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Title : Labor and the Angel

Author : Duncan Campbell Scott

Release date : November 3, 2016 [eBook #53445]

Language : English

Credits : E-text prepared by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LABOR AND THE ANGEL ***

E-text prepared by Larry B. Harrison
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
( http://www.pgdp.net )
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
( https://archive.org )

Note:

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/laborangel00scot

LABOR AND
THE ANGEL

DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT

BOSTON

COPELAND AND DAY

M DCCC XCVIII

TO MY WIFE

      
       In every heart the heart of spring
      
       Bursts into leaf and bud;
      
       The heart of love in every heart
      
       Leaps with its eager flood.

      
       Then hasten, rosy life, and lead
      
       The Pilgrim to the door,
      
       His sandals thonged for ministering,
      
       His forehead bright with lore.

      
       Oh, happy lovers, learn to serve,
      
       And crown your state with power,
      
       For Service is the peasant root,
      
       And Love the princely flower.

CONTENTS.

LABOR AND THE ANGEL		1
THE HARVEST		5
WHEN SPRING GOES BY		11
MARCH		12
IN MAY		12
ON THE MOUNTAIN		13
THE ONONDAGA MADONNA		15
WATKWENIES		15
AVIS		16
THE VIOLET PRESSED IN A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE		19
ANGELUS		21
ADAGIO		21
DIRGE FOR A VIOLET		23
EQUATION		24
AFTERWARDS		24
STONE BREAKING		25
THE LESSON		26
FROM SHADOW		27
THE PIPER OF ARLL		29
AT LES ÉBOULEMENTS		35
THE WOLF		35
RAIN AND THE ROBIN		37
THE DAME REGNANT		37
THE CUP		45
THE HAPPY FATALIST		45
A GROUP OF SONGS
I.	WHEN THE ASH-TREE BUDS AND THE MAPLES	46
II.	THE WORLD IS SPINNING FOR CHANGE	47
III.	THE WIND IS WILD TO-NIGHT	48
IV.	IN THE RUDDY HEART OF THE SUNSET	49
V.	SORROW IS COME LIKE A SWALLOW TO NEST	50
VI.	’TIS AUTUMN AND DOWN IN THE FIELDS	51
VII.	SPRING SONG	52
VIII.	SUMMER SONG	53
IX.	AUTUMN SONG	54
X.	WINTER SONG	55
XI.	THE CANADIAN’S HOME-SONG	56
XII.	MADRIGAL	57
XIII.	WORDS AFTER MUSIC	58

LABOR AND THE ANGEL.

      The wind plunges—then stops;
     
      And a column of leaves in a whirl,
     
      Like a dervish that spins—drops,
     
      With a delicate rustle,
     
      Falls into a circle that thins;
     
      The leaves creep away one by one,
     
      Hiding in hollows and ruts;
     
      Silence comes down on the lane:
     
      The light wheels slow from the sun,
     
      And glints where the corn stood,
     
      And strays over the plain,
     
      Touching with patches of gold,
     
      The knolls and the hollows,
     
      Crosses the lane,
     
      And slips into the wood;
     
      Then flashes a mile away on the farm,
     
      A moment of brightness fine;
     
      Then the gold glimmers and wanes,
     
      And is swept by a clouding of gray,
     
      For cheek by jowl, arm in arm,
     
      The shadow’s afoot with the shine.
     
      The wind roars out from the elm,
     
      Then leaps tiger-sudden;—the leaves
     
      Shudder up into heaps and are caught
     
      High as the branch where they hung
     
      Over the oriole’s nest.

      Down in the sodden field,
     
      A blind man is gathering his roots,
     
      Guided and led by a girl;
     
      Her gold hair blows in the wind,
     
      Her garments with flutter and furl
     
      Leap like a flag in the sun;
     
      And whenever he stoops, she stoops,
     
      And they heap the dark colored beets
     
       2
      
      In the barrow, row upon row.
     
      When it is full to the brim,
     
      He wheels it patiently, slow,
     
      Something oppressive and grim
     
      Clothing his figure, but she
     
      Beautifully light at his side,
     
      Touches his arm with her hand,
     
      Ready to help or to guide:
     
      Power and comfort at need
     
      In the flex of her figure lurk,
     
      The fire at the heart of the deed
     
      The angel that watches o’er work.

      This is her visible form,
     
      Heartening the labor she loves,
     
      Keeping the breath of it warm,
     
      Warm as a nestling of doves.
     
      Humble or high or sublime,
     
      Hers no reward of degrees,
     
      Ditching as precious as rhyme,
     
      If only the spirit be true.
     
      “Effort and effort,” she cries,
     
      “This is the heart-beat of life,
     
      Up with the lark and the dew,
     
      Still with the dew and the stars,
     
      Feel it athrob in the earth.”
     
      When labor is counselled by love,
     
      You may see her splendid, serene,
     
      Bending and brooding above,
     
      With the justice and power of her mien
     
      Where thought has its passionate birth,
     
      Her smile is the sweetest renown,
     
      For the stroke and the derring-do,
     
      Her crown is the starriest crown.
     
      When tears at the fountain are dry,
     
      Bares she the round of her breast,
     
       3
      
      Soft to the cicatrized cheek,
     
      Lulls this avatar of rest;
     
      Strength is her arm for the weak;
     
      Courage the wells of her eyes;
     
      What is the power of their deeps,
     
      Only the baffled can guess;
     
      Nothing can daunt the emprise
     
      When she sets hand to the hilt;
     
      Victory is she—not less.
     
      And oh! in the cages and dens
     
      Where women work down to the bone,
     
      Where men never laugh but they curse,
     
      Think you she leaves them alone?
     
      She the twin-sister of Love!
     
      There, where the pressure is worst,
     
      Of this hell-palace built to the skies
     
      Upon hearts too crushed down to burst,
     
      There, she is wiser than wise,
     
      Giving no vistas sublime
     
      Of towers in the murmurous air,
     
      With gardens of pleasaunce and pride
     
      Lulling the fleetness of time,
     
      With doves alight by the side
     
      Of a fountain that veils and drips;
     
      She offers no tantalus-cup
     
      To the shrunken, the desperate lips;
     
      But she calms them with lethe and love,
     
      And deadens the throb and the pain,
     
      And evens the heart-beat wild,
     
      Whispering again and again,
     
      “Work on, work on, work on,
     
      My broken, my agonized child,”
     
      With her tremulous, dew-cool lips,
     
      At the whorl of the tortured ear,
     
      Till the cry is the presage of hope,
     
      The trample of succor near.

