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Over The Alley

Over The Alley

Here in my office I sit and write
Hour on hour, and day on day,
With no one to speak to from morn till night,
Though I have a neighbour just over the way.
Across the alley that yawns between
A maiden sits sewing the whole day long;
A face more lovely is seldom seen
In hall or castle or country throng.

Her curling tresses are golden brown;
Her eyes, I think, are violet blue,
Though her long, thick lashes are always down,
Jealously hiding the orbs from view;
Her neck is slender, and round, and white,

And this way and that way her soft hair blows,
As there in the window from morn till night,
She sits in her beauty, and sings and sews.

And I in my office chair, lounge and dream,
In an idle way, of a sweet 'might be, '
While the maid at her window sews her seam,
With never a glance or a thought for me.
Perhaps she is angry because I look
So long and so often across the way,
Over the top of my ledger-book;
But those stolen glances brighten the day.

And I am blameless of any wrong; She
is the transgressor, by sitting there
And making my eyes turn oft and long
To a face so delicate, pure and fair.
Work is forgotten; the page lies clean,
Untouched by the pen, while hours go by.
Oh, maid of the pensive air and mien!
Give me one glance of your violet eye.

Drop your thimble or spool of thread
Down in the alley, I pray, my sweet,
Or the comb or ribbon from that fair head,
That I may follow with nimble feet;
For how can I tell you my heart has gone
Across the alley, and lingers there,
Till I know your name, my beautiful one?
How could I venture, and how could I dare?

Just one day longer I'll wait and dream,
And then, if you grant me no other way,
I shall write you a letter: 'Maid of the seam,
You have stolen my property; now give pay,
Beautiful robber and charming thief!
Give me one glance for the deed you've done.'
Thus shall I tell you my loss and grief,


Over the alley, my beautiful one.
👁️ 401

Our Lives

Our Lives

Our lives are songs. God writes the words,
And we set them to music at pleasure;
And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad,
As we choose to fashion the measure.


We must write the music, whatever the song,
Whatever its rhyme, or metre;
And if it is sad, we can make it glad,
Or if sweet, we can make it sweeter.


One has a song that is free and strong;
But the music he writes is minor;
And the sad, sad strain is replete with pain,
And the singer becomes a repiner.


And he thinks God gave him a dirge-like lay,
Nor knows that the words are cheery;
And the song seems lonely and solemn-only
Because the music is dreary.


And the song of another has through the words
An under current of sadness;
But he sets it to music of ringing chords,
And makes it a pean of gladness.


So whether our songs are sad or not,
We can give the world more pleasure,
And better ourselves, by setting the words
To a glad, triumphant measure.


1872
👁️ 358

Our Atlas

Our Atlas

Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,
Bore such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled
The evils of old festering lands-yea, hurled them in their might
And left him standing all alone, to set the wrong things right.


It is the way the Fates have done since first Time's race began!
They open up Pandora's box before some chosen man;
And then, aloof, they wait and watch, to see if he will find
And wake the slumbering God that dwells in every mortal's mind.


Erect, our modern Atlas stands, with brave uplifted head,
And there is courage in his eyes, if in his heart be dread.
Not dread of foes, but dread of friends, who may not pull together,
To bring the lurching ship of State safe through the stormy weather.


Oh, never were there wilder waves or more stupendous seas,
Or rougher rocks or bleaker winds, or darker days than these.
Not Washington, not Lincoln knew so grave an hour of Time
As he who now stands face to face with War's world-shaking crime.


His brain is clear, his soul is brave, his heart is just and right,
He asks no honours of the earth, but favour in God's sight;
His aim is not to wear a crown or win imperial power,
But to use wisely for the race life's terrible great hour.


O Liberty, who lights the world with rays that come from God,
Shine on Columbia's troubled track, and make it bright and broad;
Shine on each heart, and give it strength to meet its pains and losses,
And give supernal strength to one who bears the whole world's crosses;
Take from his thought the fear of friends who may not pull together,
And bring the glorious ship of State safe through wild waves and weather.
👁️ 413

Optimism

Optimism


Talk happiness. The world is sad enough
Without your woes. No path is wholly rough;
Look for the places that are smooth and clear,
And speak of those, to rest the weary ear
Of Earth, so hurt by one continuous strain
Of human discontent and grief and pain.


Talk faith. The world is better off without
Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt.
If you have faith in God, or man, or self,
Say so. If not, push back upon the shelf
Of silence all your thoughts, till faith shall come;
No one will grieve because your lips are dumb.


Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale
Of mortal maladies is worn and stale.
You cannot charm, or interest, or please
By harping on that minor chord, disease.
Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.
👁️ 360

Only A Slight Flirtation

Only A Slight Flirtation

‘Twas just a slight flirtation,
And where’s the harm, I pray,
In that amusing pastime
So much in vogue to-day?

Her hand was plighted elsewhere

To one she held most dear,
But why should she sit lonely
When other men are near?


They walked to church together,
They sat upon the shore.
She found him entertaining,
He found her something more.

They rambled in the moonlight;
It made her look so fair,
She let him praise her beauty,
And kiss her flowing hair.

‘Twas just a nice flirtation.
So sad the fellow died.
Was drowned one day while boating,
The week she was a bride.’

