Читать книгу: «Songs Ysame»

TO

Our Mother

Mary Erskine Fellows

PRELUDE

 
WE cannot sing of life, whose years are brief,
Nor sad heart-stories tell, who know no grief,
Nor write of shipwrecks on the seas of Fate,
Whose ship from out the harbor sailed but late.
But we may sing of fair and sunny days,
Of Love that walks in peace through quiet ways;
And unto him who turns the page to see
Our simple story, haply it may be
As when in some mild day in early spring,
One through the budding woods goes wandering;
And finds, where late the snow has blown across,
Beneath the leaves, a violet in the moss.
 

1887. A. F. B.

 
NOW I can sing of life, whose days are brief,
For I have walked close hand in hand with grief.
And I may tell of shipwrecked hopes, since mine
Sank just outside the happy harbor line.
But still my song is of those sunny days
When Love was with me in those quiet ways.
And unto him who turns the page to see
That day's short story, haply it may be,
The joy of those old memories he feels:
As one who through the wintry twilight steals,
And sees, across the chilly wastes of snow,
The darkened sunset's rosy afterglow.
 

1892. A. F. J.

PART I.
SONGS YSAME

The Lighting of the Candles

 
WHENCE came the ember
That touched our young souls' candles first with light;
In shadowy years, too distant to remember,
Where childhood merges backward into night?
 
 
I know not, but the halo of those tapers
Has ever since around all nature shone;
And we have looked at life through golden vapors
Because of that one ember touch alone.
 

At Early Candle-Lighting

 
THOSE, who have heard the whispered breath
Of Nature's secret "Shibboleth,"
And learned the pass-word to unroll
The veil that hides her inmost soul,
May follow; but this by-path leads
Through mullein stalks and jimson-weeds.
And he who scorning treads them down
Would deem but poor and common-place
Those whom he'll meet in homespun gown.
But they who lovingly retrace
Their steps to scenes I dream about,
Will find the latch-string hanging out.
With them I claim companionship,
And for them burn my tallow-dip,
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
To these low hills, around which cling
My fondest thoughts, I would not bring
An alien eye long used to sights
Among the snow-crowned Alpine heights.
An eagle does not bend its wing
To low-built nests where robins sing.
Between the fence's zigzag rails,
The stranger sees the road that trails
Its winding way into the dark,
Fern-scented woods. He does not mark
The old log cabin at the end
As I, or hail it as a friend,
Or catch, when daylight's last rays wane,
The glimmer through its narrow pane
Of early candle-lighting.
 
 
As anglers sit and half in dream
Dip lazy lines into the stream,
And watch the swimming life below,
So I watch pictures come and go.
And in the flame, Alladin-wise,
See genii of the past arise.
If it be so that common things
Can fledge your fancy with fast wings;
If you the language can translate
Of lowly life, and make it great,
And can the beauty understand
That dignifies a toil-worn hand,
Look in this halo, and see how
The homely seems transfigured now
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
A fire-place where the great logs roar
And shine across the puncheon floor,
And through the chinked walls, here and there,
The snow steals, and the frosty air.
Meager and bare the furnishings,
But hospitality that kings
Might well dispense, transmutes to gold,
The welcome given young and old.
Plain and uncouth in speech and dress,
But richly clad in kindliness,
The neighbors gather, one by one,
At rustic rout when day is done.
Vanish all else in this soft light, —
The past is ours again tonight;
'Tis early candle-lighting.
 