      
       4
      
      And for those whose desperate day
     
      Breeds night with a leaguer of fears,
     
      (Night, that on earth brings the dew,
     
      With stars at the window, and wind
     
      In the maples, and rushes of balm,)
     
      She pours from their limitless stores
     
      Her sacred, ineffable tears.
     
      When a soul too weary of life
     
      Sets to its madness an end,
     
      Then for a moment her eyes
     
      Lighten, and thunder broods dark,
     
      Heavy and strong at her heart;
     
      But for a moment, and then
     
      All her imperious wrath
     
      Breaks in a passion of tears,
     
      With the surge of her grief outpoured,
     
      She sinks on the bosom of Love,
     
      Her sister of infinite years,
     
      And is wrapped, and enclosed, and restored.

      So we have come with the breeze,
     
      Up to the height of the hill,
     
      Lost in the valley trees,
     
      The old blind man and the girl;
     
      But deep in the heart is the thrill
     
      Of the image of counselling love;
     
      The shape of the soul in the gloom,
     
      And the power of the figure above,
     
      Stand for the whole world’s need:
     
      For labor is always blind,
     
      Unless as the light of the deed
     
      The angel is smiling behind.

      Now on the height of the hill,
     
      The wind is fallen to a breath;
     
      But down in the valley still,
     
       5
      
      It stalks in the shadowy wood,
     
      And angers the river’s breast;
     
      The fields turn into the dark
     
      That plays on the round of the sphere;
     
      A star leaps sharp in the clear
     
      Line of the sky, clear and cold;
     
      But a cloud in the warmer west
     
      Holds for a little its gold;
     
      Like the wing of a seraph who sinks
     
      Into antres afar from the earth,
     
      Reluctant he flames on the brinks
     
      Of the circles of nebulous stars,
     
      Reluctant he turns to the rest,
     
      From the planet whose ideal is love,
     
      And then as he sweeps to the void
     
      Vivid with tremulous light,
     
      He gives it his translucent wing,
     
      An emblem of pity unfurled,
     
      Then falls to the uttermost ring,
     
      And is lost to the world.

THE HARVEST.

      Sun on the mountain,
     
      Shade in the valley,
     
      Ripple and lightness
     
      Leaping along the world,
     
      Sun, like a gold sword
     
      Plucked from the scabbard,
     
      Striking the wheat-fields,
     
      Splendid and lusty,
     
      Close-standing, full-headed,
     
      Toppling with plenty;
     
      Shade, like a buckler
     
      Kindly and ample,
     
      Sweeping the wheat-fields
     
       6
      
      Darkening and tossing;
     
      There on the world-rim
     
      Winds break and gather
     
      Heaping the mist
     
      For the pyre of the sunset;
     
      And still as a shadow,
     
      In the dim westward,
     
      A cloud sloop of amethyst
     
      Moored to the world
     
      With cables of rain.

      Acres of gold wheat
     
      Stir in the sunshine,
     
      Rounding the hill-top,
     
      Crested with plenty,
     
      Filling the valley,
     
      Brimmed with abundance;
     
      Wind in the wheat-field
     
      Eddying and settling,
     
      Swaying it, sweeping it,
     
      Lifting the rich heads,
     
      Tossing them soothingly;
     
      Twinkle and shimmer
     
      The lights and the shadowings,
     
      Nimble as moonlight
     
      Astir in the mere.
     
      Laden with odors
     
      Of peace and of plenty,
     
      Soft comes the wind
     
      From the ranks of the wheat-field,
     
      Bearing a promise
     
      Of harvest and sickle-time,
     
      Opulent threshing-floors
     
      Dusty and dim
     
      With the whirl of the flail,
     
      And wagons of bread,
     
       7
      
      Down-laden and lumbering
     
      Through the gateways of cities.

      When will the reapers
     
      Strike in their sickles,
     
      Bending and grasping,
     
      Shearing and spreading;
     
      When will the gleaners
     
      Searching the stubble
     
      Take the last wheat-heads
     
      Home in their arms?

      Ask not the question!—
     
      Something tremendous
     
      Moves to the answer.

      Hunger and poverty
     
      Heaped like the ocean
     
      Welters and mutters,
     
       Hold back the sickles!

      Millions of children
     
      Born to their terrible
     
      Ancestral hunger,
     
      Starved in their mothers’ womb,
     
      Starved at the nipple, cry,—
     
       Ours is the harvest!

      Millions of women
     
      Learned in the tragical
     
      Secrets of poverty,
     
      Sweated and beaten, cry,—
     
       Hold back the sickles!

      Millions of men
     
      With a vestige of manhood,
     
      Wild-eyed and gaunt-throated,
     
       8
      
      Shout with a leonine
     
      Accent of anger,
     
       Leave us the wheat-fields!

      When will the reapers
     
      Strike in their sickles?
     
      Ask not the question;
     
      Something tremendous
     
      Moves to the answer.

      Long have they sharpened
     
      Their fiery, impetuous
     
      Sickles of carnage,
     
      Welded them æons
     
      Ago in the mountains
     
      Of suffering and anguish;
     
      Hearts were their hammers
     
      Blood was their fire,
     
      Sorrow their anvil,
     
      (Trusty the sickles
     
      Tempered with tears;)
     
      Time they had plenty—
     
      Harvests and harvests
     
      Passed them in agony,
     
      Only a half-filled
     
      Ear for their lot;
     
      Man that had taken
     
      God for a master
     
      Made him a law,
     
      Mocked him and cursed him,
     
      Set up this hunger,
     
      Called it necessity,
     
      Put in the blameless mouth
     
      Judas’s language:
     
      The poor ye have with you
     
      Alway, unending.

      
       9
      
      But up from the impotent
     
      Anguish of children,
     
      Up from the labor
     
      Fruitless, unmeaning,
     
      Of millions of mothers,
     
      Hugely necessitous,
     
      Grew by a just law
     
      Stern and implacable,
     
      Art born of poverty,
     
      The making of sickles
     
      Meet for the harvest.

