay the beautiful face and the form of grace
Away from the gaze of mortal.
Let us hope that his soul has gained the goal
Over the shining portal.


Hope! Ah! we thrill with a terrible chill.
Ah! pen, can you tell the story
Of the one who died in his manhood's pride,
Slain in the morn of his glory?


There's a blemish of shame on the dear one's name,
For he died as the drunkard dieth.
The ruddy wine-mug was the fiend who dug
The grave where our darling lieth.


O God! and his soul, was it lost in the bowl?
Has it gone where the wicked goeth?
Shall he bear the sin, and the tempter go in
Where the beautiful city gloweth?


Hush! O my heart! act well thy part,
Nor question a Father's kindness,
And strive not to see the thing hid from thee
By a veil of earthly blindness.


But all through the wine may there shimmer and shine,
As it glimmers and glows in the glasses,
A coffin and grave, and the willows that wave
Over our dead 'neath the grasses.
👁️ 362

Sign-Board

Sign-Board


I will paint you a sign, rumseller,
And hang it above your door;
A truer and better signboard
Than ever you had before.
I will paint with the skill of a master,
And many shall pause to see
This wonderful piece of painting,
So like the reality.


I will paint yourself, rumseller,
As you wait for that fair young boy,
Just in the morning of manhood,
A mother's pride and joy.
He has no thought of stopping,
But you greet him with a smile,
And you seem so blithe and friendly,
That he pauses to chat awhile.


I will paint you again, rumseller,
I will paint you as you stand,
With a foaming glass of liquor
Extended in your hand.
He wavers, but you urge him-
Drink, pledge me just this one!
And he takes the glass and drains it,
And the hellish work is done.


And next I will paint a drunkard-
Only a year has flown,
But into that loathsome creature
The fair young boy has grown.
The work was sure and rapid.
I will paint him as he lies
In a torpid, drunken slumber,
Under the wintry skies.


I will paint the form of the mother
As she kneels at her darling's side,
Her beautiful boy that was dearer
Than all the world beside.
I will paint the shape of a coffin,
Labeled with one word-'lost,'
I will paint all this, rumseller,
And will paint it free of cost.


The sin and the shame and the sorrow,
The crime and the want and the woe



That are born there in your workshop,
No hand can paint, you know.
But I'll paint you a sign, rumseller,
And many shall pause to view
This wonderful swinging signboard,
So terribly, fearfully true.
👁️ 320

Shovel And Tongs

Shovel And Tongs

The Poker proposed to the shovel
That they should be man and wife,
'I think,' said he, 'that we could agree
As we journey along through life.'


The Shovel blushed as she answered,
'I thank you kindly, Mister,
But my promise belongs to the faithful Tongs,
So I only can be your sister.'


And when the couple were married
The Stove gave the Shovel away;
And it seemed too bad that the Poker, poor lad,
Was the Tongs' best man on that day.


But the Poker soon after was wedded
To the hearth broom, slender and slick;
And 'twas whispered about Mrs. Tongs was put out
Because he found comfort so quick.
👁️ 377

Sestina

Sestina


I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.


Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love,
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
'Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height, '
I said, ' for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies.'


But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love'
Not here, ' I cried, 'doth Pleasure find her way, '
Seen from the distant borderland of youth.
Fame smiles upon us from her sun-kissed height,
But frowns in shadows when we reach the goal.


Then were mine eyes fixed on that glittering goal,
Dear to all sense-sunk souls beneath the skies.
Gold tempts the artist from the lofty height,
Gold lures the maiden from the arms of Love,
Gold buys the fresh ingenuous heart of youth,
'And gold, ' I said, 'will show me Pleasure's way.'


But ah! the soil and discord of that way,
Where savage hordes rushed headlong to the goal,
Dead to the best impulses of their youth,
Blind to the azure beauty of the skies;
Dulled to the voice of conscience and of love,
They wandered far from Truth's eternal height.