 
Oh, well-remembered scenes like these:
The candy-pullings, husking-bees —
The evenings when the quilting frames
Were laid aside for romping games;
The singing school! The spelling match!
My hand still lingers on the latch,
I fain would wider swing the door
And enter with the guests once more.
Though into ashes long ago
That fire faded, still the glow
That warmed the hearts around it met,
Immortal, burns within me yet.
Still to that cabin in the wood
I turn for highest types of good
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
How fast the scenes come flocking to
My mind, as white sheep jostle through
The gap, when pasture bars are down,
And pass into the twilight brown.
Grandmother's face and snowy cap,
The knitting work upon her lap,
The creaking, high-backed rocking-chair;
The spinning-wheel, the big loom where
The shuttle carried song and thread;
The valance on the high, white bed
Whose folds the lavender still keep.
Oh! nowhere else such dreamless sleep
On tired eyes its deep spell lays,
As that which came in those old days
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
A kitchen lit by one dim light,
And 'round the table in affright,
A group of children telling tales.
Outside, the wind – a banshee – wails.
Even the shadows, that they throw
Upon the walls, to giants grow.
The hailstones 'gainst the window panes
Fall with the noise of clanking chains,
Till, glancing back, they almost feel
Black shapes from out the corners steal,
And, climbing to the loft o'erhead,
The witches follow them to bed.
The low flame flickers. Snuff the wick!
For ghosts and goblins crowd so thick
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
An orchard path that tramping feet
For half a century have beat;
Here to the fields at sun-up went
The reapers. Here, on errands sent,
Small bare-feet loitered, loath to go.
Here apple-boughs dropped blooming snow,
Through garden borders gaily set
With touch-me-nots and bouncing Bet;
Here passed at dusk the harvester
With quickened step and pulse astir
At sight of some one's fluttering gown,
Who stood with sunbonnet pulled down
And called the cows. Ah, in a glance
One reads that simple, old romance
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
One picture more. A winter day
Just done, and supper cleared away.
The romping children quiet grow,
And in the reverent silence, slow
The old man turns the sacred page,
Guide of his life and staff of age.
And then, the while my eyes grow dim,
The mother's voice begins a hymn:
"Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer
That calls me from a world of care!"
What wonder from those cabins rude
Came lives of stalwart rectitude,
When hearth-stones were the altars where
Arose the vestal flame of prayer
At early candle-lighting.
 
 
No crumbling castle walls are ours,
No ruined battlements and towers.
Our history, on callow wings,
Soared not in time of feudal kings;
No strolling minstrel's roundelay
Tells of past glory in decay,
But rugged life of pioneer
Has passed away among us here;
And as the ivy tendrils grow
About the ancient turrets, so
The influence of its sturdy truth
Shall live in never-ending youth,
When simple customs of its day
Have, long-forgotten, passed away
With early candle-lighting.
 

Bob White

 
JUST now, beyond the turmoil and the din
Of crowded streets that city walls shut in,
I heard the whistle of a quail begin:
"Bob White! Bob White!"
So faintly and far away falling
It seemed that a dream voice was calling
"Bob White! Bob White!"
How the old sights and sounds come thronging
And thrill me with a sudden longing!
 
 
Through quiet country lanes the sunset shines.
Fence corners where the wild rose climbs and twines,
And blooms in tangled black-berry vines,
"Bob White! Bob White!"
I envy yon home-going swallow,
Oh, but swiftly to rise and follow —
Follow its flight,
Follow it back with happy flying,
Where green-clad hills are calmly lying.
 
 
Wheat fields whose golden silences are stirred
By whirring insect wings, and naught is heard
But plaintive callings of that one sweet word,
"Bob White! Bob White!"
And a smell of the clover growing
In the meadow lands ripe for mowing,
All red and white.
Over the shady creek comes sailing,
Past willows in the water trailing.
 
 
Tired heart, 'tis but in dreams I turn my feet,
Again to wander in the ripening wheat
And hear the whistle of the quail repeat
"Bob White! Bob White!"
But oh! there is joy in the knowing
That somewhere green pastures are growing,
Though out of sight.
And the light on those church spires dying,
On the old home meadow is lying.
 

Grandfather

 
HOW broad and deep was the fireplace old,
And the great hearth-stone how wide!
There was always room for the old man's chair
By the cosy chimney side,
And all the children that cared to crowd
At his knee in the evening-tide.
 
 
Room for all of the homeless ones
Who had nowhere else to go;
They might bask at ease in the grateful warmth
And sun in the cheerful glow,
For Grandfather's heart was as wide and warm
As the old fireplace, I know.
 
 
And he always found at his well-spread board
Just room for another chair;
There was always rest for another head
On the pillow of his care;
There was always place for another name
In his trustful morning prayer.
 