      And now to the wheat-fields
     
      Come the weird reapers
     
      Armed with their sickles,
     
      Whipping them keenly
     
      In the fresh-air fields,
     
      Wild with the joy of them,
     
      Finding them trusty,
     
      Hilted with teen.
     
      Swarming like ants,
     
      The Idea for captain,
     
      No banners, no bugles,
     
      Only a terrible
     
      Ground-bass of gathering
     
      Tempest and fury,
     
      Only a tossing
     
      Of arms and of garments;
     
      Sexless and featureless,
     
      (Only the children
     
      Different among them,
     
      Crawling between their feet,
     
      Borne on their shoulders;)
     
      Rolling their shaggy heads
     
      Wild with the unheard-of
     
      Drug of the sunshine;
     
       10
      
      Tears that had eaten
     
      The half of their eyelids
     
      Dry on their cheeks;
     
      Blood in their stiffened hair
     
      Clouted and darkened;
     
      Down in their cavern hearts
     
      Hunger the tiger,
     
      Leaping, exulting;
     
      Sighs that had choked them
     
      Burst into triumphing;
     
      On they come, Victory!
     
      Up to the wheat-fields,
     
      Dreamed of in visions
     
      Bred by the hunger,
     
      Seen for the first time
     
      Splendid and golden;
     
      On they come fluctuant,
     
      Seething and breaking,
     
      Weltering like fire
     
      In the pit of the earthquake,
     
      Bursting in heaps
     
      With the sudden intractable
     
      Lust of the hunger:
     
      Then when they see them—
     
      The miles of the harvest
     
      White in the sunshine,
     
      Rushing and stumbling,
     
      With the mighty and clamorous
     
      Cry of a people
     
      Starved from creation,
     
      Hurl themselves onward,
     
      Deep in the wheat-fields,
     
      Weeping like children,
     
      After ages and ages,
     
      Back at the breasts
     
      Of their mother the earth.

      
       11
      
      Night in the valley,
     
      Gloom on the mountain,
     
      Wind in the wheat,
     
      Far to the southward
     
      The flutter of lightning,
     
      The shudder of thunder;
     
      But high at the zenith,
     
      A cluster of stars
     
      Glimmers and throbs
     
      In the grasp of the midnight,
     
      Steady and absolute,
     
      Ancient and sure.

WHEN SPRING GOES BY.

      The winds that on the uplands softly lie,
     
      Grow keener where the ice is lingering still,
     
      Where the first robin on the sheltered hill
     
      Pipes blithely to the tune, “When Spring goes by!”
     
      Hear him again, “Spring! Spring!” he seems to cry,
     
      Haunting the fall of the flute-throated rill,
     
      That keeps a gentle, constant, silver thrill,
     
      While he is restless in his ecstasy.

      Ah! the soft budding of the virginal woods,
     
      Of the frail fruit trees by the vanishing lakes:
     
      There’s the new moon where the clear sunset floods,
     
      A trace of dew upon the rose leaf sky;
     
      And hark! what rapture the glad robin wakes—
     
      “When Spring goes by; Spring! Spring! When Spring goes by.”

MARCH.

      Now swoops the wind from every coign and crest;
     
      Like filaments of silver, ripped and spun,
     
      The snow reels off the drift-ridge in the sun;
     
      And smoky clouds are torn across the west,
     
      Clouds that would snow if they had time to rest;
     
      The sparrows brangle and the icicles clash;
     
      The grosbeaks search for berries in the ash;
     
      The shore-lark tinkles while he plans his nest.

      Now in the steaming woods the maples drip,
     
      And plunging in with the last load of sap,
     
      Beyond the branches through a starry gap,
     
      The driver sees the frail aurora flow,
     
      And round the sinking Pleiads bend and blow;
     
      A rosy banner and a silver ship.

IN MAY.

      The clouds that veil the early day
     
      Are very near and soft and fine,
     
      The heaven peeps between the gray,
     
      A luminous and pearly line.

      The breeze is up, now soft, now full,
     
      And moulds the vapor light as fleece,
     
      It trembles, then, with drip and lull,
     
      The rain drifts gently through the trees.

      It trails into a silver blur,
     
      And hangs about the cherry tops
     
      That sprinkle, with the wind astir,
     
      In little sudden whirls of drops.

      
       13
      
      The apple orchards, banked with bloom,
     
      Are drenched and dripping with the wet,
     
      And on the breeze their deep perfume
     
      Grows and fades by and lingers yet.

      In some green covert far remote
     
      The oven-bird is never still,
     
      And, golden-throat to golden-throat,
     
      The orioles warble on the hill.

      Now over all the gem-like woods
     
      The delicate mist is blown again,
     
      And after dripping interludes
     
      Lets down the lulling silver rain.

ON THE MOUNTAIN.

I.

      A storm from the mountain is coming,
     
      With lightning and thunder and rain,
     
      The wind is sweeping and humming
     
      In the butternut trees on the plain.

      The cloud is ebon that follows,
     
      The fore-cloud is livid and pale,
     
      There’s the flash and the tossing of swallows
     
      In the turn of the eddying gale.

      The rain is awake on the mountain,
     
      ’T is lashing the forest afar
     
      With fall of a shattering fountain
     
      And the tramp and tumult of war,

      
       14
      
      With the drums of the detoning thunder,
     
      And the clang in the bugles of wind,
     
      With the gonfalons tortured asunder
     
      By the rush of the host from behind.

      The plains are leaping with shadows,
     
      The highlands go out like a blot,
     
      And over the eddying meadows
     
      The rain is hurtled like shot.

      The darkness is glooming and brightening,
     
      There is alternate chaos and form,
     
      With the parry and thrust of the lightning
     
      In the turbulent heart of the storm.

II.

      Now the storm is over,
     
      And the greener plain
     
      Seems to glow and hover
     
      Through the thinning rain.

      Now the wind is gusty
     
      In the maple tops,
     
      Striking out the lusty
     
      Storms of gleaming drops.

      Now the goldfinch whistles
     
      In his spattered vest,
     
      Balanced on the thistles,
     
      Bolder than the best.

      And the hermit thrushes
     
      On the sparkling hills,
     
      Link the dripping hushes
     
      With their silver thrills.

THE ONONDAGA MADONNA.