A life went out in darkness,
A mother’s fond heart broke,
A maiden pined in secret –
With grief she never spoke.

While robed in bridal whiteness,
Queen of a festal throng,
She moved, whose slight flirtation
Had wrought this triple wrong.
👁️ 403

Only A Sad Mistake

Only A Sad Mistake

Only a blunder-a sad mistake;
All my own fault and mine alone.
The saddest error a heart can make;
I was so young, or I would have known.


Only his rare, sweet, tender smile;
Only a lingering touch of his hand.
I think I was dreaming all the while,
The reason I did not understand.


Yet, somewhere, I've read men woo this way;
That eyes speak, sometimes, before the tongue.
And I was sure he would speak some day;
Pardon the folly-I was so young.


Was I, say-for now I am old!
So old, it seems like a hundred years
Since I felt my heart growing hard and cold
With a pain too bitter and deep for tears.


I saw him lean over the stranger's chair,
With a warm, new light in his beautiful eyes;
And I woke from my dreaming, then and there,
And went out of my self-made Paradise.


He never loved me-I know, I see!
Such sad, sad blunders as young hearts make.
She did not win him away from me,
For he was not mine. It was my mistake.


A woman should wait for a man to speak
Before she dreams of his love, I own;
But I was a girl-girls' hearts are weak;
And the pain, like the fault, is mine alone.
👁️ 410

One Woman's History

One Woman's History

'The maiden free, the maiden wed.
Can never, never be the same,
A new life springs from out the dead.
And with the speaking of a name-
A breath upon the marriage bed,
She finds herself a something new.


'Where lay the shallows of the maid
No plummet line the wife can sound;
Where round the sunny islands played
The pulses of the great profound
Lies low the treacherous everglade.


'A wife is like an unknown sea,
Least known to him who thinks he knows
Where all the shores of Promise be,
And where the islands of Repose-
And where the rocks that he must flee.'
👁️ 378

One By One

One By One

Little by little and one by one,
Out of the ether, were worlds created;
Star and planet and sea and sun,
All in the nebulous Nothing waited
Till the Nameless One Who has many a name
Called them to being and forth they came.


All things mighty and all things small,
Stone and flower and sentient being,
Each is an answer to that one call,
A part of Himself that His will is freeing-
Freeing to go on the long, long way
That winds back home at the end of the day.


Little by little does mortal man
Build his castles for joy and glory,
And one by one time shatters each plan
And lowers his palaces, story by story-
Story by story, till earth is just
A row of graves in the lowly dust.


One by one, whatever was called,
Must be called back to the primal Centre.
Let no soul tremble or be appalled,
For the heart of the Maker is where we enter-
Is where we enter to gain new force
Before we are sent on another course.


And one by one, as He calls us back,
We shall find the souls that we loved with passion,
In the great way-stations along the track,
And clasp them again in the old, sweet fashion-
In the old, sweet fashion when earth we trod-
And journey along with them up to God.
👁️ 375

Older Than You

Older Than You

We are younger in years! Yes, that is true;
But in some things we are older than you.
For instance, you sometimes say with a smile,
'It will do to drink wine once in a while.'
We say, 'It will not do at all!'
Wine is an imp of old Alcohol.
So are gin and beer, and cider, too.
If you drink up them, they will eat up you.


'Cider is not a strong drink,' you say.
Ah! but, my friend, it opens the way
For brandy and whiskey to follow fast.
It has done it many a time in the past.
It tempts and teases the appetite.
Let it alone, boys, keep to the right;
Onward and upward we mean to go.
Heaven is reached that way, you know.


People who drink are behind the time.
They are back with darkness, and woe, and crime.
This age is progressive. You people who drink,
Though ever so little, just pause and think-
Think of the anguish that liquor makes;
Think of the hearts that it burdens and breaks.
Let it alone: stop drinking to-day-
This is what we, the children, say.
👁️ 352

Old Rhythm And Rhyme

Old Rhythm And Rhyme

They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,
The modes of expression have changed with the times;
That low is the rank of the poet who uses
The old-fashioned verse with intentional rhymes.
And quite out of date, too, is rhythmical metre;
The critics declare it an insult to art.
But oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the clear ring of it,
Oh! the great pulse of it, right from the heart,
Art or no art.


I sat by the side of that old poet, Ocean,
And counted the billows that broke on the rocks;
The tide lilted in with a rhythmical motion;
The sea-gulls dipped downward in time-keeping flocks.
I watched while a giant wave gathered its forces,
And then on the gray granite precipice burst;
And I knew as I counted, while other waves mounted,
I knew the tenth billow would rhyme with the first.


Below in the village a church bell was chiming,
And back in the woodland a little bird sang;
And, doubt it who will, yet those two sounds were rhyming,
As out o'er the hill-tops they echoed and rang.


The Wind and the Trees fell to talking together;
And nothing they said was didactic or terse;
But everything spoken was told in unbroken
And a beautiful rhyming and rhythmical verse.


So rhythm I hail it, though critics assail it,
And hold melting rhymes as an insult to art,
For oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the dear ring of it,
Oh! the strong pulse of it, right from the heart,
Art or no art.
👁️ 389

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