 
Oh, crowded world with your jostling throngs!
How narrow you grow, and small;
How cold, like a shadow across the heart,
Your selfishness seems to fall,
When I think of that fireplace warm and wide,
And the welcome awaiting all.
 

The Old Church

 
CLOSE to the road it stood among the trees,
The old, bare church, with windows small and high,
And open doors that gave, on meeting day,
A welcome to the careless passer by.
 
 
Its straight, uncushioned seats, how hard they seemed!
What penance-doing form they always wore
To little heads that could not reach the text,
And little feet that could not reach the floor.
 
 
What wonder that we hailed with strong delight
The buzzing wasp, slow sailing down the aisle,
Or, sunk in sin, beguiled the constant fly
From weary heads, to make our neighbors smile.
 
 
How softly from the churchyard came the breeze
That stirred the cedar boughs with scented wings,
And gently fanned the sleeper's heated brow
Or fluttered Grandma Barlow's bonnet strings.
 
 
With half-shut eyes, across the pulpit bent,
The preacher droned in soothing tones about
Some theme, that like the narrow windows high,
Took in the sky, but left terrestrials out.
 
 
Good, worthy man, his work on earth is done;
His place is lost, the old church passed away;
And with them, when they went, there must have gone
That sweet, bright calm, my childhood's Sabbath day.
 

An Old-Time Pedagogue

 
SLOWLY adown the village street
With groping cane and faltering feet,
He goes each day through cold or heat —
Old Daddy Hight.
His hair is scant upon his head,
His eyes are dim, his nose is red,
And yet, his mien is stern and dread —
Old Daddy Hight.
 
 
The village lads his form descry
While yet afar, and boldly cry —
(For bears are scarce and rods are high)
"Old Daddy Hight!"
But when their fathers meet his glance,
They nod and smile and look askance.
He taught them once the Modoc dance —
Old Daddy Hight.
 
 
How long we cling to servitude,
How long we keep the schoolboy's mood!
Still seems with awful power endued —
Old Daddy Hight.
They feel a cringing of the knee,
Those fathers, yet, whene'er they see
Adown the walk pace solemnly —
Old Daddy Hight.
 
 
Wide is his fame, of how he taught,
And how he flogged, and reckoned naught
The toils and pains that knowledge bought —
Old Daddy Hight.
He had no lack of "ways and means"
To track the loiterers on the greens;
He scorned all counterfeits and screens —
Old Daddy Hight.
 
 
Oh, dire the day that brewed mishap!
That brought to luckless back his strap,
To hanging head his Dunce's cap —
Old Daddy Hight.
No blotted page dared meet his eye;
The owner quaked and wished to die,
When rod in hand, with wrath strode by —
Old Daddy Hight.
 
 
He helped them up the thorny steep
Of wisdom's path with pain to creep,
With vigilance that might not sleep —
Old Daddy Hight.
Now, down his life's long, slow decline,
He walks alone at eighty-nine —
The last of his illustrious line —
Old Daddy Hight.
 

Her Title-Deeds

 
INSIDE the cottage door she sits,
Just where the sunlight, softest there,
Slants down on snowy kerchief's bands,
On folded hands and silvered hair.
 
 
The garden pale her world shuts in,
A simple world made sweet with thyme,
Where life, soft lulled by droning bees,
Flows to the mill-stream's lapsing rhyme.
 
 
Poor are her cottage walls, and bare;
Too mean and small to harbor pride,
Yet with a musing gaze she sees
Her broad domains extending wide.
 
 
Green slopes of hills, and waving fields,
With blooming hedges set between,
Through shifting veils of tender mist,
Smile, half revealed, a mingled scene.
 
 
All hers, for lovingly she holds
A yellow packet in her hand,
Whose ancient, faded script proclaims
Her title to this spreading land.
 
 
Old letters! On the trembling page
Drop unawares, unheeded tears.
These are her title-deeds, her lands
Spread through the realms of by-gone years.
 

INTERLUDES

Voices of the Old, Old Days

 
OH, voices of the old, old days,
Speak once again to me,
I walk alone the old, old ways
And miss your melody.
To-night I close my tired eyes
And hear the rain drip slow,
And dream a hand is on my brow
That pressed it long ago.
 