      She stands full-throated and with careless pose,
     
      This woman of a weird and waning race,
     
      The tragic savage lurking in her face,
     
      Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;
     
      Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,
     
      And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;
     
      Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains
     
      Of feuds and forays and her father’s woes.

      And closer in the shawl about her breast,
     
      The latest promise of her nation’s doom,
     
      Paler than she her baby clings and lies,
     
      The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes;
     
      He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom,
     
      He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.

WATKWENIES. ^[1]

      Vengeance was once her nation’s lore and law:
     
      When the tired sentry stooped above the rill,
     
      Her long knife flashed, and hissed, and drank its fill;
     
      Dimly below her dripping wrist she saw,
     
      One wild hand, pale as death and weak as straw,
     
      Clutch at the ripple in the pool; while shrill
     
      Sprang through the dreaming hamlet on the hill,
     
      The war-cry of the triumphant Iroquois.

      
       16
      
      Now clothed with many an ancient flap and fold,
     
      And wrinkled like an apple kept till May,
     
      She weighs the interest-money in her palm,
     
      And, when the Agent calls her valiant name,
     
      Hears, like the war-whoops of her perished day,
     
      The lads playing snow-snake in the stinging cold.

AVIS.

      With a golden rolling sound
     
      Booming came a bell,
     
      From the aery in the tower
     
      Eagles fell;
     
      So with regal wings
     
      Hurled, and gleaming sound and power,
     
      Sprang the fatal spell.

      Then a storm of burnished doves
     
      Gleaming from the cote
     
      Flurried by the almonry
     
      O’er the moat,—
     
      Fell and soared and fell
     
      With the arc and iris eye
     
      Burning breast and throat.

      Avis heard the beaten bell
     
      Break the quiet space,
     
      Gathering softly in the room
     
      Round her face;
     
      And the sound of wings
     
      From the deeps of rosy gloom
     
      Rustled in the place.

      
       17
      
      Nothing moved along the wall,
     
      Weltered on the floor;
     
      Only in the purple deep,
     
      Streaming o’er,
     
      Came the dream of sound
     
      Silent as the dale of sleep,
     
      Where the dreams are four.

      (One of love without a word,
     
      Wan to look upon,
     
      One of fear without a cry,
     
      Cowering stone,
     
      And the dower of life,—
     
      Grief without a single sigh,
     
      Pain without a moan.)

      “Avis—Avis!” cried a voice;
     
      Then the voice was mute.
     
      “Avis!” soft the echo lay
     
      As the lute.
     
      Where she was she fell,
     
      Drowsy as mandragora,
     
      Trancèd to the root.

      Then she heard her mother’s voice,
     
      Tender as a dove;
     
      Then her lover plain and sigh,
     
      “Avis—Love!”
     
      Like the mavis bird
     
      Calling, calling lonelily
     
      From the eerie grove.

      
       18
      
      Then she heard within the vast
     
      Closure of the spell,
     
      Rolled and moulded into one
     
      Rounded swell,
     
      All the sounds that ever were
     
      Uttered underneath the sun,
     
      Heard in heaven or hell.

      In the arras moved the wind,
     
      And the window cloth
     
      Rippled like a serpent barred,
     
      Gray with wrath;
     
      In the brazier gold
     
      The wan ghost of a rose charred
     
      Fluttered like a moth.

      Tranquil lay her darkened eyes
     
      As the pools that keep
     
      Auras dim of fern and frond
     
      Dappled, deep,
     
      Dreamy as the map of Nod;
     
      Moveless was she as a wand
     
      In the wind of sleep.

      Then the birds began to cry
     
      From the crannied wall,
     
      Piping as the morning rose
     
      Mystical,
     
      Gray with whistling rain,
     
      Silver with the light that flows
     
      In the interval.

      
       19
      
      Pallid poplars cast a shade,
     
      Twinkling gray and dun,
     
      Where the wind and water wove
     
      Into one
     
      All the linnet leaves,
     
      Greening from the mere and grove
     
      In the undern sun.

      Night fell with the ferny dusk,
     
      Planets paled and grew,
     
      Up, with lilt and clarid turns
     
      Throbbing through,
     
      Rose the robin’s song,
     
      Heart of home and love that burns
     
      Beating in the dew.

      But she neither moved nor heard,
     
      Trancèd was her breath;
     
      Lip on charmèd lip was laid
     
      (One who saith
     
      “Love—Undone” and falls).
     
      Silent was she as a shade
     
      In the dells of death.

THE VIOLET PRESSED IN A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE.

      Here in the inmost of the master’s heart
     
      This violet crisp with early dew,
     
      Has come to leave her beauty and to part
     
      With all her vivid hue.

      
       20
      
      And while in hollow glades and dells of musk,
     
      Her fellows will reflower in bands,
     
      Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk,
     
      With sweet inviolate hands,

      She will lie here, a ghost of their delight,
     
      Their lucent stems all ashen gray,
     
      Their purples fallen into pulvil white,
     
      Dull as the bluebird’s alula.

      But here where human passions pulse in power,
     
      She will transcend our Shakespeare’s art,
     
      From Desdemona to a smothered flower,
     
      Will leap the tragic heart.

      And memory will recall in keener mood
     
      The precinct fair where passion grew,
     
      The stars within the water in the wood,
     
      The moonlit grove, the odorous dew.

      The voice that throbbed along the summer dark
     
      Will float and pause and thrill,
     
      In lonely cadence silvern as the lark,
     
      To
      
      fail below the hill.

      The reader will grow weary of the play,
     
      Finding his heart half understood,
     
      And with the young moon in the early dusk will stray
     
      Beside the starry water in the wood.

ANGELUS.

      A deep bell that links the downs
     
      To the drowsy air;
     
      Every loop of sound that swoons,
     
      Finds a circle fair,
     
      Whereon it doth rest and fade;
     
      Every stroke that dins is laid
     
      Like a node,
     
      Spinning out the quivering, fine,
     
      Vibrant tendrils of a vine:
     
      (Bim—bim—bim.)
     
      How they wreathe and run,
     
      Silvern as a filmy light,
     
      Filtered from the sun:
     
      The god of sound is out of sight,
     
      And the bell is like a cloud,
     
      Humming to the outer rim,
     
      Low and loud:
     
      (Bim—bim—bim.)
     