Then Truth spoke to me from that noble height,
Saying: 'Thou didst pass Pleasure on the way,
She with the yearning eyes so full of Love,
Whom thou disdained to seek for glory's goal.'
Two blending paths beneath God's arching skies
Lead straight to Pleasure. Ah, blind heart of youth,
Not up fame's height, not toward the base god's goal,
Doth Pleasure make her way, but 'neath calm skies
Where Duty walks with Love in endless youth.
👁️ 369

Searching

Searching


These quiet Autumn days,
My soul, like Noah's dove, on airy wings
Goes out and searches for the hidden things

Beyond the hills of haze.

With mournful, pleading cries,
Above the waters of the voiceless sea
That laps the shore of broad Eternity,

Day after day, it flies,

Searching, but all in vain,
For some stray leaf that it may light upon,
And read the future, as the days agone -

Its pleasures, and its pain.

Listening patiently
For some voice speaking from the mighty deep,
Revealing all the things that it doth keep

In secret there for me.

Come back and wait, my soul!
Day after day thy search has been in vain.
Voiceles and silent o'er the future's plain

Its mystic waters roll.

God, seeing, knoweth best,
And in His time the waters shall subside,
And thou shalt know what lies beneath the tide,

Then wait, my soul, and rest.
👁️ 290

Robin's Mistake

Robin's Mistake

What do you think Red Robin
Found by a mow of hay?
Why, a flask brimful of liquor,
That the mowers brought that day
To slake their thirst in the hayfield.
And Robin he shook his head:
'Now, I wonder what they call it,
And how it tastes?' he said.


'I have seen the mowers drink it-
Why isn't it good for me?
So I'll just draw out the stopper
And get at the stuff, and see!'
But alas! for the curious Robin,
One draught, and he burned his throat
From his bill to his poor crop's lining,
And he could not utter a note.


And his head grew light and dizzy,
And he staggered left and right,
Tipped over the flask of brandy,
And spilled it, every mite.
But after awhile he sobered,
And quietly flew away,
And he never has tasted liquor,
Or touched it, since that day.


But I heard him say to his kindred.
In the course of a friendly chat,
'These men think they are above us,
Yet they drink such stuff as that!
Oh, the poor degraded creatures!
I am glad I am only a bird!'
Then he flew up over the meadow,
And that was all I heard.
👁️ 398

Rich And Poor

Rich And Poor

By the castle-gate my lady stands,
Viewing broad acres and spreading lands.


Hill and valley and mead and plain
Are all her own, with their wealth of grain.


In the richest of rich robes she is dressed,
A jewel blazes upon her breast;


And her brow is decked with a diadem
That glitters with many a precious gem.


But what to the Lady Wendoline
Rich satin garments or jewels fine?


Or ripening harvests, or spreading lands-
See! she is wringing her milk-white hands!


And her finger is stained with crimson dew
Where the ring with the diamond star cut through.


And a look of pain and wild despair
Rests on the face, so young and fair.


To-morrow will be her bridal day,
And she will barter herself away


For added wealth and a titled name;
'Tis the curse of her station, and whose the blame!


She loathes the man who will call her wife,
And moans o'er her hapless, loveless life.


The joys of wooing she cannot know;
My lord, her father, has willed it so.


She's a piece of merchandise, bought and sold
For name, position, and bags of gold.


But people must wed in their own degree,
Though hearts may break in their agony.


Under the hill, in the castle's shade,
At a cottage door sits an humble maid;


In her cheek the blushes come and go
As she stitches away on a robe like snow;


And she sings aloud in her happiness-
In a joy she cannot hide or repress.


Close at her side her lover stands,



Watching the nimble, sun-browned hands


As they draw the needle to and fro
Through the robe as white as drift of snow.
Both hearts are singing a wordless lay,


For the morrow will be their bridal day.