 
My thoughts stray through the lonely night
Until I seem to see
Home faces, in the firelight,
That always smiled on me.
Those shadows dancing on the walls
Are not by embers cast,
They are the forms my heart recalls
From out the happy past.
 
 
Forgotten is the gathering gloom,
The night's deep loneliness,
As round me in the silent room
With noiseless tread they press.
Though in the dark the rain sobs on,
I heed its sound no more;
For voices of the old, old days
Are calling as of yore.
 

Silent Keys

 
AS we would touch with soft caress the brow
Of one who dreams, the spell of sleep to break,
Across the yellowed keys I sweep my hand,
The old, remembered music to awake;
But something drops from out those melodies —
There are some silent keys.
 
 
So is it when I call to those I loved,
Who blessed my life with tender care and fond:
So is it with those early dreams and hopes,
Some voices answer and some notes respond,
But in the chords that I would strike, like these,
There are some silent keys.
 
 
Heart, dost thou hear not in those pauses fall
A still, small voice that speaks to thee of peace?
What though some hopes may fail, some dreams be lost,
Though sometimes happy music break and cease.
We might miss part of heaven's minstrelsies
But for these silent keys.
 

PART II

Retrospection

 
THE grandsire, in the chimney corner, takes
The almanac from its accustomed place,
And while the kettle swings upon the crane,
And firelight flickers on his wrinkled face,
Reviews the slow procession of the months;
And sees again upon the hills of green
The gypsy Springtime pitch her airy tent
Among the blossoms. Then the silver sheen
Of harvest moon shines down on rustling corn
Until the hazy air of Autumn thrills
With sound of woodman's ax and hunter's horn,
And darker shadows climb the russet hills.
 
 
But while he ponders on the open page,
The last sand in the hour-glass slips away.
The end seems near of his long pilgrimage,
And he would call the fleeting year to stay.
But passing on, she goes – a sweet-faced nun —
To take within the Convent of the Past
The veil of silence. Then the gates swing shut,
And Time, the grim old warden, bolts them fast.
No more can come again those halcyon days
The Year took with it to its dim-lit cell;
But often at the bars they stand and gaze,
When through the heart rings memory's matin-bell.
 

Echoes From Erin

 
ACROSS old Purple Mountain I hear a bugle call,
And down the rocks, like water, the echoes leap and fall.
One note alone can startle the voices of the peaks,
And waken songs of Erin, whene'er the bugle speaks.
They call and call and call,
Until the voices all
Ring down the dusky hollows and in the distance fall.
 
 
Methinks, like Purple Mountain, the past will sometimes rise,
And memory's call awaken its echoing replies.
Within the tower of Shandon again the bells will sway,
And follow, with their ringing, the Lee upon its way,
And chime and chime and chime,
Where ivy tendrils climb,
Till bells and river mingle to sound the silvery rhyme.
 
 
Again the daisied grasses beside the castle walls
Will stir with softest sighing, to hear the wind's footfalls;
And through the moss-grown abbey, along Killarney's shore,
The melodies of Erin will echo evermore,
And roll and roll and roll,
Till spirit hands shall toll
The music of the uplands unto the listening soul.
 

Killarney, Ireland.

An Alpine Valley

 
OH, happy valley at the mountain's feet,
If half your happiness you could but know!
Though over you a shadow always falls,
And far above you rise those heights of snow,
So far, your yearning love you may not speak
With rosy flush like some high sister peak,
Yet you may clasp its feet in fond embrace,
And gaze up in its face.
 
 
And sometimes down its slopes a wind will come
And bring a sudden, noiseless sweep of snow,
Like a soft greeting from those summits sent
To comfort you below.
 
 
What more? Love may not ask too great a boon.
Enough to be so near, though cast so low.
Think that a sea had rolled between you twain
If careless fortune had decreed it so,
And you could only lie and look across
To distant cloudy heights and know your loss,
And see some favored valley, fair and sweet,
Heap flowers at its feet.
 

Cham, Switzerland.