      Throwing down the tempered lull,
     
      Fragile, beautiful:
     
      Married drones and overtones,
     
      How we fancy them to swim,
     
      Spreading into shapes that shine,
     
      With the aura of the metals,
     
      Prisoned in the bell,
     
      Fulvous tinted as a shell,
     
      Dreamy, dim,
     
      Deep in amber hyaline:
     
      (Bim—bim—bim.)

ADAGIO.

      Grave maid, surrounded by the austere air
     
      Of this delaying spring, what gentle grief,
     
      What hovering, mystical melancholy
     
       22
      
      Hath covered thee with the translucent shadow?
     
      The glaucous silver buds upon the tree,
     
      And the light burst of blossom in the bush
     
      Are the new year’s evangel: soon the birch
     
      Will breathe in heaven with her myriad leaves,
     
      And hide the birds’ nests from the tuliped lawn;
     
      But thou, with look askance and dreaming eyes,
     
      Brooding on something subtly sad and sweet,
     
      Art passive, and the world may have her way,
     
      Hide the moraine of immemorial days
     
      With bines and blossoms, so thine unvaried hour
     
      Be not perplexèd with the change of growth.
     
      Within this sombre circle of the hills,
     
      Thy girlish eyes have seen the winter’s close,
     
      And what may lie beyond, where the sun falls,
     
      When the vale fills with rose, and the first star
     
      Looks liquidly, thy quiet heart knows not.
     
      The permanence of beauty haunts thy dreams,
     
      And only as a land beyond desire,
     
      Where the fixed glow may stain the vivid flower,
     
      Where youth may lose his wings but keep his joy,
     
      Does that far slope in the reluctant light
     
      Lure thee beyond the barrier of the hills.
     
      And often in the morning of the heart,
     
      When memories are like crocus-buds in spring,
     
      Thou hast up-builded in thy crystal soul
     
      Immutable forms of things loved once and lost,
     
      Or loved and never gained.
     
      Now while the wind
     
      From the reflowering bush gushes with perfume,
     
      Thou hast a vision of a precinct fair,
     
      Daled in the lustrous hills, where the mossed dial
     
      Holds the slow shadow narrowed to a line;
     
      Where a parterre of tulips hoards the light,
     
      Changeless and pure in cups of tranquil gold;
     
      Where bee-hives gray against the poplar shade,
     
       23
      
      Peopled with bees, hum in perpetual drone;
     
      In a pavilion centred in the close,
     
      Four viols build the perfect cube of sound;
     
      A path beside the rosy barberry hedge,
     
      Leads to the cool of water under spray,
     
      Leads to the fountain-echoing ivied wall;
     
      Pedestaled there, flecked with the linden shadows,
     
      A guardian statue carved in purest stone,
     
      Love and Mnemosyne; Mnemosyne
     
      Mothering the Truant to an all-cherishing breast,
     
      The wells of lore deepening her eyes, would speak—
     
      But Love hath laid his hand upon her lips.

DIRGE FOR A VIOLET.

      Here was a happy flower,
     
      Born in sun and shower,
     
      In the meadow;
     
      Sorrow was her dower,
     
      And shadow.

      Bid the gentle mole
     
      Dig his deepest hole,
     
      For her rest;
     
      Sleep has charmed her soul,
     
      Sleep is best.

      Bid the vervain spire
     
      Light the funeral fire,
     
      And the yarrow
     
      Build a shady choir,
     
      For the sparrow.

      
       24
      
      Bid him chirp and cry,
     
      “Everything must die,
     
      She is dead,”
     
      Now in exequy,
     
      All is said.

EQUATION.

      When we grow old, and time looks like a thief,
     
      That was the spendthrift of our dearest days;
     
      When color mingles merged in silvered grays;
     
      When joys are ever memoried to be brief;
     
      When beauty fades; when hope is under feof;
     
      When all our moods are mantled in a haze;
     
      When sprightly pleasure for a penance plays
     
      The part of prudence in the weeds of grief;
     
      It will suffice if unto memory
     
      Visit the voices and the eager grace
     
      Of days that promised never to forget;
     
      If they will flow like rumors of the sea,
     
      Heard under honied lindens in the place,
     
      Where start the marguerite and the mignonette.

AFTERWARDS.

      Her life was touched with early frost,
     
      About the April of her day,
     
      Her hold on earth was lightly lost,
     
      And like a leaf she went away.

      Her soul was chartered for great deeds,
     
      For gentle war unwonted here:
     
      Her spirit sought her clearer needs,
     
      An Empyrean atmosphere.

      
       25
      
      At hush of eve we hear her still
     
      Say with her clear, her perfect smile,
     
      And with her silver-throated thrill:
     
      “A little while—a little while.”

STONE BREAKING.

      March wind rough
     
      Clashed the trees,
     
      Flung the snow;
     
      Breaking stones,
     
      In the cold,
     
      Germans slow
     
      Toiled and toiled;
     
      Arrowy sun
     
      Glanced and sprang,
     
      One right blithe
     
      German sang:
     
      Songs of home,
     
      Fatherland:
     
      Syenite hard,
     
      Weary lot,
     
      Callous hand,
     
      All forgot:
     
      Hammers pound,
     
      Ringing round;
     
      Rise the heaps,
     
      To his voice,
     
      Bounds and leaps
     
      Toise on toise:
     
      Toil is long,
     
      But dear God
     
      Gives us song,
     
      At the end,
     
      Gives us rest,
     
      Toil is best.

THE LESSON.

      When the great day is done,
     
      That seems so long,
     
      So full of fret and fun,
     
      Our little girl is in her cradle laid:
     
      She takes the soft dark-petaled flower of sleep
     
      Between her fragile hands,
     
      Striving to pluck it:
     
      And as the dream-roots slowly part,
     
      She is not in possession of the lands,
     
      Where flowered her tender heart,
     
      Nor in this turmoil dire of cark and strife,
     
      Which we call life,
     
      The which, husbanding all our art,
     
      We will keep veiled until the latest day,
     
      And from her wrapt away:
     
      Then when the drowsy flower
     
      Has parted from the dreamful mead,
     
      And in her palm lies plucked indeed,
     
      When her dear breathing steadies after sighs,
     
      And the soft lids have clouded the blue eyes,
     
      A tiny hand falls on my cheek—
     
      Lightly and so fragrantly
     
      As if a snow-flake could a rose-leaf be—
     
      And in the dark touches a tear
     
      Which has sprung clear,
     
      From eyes unconscious of their own distress,
     
      At the deep pathos of such tender helplessness.
     
