Some Verses

AUTUMN

 
The ruddy banners of the Autumn leaves
Toss out a challenge to the waiting snows,
Where Winter stalks from o'er the mountain rows;
This fiery blaze his onward march receives,
A mock defence his coward heart believes,
And turns him sulking to his moated close.
Now Man the confidence of Nature knows,
And feels the mighty heart that loves and grieves.
Not as in rude young March or hoyden June,
Hard in their beauty, laughing thro' their days;
Their fine indifference is out of tune.
In the dark paths we tread in hope and fear
Look we to Autumn and her gracious ways,
The great last swan-song of the dying year.
 

THE TIDE OF THE HEART

 
Love, when you leave me, as with moon-bent tide
The glad waves leave the beaches of my heart;
Slowly and indolently they depart
Ripple by ripple, till the light has died
And left the naked sands forlorn to bide
The sea's return. No might of human power
Can fill the empty waste, nor take one hour
From that long durance in Earth's prison wide.
But when you come again, and hold your hands
Dear hands, outstretched to take me, then, the waves,
They turn, full flooded on the fainting sands,
And all the dimpled hollows smile again,
And brimmed with life, the deep mysterious caves
Forget the distant night of lonely pain.
 

POEMS

DOES THE PEARL KNOW?

 
Does the pearl know, that in its shade and sheen
The dreamy rose, and tender wavering green,
Are hid the hearts of all the ranging seas—
That Beauty weeps for gifts as fair as these?
Does it desire aught else when its rare blush
Reflects Aurora in the morning's hush,
Encircling all perfection can bestow—
Does the pearl know?
 
 
Does the bird know, when thro' the waking dawn
He soaring sees below the silvered lawn,
And weary men who wait to watch the day
Steal o'er the heights where he may wheel and stray?
Can he conceive his fee divine to share,
As a free joyous peer with sun and air,
And pity the sad things that creep below—
Does the bird know?
 
 
Does the heart know, when filled to utter brim,
The least quick throb, a sacrificial hymn
To a great god who scorns the frown of Jove
That here it finds the awful power of love?
Think you the new-born babe in first wise sleep
Fathoms the gift the heavens have bade him keep
Yet if this be—if all these things are so—
Does the heart know?
 

IN AUTUMN

 
The gold-red leaves have burned
To their last great glow, and died
And underfoot
By the strong oak's root
They are seized by the angry wind and spurned
And into a common grave have turned
For Summer—warm and wide.
 
 
A year must a sapling wage
Its life with the sun and rain,
Then its tender youth
Without reck or ruth
Is frozen and beaten to harsh old age
By a stroke of Nature mother's rage
And the sturdy fight seems vain.
 
 
It wails to the oak o'erhead
As the coffin-cold wraps round
"The end of life
Is toil and strife
And the secret of being, I have found
Is a seed in the wind and a log on the ground.
I hope I will soon be dead."
 
 
"Peace little struggler—sleep"—
And the great oak croons a song,
"Death is but night
And a cradle white
For one dark space may the shadows creep,
Then Spring will rise from her dungeon keep
And life wake, wise and strong.
 

WAITING FOR DAY

 
Sweet Lady Night is paling white.
Why lags her Lord and Master?
She weeping, lays her jewels off—
Ah—may he not come faster.
 
 
But hush—the tender rosy blush
Her beauty fair adorning
Her love steps o'er the mountain's rim,
They kiss—and here's the morning.
 

THE ANGEL OF INDIFFERENCE

 
A Man once loved a Woman, in the days of old,
Our bond is the strongest in the world, they said—
The Angels up above
Are jealous of our love,
Perhaps they are wishing we were dead, overhead.
 
 
So they loved for a Time and the passing of a Time,
And the Angel of Indifference, smiling down, saw their fire,
And he covered for a space
With his sombre wings his face,
That they twain might have of love all desire, without tire.
 
 
But love's perfect joy within them burned at last to a flame
Till they longed for a breeze that would gently cool the heart.
For absence! cooling snow
They sighed apart and low,
Tho' they murmured still their love, hand and heart loth to part.
 
 
But at length they prayed together to the calm Angel—pale,
Ah—we yearn, scorched and weary, for the peace of thy breast.
For that land where love seems
But the shadow of dreams,
Where all sleep in the silver of the West, give us rest.
 
 
And he heard, and he bore them to the cool grey heights,
Where all men may drift and himself alone stands fast,
And gave them for their token
The peace of dreams unbroken
Where their souls, his faithful vassals, rest at last, from the past.