Through an Amber Pane

 
BY some strange alchemy that turns to gold
The light that drops from gray and leaden skies,
Though heavy mists the outer world enfold,
'Tis always sunshine where Napoleon lies.
No more an exile by an alien sea,
Forgetful of the banishment and bane;
Now lies he there, in kingly dignity,
His tomb a Mecca shrine beside the Seine.
And there the pilgrim hears the story told,
How Paris placed above her hero, dead,
A window that should turn to yellow gold
The light that on his resting place is shed.
So on him falls, though summers wane,
The sunshine of that amber pane.
 
 
By some strange miracle, maybe divine,
The sunlight falls upon the buried past
And turns its water into sparkling wine,
And gilds the coin its coffers have amassed.
Could it have been those long-lost halcyon days
Trailed not a cloud across our April sky?
Faltered we not along those untried ways?
Grew we not weary as the days went by?
Ah, yes! But unreturning feet forget
Rough places trodden in the long ago,
Rememb'ring only paths with flowers beset,
While pressing onward, wearily and slow.
For Memory's windows but retain
The sunshine of an amber pane.
 
 
The little white, wind-blown anemone
By one round dewdrop may be fully filled,
And by some light-winged, passing honey-bee
Its cup of crystal water may be spilled.
So does the child heart hold its happiness:
A drop will fill it to its rosy rim.
It is not that these later days bring less,
That joy so rarely rises to the brim;
It is because the heart has deeper grown.
A fuller knowledge must its thirst assuage.
Perhaps we would not deem those pleasures flown
As bright as those which star the present age,
Had not upon them long years lain
The sunshine of an amber pane.
 
 
The dust of dim forgetfulness piles fast
Upon the chains that thralled us yesterday.
So will it be when this day, too, is past,
And in its arms we've seen it bear away
The cares that brooded in the tired brain;
The work that weighted down the weary hand;
The high hopes that we struggled to attain;
The problems that we could not understand.
Washed of its stain, bereft of any sting,
Seen through the window of the Memory,
Perchance, a gentler grace to it may cling
Than we may now think possible to see.
For skies will gleam, though gray with rain,
Like sunshine through that amber pane.
 
 
We may not stand on Patmos, and look through
The star-hinged portals where the great pearls gleam.
No brush that unveiled beauty ever drew,
Save one, that caught its shadow in a dream.
So lest we falter, faithless and afraid,
The Merciful, remembering we are dust,
Reveals not heaven for which our hearts have prayed,
But by a token teaches us to trust;
And day by day allows us to look through
The window of the Memory, broad and vast,
(Till jasper minarets rise into view)
Upon the happy heaven of the past;
And gives, till purer light we gain,
The sunshine of that amber pane.
 

At a Tenement Window

 
SOMETIMES my needle stops with half-drawn thread
(Not often though, each moment's waste means bread,
And missing stitches leave the little mouths unfed).
I look down on the dingy court below:
A tuft of grass is all it has to show, —
A broken pump, where thirsty children go.
Above, there shines a bit of sky, so small
That it might be a passing blue-bird's wing.
One tree leans up against the high brick wall,
And there the sparrows twitter of the spring,
Until they waken in my heart a cry
Of hunger, that no bread can satisfy.
 
 
Always before, when Maytime took her way
Across the fields, I followed close. To-day
I can but dream of all her bright array.
My work drops down. Across the sill I lean,
And long with bitter longing, for unseen
Rain-freshened paths, where budding woods grow green.
The water trickles from the pump below
Upon the stones. With eyes half shut, I hear
It falling in a pool where rushes grow,
And feel a cooling presence drawing near.
And now the sparrows chirp again. No, hark! —
A singing as of some far meadow lark.
 
 
It is the same old miracle applied
Unto myself, that on the mountain-side
The few small loaves and fishes multiplied.
Behold, how strange and sweet the mystery!
The birds, the broken pump, the gnarled tree,
Have brought the fullness of the spring to me.
For in the leaves that rustle by the wall
All forests find a tongue. And so that grass
Can, with its struggling tuft of green, recall
Wide, bloom-filled meadows where the cattle pass.
How it can be, but dimly I divine.
These crumbs, God given, make the whole loaf mine.
 