      And then she claims her sleep,
     
      As if she knows my love and trusts it deep.

      Dear God! to whom the bravest of us is a child,
     
      When I am weary, when I cannot rest,
     
      I have stretched out my hand into the dark,
     
      And felt the shadow stark,
     
       27
      
      But no face brooding near,
     
      Nor any tear
     
      Compassionately wept:
     
      I have not slept.

      But now I learn my lesson from the sage,
     
      Who burns his lore with acid on the heart;
     
      I will not whimper when I feel the smart,
     
      And for my comfort will look down, not up;
     
      I will give ever from a brimming sky,
     
      Not telling how or why;
     
      I will be answered in this little child,
     
      I will be reconciled.

FROM SHADOW.

      Now the November skies,
     
      And the clouds that are thin and gray,
     
      That drop with the wind away;
     
      A flood of sunlight rolls,
     
      In a tide of shallow light,
     
      Gold on the land and white
     
      On the water, dim and warm in the wood;
     
      Then it is gone, and the wan
     
      Clear of the shade
     
      Covers field and barren and glade.
     
      The peace of labor done,
     
      Is wide in the gracious earth;
     
      The harvest is won;
     
      Past are the tears and the mirth;
     
      And we feel in the tenuous air
     
      How far beyond thought or prayer
     
      Is the grace of silent things,
     
      That work for the world alway,
     
      Neither for fear nor for pay,
     
      And when labor is over, rest.

      
       28
      
      The moil of our fretted life
     
      Is borne anew to the soul,
     
      Borne with its cark and strife,
     
      Its burden of care and dread,
     
      Its glories elusive and strange;
     
      And the weight of the weary whole
     
      Presses it down, till we cry:
     
      Where is the fruit of our deeds?
     
      Why should we struggle to build
     
      Towers against death on the plain?
     
      All things possess their lives
     
      Save man, whose task and desire
     
      Transcend his power and his will.

      The question is over and still;
     
      Nothing replies: but the earth
     
      Takes on a lovelier hue
     
      From a cloud that neighbored the sun,
     
      That the sun burned down and through,
     
      Till it glowed like a seraph’s wing;
     
      The fields that were gray and dun
     
      Are warm in the flowing light;
     
      Fair in the west the night
     
      Strikes in with a vibrant star.

      Something has stirred afar
     
      In the shadow that winter flings;
     
      A message comes up to the soul
     
      From the soul of inanimate things:
     
      A message that widens and grows
     
      Till it touches the deeds of man,
     
      Till we see in the torturous throes
     
      Some dawning glimmer of plan;
     
      Till we feel in the deepening night
     
      The hand of the angel Content,
     
      That stranger of calmness and light,
     
       29
      
      With his brow over us bent,
     
      Who moves with his eyes on the earth,
     
      Whose robe of lambent green,
     
      A tissue of herb and its sheen,
     
      Tells the mother who gave him birth.
     
      The message plays through his touch,
     
      It grows with the roots of his power,
     
      Till it flames exultant in thought,
     
      As the quince-tree triumphs in flower.

      The fruit that is checked and marred
     
      Goes under the sod:
     
      The good lives here in the world;
     
      It persists,—it is God.

THE PIPER OF ARLL.

      There was in Arll a little cove
     
      Where the salt wind came cool and free:
     
      A foamy beach that one would love,
     
      If he were longing for the sea.

      A brook hung sparkling on the hill,
     
      The hill swept far to ring the bay;
     
      The bay was faithful, wild or still,
     
      To the heart of the ocean far away.

      There were three pines above the comb
     
      That, when the sun flared and went down,
     
      Grew like three warriors reaving home
     
      The plunder of a burning town.

      A piper lived within the grove,
     
      Tending the pasture of his sheep;
     
      His heart was swayed with faithful love,
     
      From the springs of God’s ocean clear and deep.

      
       30
      
      And there a ship one evening stood,
     
      Where ship had never stood before;
     
      A pennon bickered red as blood,
     
      An angel glimmered at the prore.

      About the coming on of dew,
     
      The sails burned rosy, and the spars
     
      Were gold, and all the tackle grew
     
      Alive with ruby-hearted stars.

      The piper heard an outland tongue,
     
      With music in the cadenced fall;
     
      And when the fairy lights were hung,
     
      The sailors gathered one and all,

      And leaning on the gunwales dark,
     
      Crusted with shells and dashed with foam,
     
      With all the dreaming hills to hark,
     
      They sang their longing songs of home.

      When the sweet airs had fled away,
     
      The piper, with a gentle breath,
     
      Moulded a tranquil melody
     
      Of lonely love and longed-for death.

      When the fair sound began to lull,
     
      From out the fireflies and the dew,
     
      A silence held the shadowy hull,
     
      Until the eerie tune was through.

      Then from the dark and dreamy deck
     
      An alien song began to thrill;
     
      It mingled with the drumming beck,
     
      And stirred the braird upon the hill.

      
       31
      
      Beneath the stars each sent to each
     
      A message tender, till at last
     
      The piper slept upon the beach,
     
      The sailors slumbered round the mast.

      Still as a dream till nearly dawn,
     
      The ship was bosomed on the tide;
     
      The streamlet, murmuring on and on,
     
      Bore the sweet water to her side.

      Then shaking out her lawny sails,
     
      Forth on the misty sea she crept;
     
      She left the dawning of the dales,
     
      Yet in his cloak the piper slept.

      And when he woke he saw the ship,
     
      Limned black against the crimson sun;
     
      Then from the disc he saw her slip,
     
      A wraith of shadow—she was gone.

      He threw his mantle on the beach,
     
      He went apart like one distraught,
     
      His lips were moved—his desperate speech
     
      Stormed his inviolable thought.

      He broke his human-throated reed,
     
      And threw it in the idle rill;
     
      But when his passion had its mead,
     
      He found it in the eddy still.

      He mended well the patient flue,
     
      Again he tried its varied stops;
     
      The closures answered right and true,
     
      And starting out in piercing drops,

      
       32
      
      A melody began to drip
     
      That mingled with a ghostly thrill
     
      The vision-spirit of the ship,
     
      The secret of his broken will.