They have only their hands, their love, their health,
In place of title, position, and wealth.
But which is the rich, and which the poor,


The maid at the gate, or the maid in the door?
👁️ 360

Response

Response


I said this morning, as I leaned and threw
My shutters open to the Spring's surprise,
'Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you
Year after year the same fresh feelings rise?
How do you keep your young exultant glee?
No more those sweet emotions come to me.
'I note through all your fissures how the tide
Of healthful life goes leaping as of old;
Your royal dawns retain their pomp and pride;
Your sunsets lose no atom of their gold.
How can this wonder be?' My soul's fine ear
Leaned, listening, till a small voice answered near:
'My days lapse never over into night;
My nights encroach not on the rights of dawn.
I rush not breathless after some delight;
I waste no grief for any pleasure gone.
My July noons burn not the entire year.
Heart, hearken well!' 'Yes, yes; go on; I hear.'
'I do not strive to make my sunsets' gold
Pave all the dim and distant realms of space.
I do not bid my crimson dawns unfold
To lend the midnight a fictitious grace.
I break no law, for all God's laws are good.
Heart, hast thou heard?' 'Yes, yes; and understood.'
👁️ 370

Refuted

Refuted


‘Anticipation is sweeter than realisation.’

It may be, yet I have not found it so.
In those first golden dreams of future fame
I did not find such happiness as came

When toil was crowned with triumph. Now I know

My words have recognition, and will go
Straight to some listening heart, my early aim,
To win the idle glory of a name,

Pales like a candle in the noonday’s glow.

So with the deeper joys of which I dreamed:
Life yields more rapture than did childhood’s fancies,
And each year brings more pleasure than I waited.

Friendship proves truer than of old it seemed,
And, all beyond youth’s passion-hued romances,
Love is more perfect than anticipated.
👁️ 384

Realisation

Realisation


Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace –
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.


Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.


So near to her was Nature’s heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.
The year’s four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
In wandering ways and did not find –
Diversion and content of mind.


She loved the tasks that filled each day –
Such menial duties; but her way
Of looking at them lent a grace
To things the world deemed commonplace.


Obscure and without place or name,
She gloried in another’s fame.
Poor, plain and humble in her dress,
She thrilled when beauty and success
And wealth passed by, on pleasure bent;
They made earth seem so opulent.
Yet none of quicker sympathy,
When need or sorrow came, than she.
And so she lived, and so she died.


She woke as from a dream. How wide
And wonderful the avenue
That stretched to her astonished view!
And up the green ascending lawn
A palace caught the rays of dawn.
Then suddenly the silence stirred
With one clear keynote of a bird;
A thousand answered, till ere long
The air was quivering bits of song.
She rose and wandered forth in awe,
Amazed and moved by all she saw,
For, like so many souls who go


Away from earth, she did not know



The cord was severed.

Down the street,
With eager arms stretched forth to greet,
Came one she loved and mourned in youth;
Her mother followed; then the truth
Broke on her, golden wave on wave,
Of knowledge infinite. The grave,
The body and the earthly sphere
Were gone! Immortal life was here!
They led her through the Palace halls;
From gleaming mirrors on the walls
She saw herself, with radiant mien,
And robed in splendour like a queen,
While glory round about her shone.
‘All this, ’ Love murmured, ‘is your own.’
And when she gazed with wondering eye,
And questioned whence and where and why,
Love answered thus: ‘All Heaven is made
By thoughts on earth; your walls were laid,
Year after year, of purest gold;
The beauty of your mind behold
In this fair palace; ay, and more
Waits farther on, so vast your store.
I was not worthy when I died
To take my place here at your side;
I toiled through long and weary years
From lower planes to these high spheres;
And through the love you sent from earth
I have attained a second birth.
Oft when my erring soul would tire
I felt the strength of your desire;
I heard you breathe my name in prayer,
And courage conquered weak despair.
Ah! earth needs heaven, but heaven indeed
Of earth has just as great a need!

Across the terrace with a bound
There sped a lambkin with a hound
(Dumb comrades of the old earth land)
And fondled her caressing hand.
👁️ 367

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