A Song

"Home-keeping hearts are happiest." – Longfellow.

 
THERE will be distant journeyings enough
To reach that Land beyond the ether's sea,
To satisfy the veriest roaming heart, —
Let me stay home with thee!
 
 
There will be new companionships enough
In that bright spirit-life. Why should we flee
So soon to alien hearts and stranger scenes?
I would stay home with thee.
 
 
The heart grows homesick, thinking of the change
When these familiar things no more shall be;
When e'en the thought of them, perchance, shall fade, —
Let me stay home with thee.
 
 
I would imprint upon my mind each scene,
Each meadow path, and stream, and orchard-tree,
Beloved since childhood, holy with our hopes,
Sweet with the thoughts of thee.
 
 
And each dear household place, let me learn all
By heart, where I am wont thy form to see.
Who knows what things shall pass? If I may share
A hearth in heaven with thee?
 

Eclipse

 
GOD keep us from the sordid mood
That shrinks to self-infinitude,
That sees no thing as good or grand,
That answers not the hour's demand,
And throws o'er Heaven's splendors furled
The shadow of our little world.
 

In the Dark

 
HERE in the dark I lie, and watch the stars
That through the soft gloom shine like tear-bright eyes
Behind a mourner's veil. The darkness seems
Almost a vapor, palpable and dense,
In which my room's familiar outlines melt,
And all seems one black pall that folds me round.
Only a mirror glimmers through the dusk,
And on the wall a dim, uncertain square
Shows where a portrait hangs. Ah, even so
Beloved faces fade into the past
And naught remains except a space of light
To show us where they were.
How still it seems!
The busy clock, whose tell-tale talk was drowned
By Day's uproarious voices, calls aloud,
Undaunted by the dark, the flight of time,
And through the halls its tones ring drearily.
The breeze on tiptoe seems to tread, as though
It were afraid to rouse the drowsy leaves.
The long, dim street is quiet. Nothing breaks
The dream of Night, asleep on Nature's breast.
Hark! Some one passes. On the pavement stones
Each stealthy step gives back a muffled sound,
Till the last foot-fall seems in distance drowned.
So Death might pass, bent on his mission dread,
Adown the silent street, and none might know
What hour he passed or what he bore away.
Ah, sadder thought! So Life goes, unawares,
Noiseless and swift and resolutely on,
While the dumb world lies folded in the gloom,
Unconscious and uncaring in its sleep.
And towards the west, the stars, all silently
Like golden sands in God's great hour-glass, glide
And fall into the nether crystal globe.
 

Felipa, Wife of Columbus

 
MORE than the compass to the mariner,
Wast thou, Felipa, to his dauntless soul.
Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nights
Of rayless gloom, thou pointed ever to
The North Star of his great ambition. He
Who once has lost an Eden, or has gained
A paradise by Eve's sweet influence,
Alone can know how strong a spell lies in
The witchery of a woman's beckoning hand.
And thou didst draw him, tide-like, higher still,
Felipa, whispering the lessons learned
From thy courageous father, till the flood
Of his ambition burst all barriers
And swept him onward to his longed-for goal.
 
 
Before the jewels of a Spanish queen
Built fleets to waft him on his untried way,
Thou gavest thy wealth of wifely sympathy
To build the lofty purpose of his soul.
And now the centuries have cycled by,
Till thou art all-forgotten by the throng
That lauds the great Pathfinder of the deep.
It matters not in that infinitude
Of space, where thou dost guide thy spirit-bark
To undiscovered lands, supremely fair.
If to this little planet thou couldst turn
And voyage, wraithlike, to its cloud-hung rim,
Thou wouldst not care for praise. And if, perchance,
Some hand held out to thee a laurel bough,
Thou wouldst not claim one leaf, but fondly turn
To lay thy tribute, also, at his feet.
 

'Twixt Creek and Bay

 
'TWIXT creek and bay
We whisper to our white sails "stay!
Oh, Life, a little while delay!
'Twixt creek and bay."
 
 
So loath to go
From these calm shallows that we know,
We fain would stay the year's swift flow,
Nor onward go
 
 
To banks more wide,
Where seaward drawings of the tide
Impel to deeper depths untried,
Where Life grows wide.
 