      Beneath the pines he piped and swayed,
     
      Master of passion and of power;
     
      He was his soul and what he played,
     
      Immortal for a happy hour.

      He, singing into nature’s heart,
     
      Guiding his will by the world’s will,
     
      With deep, unconscious, childlike art
     
      Had sung his soul out and was still.

      And then at evening came the bark
     
      That stirred his dreaming heart’s desire;
     
      It burned slow lights along the dark
     
      That died in glooms of crimson fire.

      The sailors launched a sombre boat,
     
      And bent with music at the oars;
     
      The rhythm throbbing every throat,
     
      And lapsing round the liquid shores,

      Was that true tune the piper sent,
     
      Unto the wave-worn mariners,
     
      When with the beck and ripple blent
     
      He heard that outland song of theirs.

      Silent they rowed him, dip and drip,
     
      The oars beat out an exequy,
     
      They laid him down within the ship,
     
      They loosed a rocket to the sky.

      
       33
      
      It broke in many a crimson sphere
     
      That grew to gold and floated far,
     
      And left the sudden shore-line clear,
     
      With one slow-changing, drifting star.

      Then out they shook the magic sails,
     
      That charmed the wind in other seas,
     
      From where the west line pearls and pales,
     
      They waited for a ruffling breeze.

      But in the world there was no stir,
     
      The cordage slacked with never a creak,
     
      They heard the flame begin to purr
     
      Within the lantern at the peak.

      They could not cry, they could not move,
     
      They felt the lure from the charmed sea;
     
      They could not think of home or love
     
      Or any pleasant land to be.

      They felt the vessel dip and trim,
     
      And settle down from list to list;
     
      They saw the sea-plain heave and swim
     
      As gently as a rising mist.

      And down so slowly, down and down,
     
      Rivet by rivet, plank by plank;
     
      A little flood of ocean flown
     
      Across the deck, she sank and sank.

      From knee to breast the water wore,
     
      It crept and crept; ere they were ware
     
      Gone was the angel at the prore,
     
      They felt the water float their hair.

      
       34
      
      They saw the salt plain spark and shine,
     
      They threw their faces to the sky;
     
      Beneath a deepening film of brine
     
      They saw the star-flash blur and die.

      She sank and sank by yard and mast,
     
      Sank down the shimmering gradual dark;
     
      A little drooping pennon last
     
      Showed like the black fin of a shark.

      And down she sank till, keeled in sand,
     
      She rested safely balanced true,
     
      With all her upward gazing band,
     
      The piper and the dreaming crew.

      And there, unmarked of any chart,
     
      In unrecorded deeps they lie,
     
      Empearled within the purple heart
     
      Of the great sea for aye and aye.

      Their eyes are ruby in the green
     
      Long shaft of sun that spreads and rays,
     
      And upward with a wizard sheen
     
      A fan of sea-light leaps and plays.

      Tendrils of or and azure creep,
     
      And globes of amber light are rolled,
     
      And in the gloaming of the deep
     
      Their eyes are starry pits of gold.

      And sometimes in the liquid night
     
      The hull is changed, a solid gem,
     
      That glows with a soft stony light,
     
      The lost prince of a diadem.

      
       35
      
      And at the keel a vine is quick,
     
      That spreads its bines and works and weaves
     
      O’er all the timbers veining thick
     
      A plenitude of silver leaves.

AT LES ÉBOULEMENTS.

      A glamour on the phantom shore
     
      Of golden pallid green,
     
      Gray purple in the flats before,
     
      The river streams between.

      From hazy hamlets, one by one,
     
      Beyond the island bars,
     
      The casements in the setting sun
     
      Flash back in violet stars.

      A brig is straining out for sea,
     
      To Norway or to France she goes,
     
      And all her happy flags are free,
     
      Her sails are flushed with rose.

THE WOLF.

      Whoo—whoo—
     
      The rain in the hollow
     
      The wan gray sleet will follow,
     
      The shaggy moor
     
      Will lie at the door,
     
      Heavy with mould,
     
      Dead with cold,
     
      Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô.

      
       36
      
      Whoo—whoo—
     
      The wind in the willow,
     
      The snow heaped up for a pillow,
     
      The shell of ice,
     
      Will crush in a trice,
     
      An iron mould,
     
      To have and to hold,
     
      Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô.

      Whoo—whoo—
     
      The frost in the furrow,
     
      Heat takes long to burrow,
     
      The fire on the hearth
     
      Shakes its mirth
     
      At one of God’s poor,
     
      Outside the door,
     
      Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô.

      Whoo—whoo—
     
      Weary and worry him,
     
      Gnaw him, tug him, and carry him;
     
      Dig him a pit,
     
      Shallow and fit,
     
      In the colder cold
     
      It will hold or unfold,
     
      Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô.

      Whoo—whoo—
     
      The steam from the thatches,
     
      The casement tawny in patches;
     
      Look not yet,
     
      You might never forget
     
      The ghost of breath,
     
      Or the leper Death,
     
      Whoo—whoo;—yu-loô—yu-loô.

RAIN AND THE ROBIN.

      A robin in the morning,
     
      In the morning early,
     
      Sang a song of warning,
     
      “There’ll be rain, there’ll be rain.”
     
      Very, very clearly
     
      From the orchard
     
      Came the gentle horning,
     
      “There’ll be rain.”
     
      But the hasty farmer
     
      Cut his hay down,
     
      Did not heed the charmer
     
      From the orchard,
     
      And the mower’s clatter
     
      Ceased at noontide,
     
      For with drip and spatter
     
      Down came the rain.
     
      Then the prophet robin
     
      Hidden in the crab-tree
     
      Railed upon the farmer,
     
      “I told you so, I told you so.”
     
      As the rain grew stronger,
     
      And his heart grew prouder,
     
      Notes so full and slow
     
      Coming blither, louder,
     
      “I told you so, I told you so,”
     
      “I told you so.”

THE DAME REGNANT.

      Ah! Dame Gossip fabulous!
     