 
'Twixt creek and bay —
The morning deepens into day,
And richer freight we bear, alway,
When in the bay.
 

When Youth is Gone

 
HOW can we know when youth is gone, —
When age has surely come at last?
There is no marked meridian
Through which we sail, and feel when past.
 
 
A keener air our faces strike,
A chiller current swifter run;
They meet and glide like tide with tide,
Our youth and age, when youth is done.
 

The Fickle Heart

 
CANST tell me, thou inconstant heart,
What like unto thou art?
A gypsy wandering up and down
Through April's green and Autumn's brown,
Until the year is spent;
And then, when hills are white with snow,
And brooks, ice-bound, have ceased to flow,
No place to pitch his tent.
 

Banditti

 
UPON Life's lonely highway, robber bands
Of grim-faced years seize with relentless hands
Each traveler, and wrest from out his grasp
The treasures that he fain would closer clasp.
None can escape. Each year demands its toll,
Till robbed of youth, we grope toward the goal,
Halting and blind, of all but life bereft,
And death claims that – the only boon that's left.
 

The Silent Brotherhood

 
ON through the cloisters of eternity
The years, like monks, in slow procession pass,
Telling their rosary beads, the golden days,
With penance prayers of dark and dismal nights.
Hooded and cowled, with silence on they pass,
Nor will they pause until their vesper rings
A solemn curfew at the sunset hour,
When all the fires of life are buried low,
And all the worlds drop down upon their knees,
To say a last mass ere the death of Time.
 

Spendthrift

 
HE was a king one time,
And they wrapped the ermine around him,
And the bells rang out when they crowned him,
Rang with a joyful chime.
 
 
And he sat on a throne!
The wealth that a world could offer
Was heaped in the New Year's coffer,
For the world was his own.
 
 
He was a spendthrift though,
And the coins of his lavish giving
Were the golden moments of living, —
Coins that he squandered so.
 
 
He is a beggar now.
In the night and the storm he lingers,
No gold in his prodigal fingers, —
King with the uncrowned brow.
 
 
Nothing to call his own!
His fortune scattered behind him;
Death empty-handed shall find him, —
A New Year takes his throne.
 

Lost

 
CHILDHOOD flits by with flowers in both its hands, —
We know not why it leaves, nor when it goes;
But suddenly we miss some subtle grace,
As perfume passes from a fading rose;
We scarce divine, yet somehow faintly feel
In the soft air a far-blown breath of snows.
 
 
Straying afar, unheeded and alone
Upon life's highway 'mid the busy throng,
Swept in its eager, restless race along
To the great future, unexplored, unknown,
The little child is lost. And when with haste
The wanderer's footsteps through the streets are traced,
They find a man with features pale and stern,
But the lost child will nevermore return.
 

The Robber

 
DO you know why Time flies by so slow
When we are sad and old?
Why he turns and waits as if loath to go
On his journey cold?
Because from our coffers of hope and youth,
Where we kept life's gold,
He has stolen our treasures all, in sooth,
From their sacred hold.
He who came with a gift in hand
Was a robber bold.
He whose greeting was smooth and bland
Was a wolf in the fold.
And this is the reason that he goes by,
When we're worn and old,
So slowly, because he can scarcely fly
With his weight of gold.
 

My Carol

 
'TIS the time when holly berries
Grow red as the Yule-log's glow,
And hearth and hall are decked by all
With the green of the mistletoe.
Time when the joy of giving
Is felt at each fireside,
And wings seek rest in the old home nest,
For the time is Christmas-tide.
 
 
Though only a carol singer
With nothing of gold in store,
And little to bring as an offering,
I stand outside your door.
Open! This blessed morning
Peace be to thee and thine!
Here to you all I gaily call
A greeting from me and mine.
 
 
Haply it may awaken
Some joy that so long ago,
On the frosty dawn of a Christmas gone,
You found in your stocking toe.
Though but an old, old carol,
It bears love's myrrh and gold,
And the frankincense of a joy intense
That the angel hosts foretold.