      You have worn the quiet smile,
     
      Till your mouth is drawn as trim
     
      As a Quaker’s beaver brim;
     
      And when rumor runs a mile,
     
       38
      
      You don’t know the soles he wears,
     
      Never heard the rascal’s name;
     
      If the neighbors bring the shoe,
     
      Tug and tug it won’t fit you;
     
      If it does, ah! shifty Dame,
     
      Rumor’s last must be the same!
     
      Hey! this comedy began
     
      When the earth was blithe and young,
     
      When the less fair of the fair
     
      Daughters of the world of men,
     
      Whispered in their errant hair,
     
      How their sisters of the glance,
     
      Clear and deep of star in blue,
     
      Met the eager sons of God,
     
      In the valley, in the dew,
     
      On the myrtle-scented sod:
     
      And the truants from the spheres
     
      Heard like donging of herd-bells,
     
      In the flow of harp and flute,
     
      How those others in eclipse,
     
      Withered up in jealousies,
     
      Crowning malice in the eyes,
     
      Over malice on the lips,
     
      Hissed their word of hate and lies.
     
      Ah! these truants from the spheres
     
      Learnt the human in the note
     
      Of the goddess, and were ware
     
      How of all the torrent gold
     
      Snakes were half and half was hair.

      Yet the ages were as one
     
      Heap of burnt and calcined stars,
     
      Ere her popular crown was run
     
      In the mould of human fears,
     
      Ere her sceptre had been cast,
     
      Tempered steel with foolish tears.
     
       39
      
      Now they view her at the last,
     
      Personed like a regnant queen,
     
      Cold as pole-ice, hard as quartz,
     
      Loathly as the livid, lean
     
      Adder of the triple tongue,
     
      Basilisk eyes that reap and glean,
     
      And a mind alert, elate,
     
      With the splendor of her wit,
     
      Springing through a smoky fate,
     
      With a gleam of hell-fire lit.

      And she wanders from her throne
     
      (So these cringing lieges state),
     
      While her shape still glooms it there;
     
      And but give the wizard crone
     
      Two small juttings in the air,
     
      Spiderlike she weaves her web,
     
      From her ancient ventral store,
     
      Till the whole great house is meshed
     
      With her legends, grim and hoar.
     
      Or she starts a quiet mouse,
     
      Feeding in the native cheese,
     
      And a wolf springs from the rind,
     
      Bloated out to what you please.
     
      What she does not say she thinks;
     
      Crafty, with a few dry winks,
     
      Drops her poison in the eye,
     
      Watching while it works and sinks;
     
      When the eye is diamond clear,
     
      Comes she with a slimy sigh,
     
      Bred to catch the dullard ear,
     
      Opening with the formula,
     
      Stereoed to the devil’s phrase
     
      In the human words, “They say;”
     
      Then the burden of the tale
     
      Crawls in after like a snail.
     
       40
      
      And if the dear vassal’s wild,
     
      Why, her countenance is blank,
     
      And her eye is dull as dulse;
     
      But the finger dwells awhile
     
      Calming on the plunging pulse,
     
      Just for, say, a nunnery smile,
     
      Till with magic overmuch,
     
      All the story is conveyed,
     
      Through the nerves intensive played,
     
      Innuendo of the touch.

      Once afoot the quarry flies,
     
      From the hunter in the mind;
     
      With a prudent, vacant smile,
     
      Dull Saint Virgin drops her eyes,
     
      Gives the word with quiet guile,
     
      Guarding with her sainted wish,
     
      For the error of the tale,
     
      The dear souls from blast and bale.
     
      And the fighter to his trull
     
      Tells his version of the yarn;
     
      With his bull-brain all afire,
     
      Charges down the ruddy rag
     
      Of the world above his ire,
     
      Tramps the tale in slag and mire.
     
      And the comments run from “Pish,”
     
      To the most convenient curse,
     
      In the beggar’s damning purse.
     
      So the story rolls and grows
     
      Crescive as a cloudy head,
     
      Budding silver in the blue,
     
      From black root of thunder bred,
     
      With the lightning splitting through.
     
      Every subject stricken blind
     
      With black fearing of the Dame,
     
       41
      
      Strained of nerve and lean of loin,
     
      Passes on the strangest talk,
     
      Like a counterfeited coin;
     
      And the fear of her is wild,
     
      Works like acid in the blood,
     
      And the man is worse than child,
     
      Saved by innocent hardihood.
     
      How he supplicates and whines,
     
      When he knows his fame is out,
     
      And sees springing into lines
     
      All the fables, shout on shout.
     
      Thinks to run the talk to earth,
     
      Talk that carries rumor’s lease;
     
      Cloudy talk of vapor birth,
     
      Chases on the plains of peace,
     
      Or where tides of trade convulse;
     
      Something mantled like a shape
     
      Grasps at last with pounding pulse—
     
      Mist he holds; while mocking rings
     
      All the riot sprung anew,
     
      With the flap and clap of wings.

      Nay, my craven, you who fear
     
      All this cackle of the crew,
     
      Carping at your coward ear!
     
      We who know the Dame so well,
     
      Whence she sprang and how she grew,
     
      Do not crown her deep with hell;
     
      She is but an earthly shape
     
      Springing from the parent ape,
     
      Nothing wild with power or eld,
     
      Nothing older than the race;
     
      And this skull-face that you dread,
     
      Is the image of your head.
     
       42
      
      Here where Comedy is held
     
      Deep in honor as the star,
     
      Spreading sparkle over sea,
     
      You may see the Dame at will,
     
      Nothing formed for dread or dree,
     
      Contemplate her and be still:
     
      She has worn that quiet smile,
     
      Till her mouth is drawn as trim
     
      As a Quaker’s beaver brim:
     
      Her light eyes seem clear of guile,
     
      And her smile is half demure,
     
      Half malicious. Let her play
     
      One of her protean pranks,
     
      Show her fangs and start her prey.
     
      Now she dares the comic sprite,
     
      Laughter only comes to light;
     
      Ripples outward like a flag
     
      Over towers inviolate,
     
      Sparkles April as a brook,
     
      Breaks where sun and shadow flit;
     
      Laughter silver and secure,
     
      From the crystal wells of wit,
     
      Springing sanely, springing pure.
     
      Mark your Dame of many crowns,
     
      How she hardens into sphinx,
     
      When she hears the airy ring
     
      Of the master that she owns,
     
      How, amorphous bulk, she shrinks,
     
      How she trails and leers and winks,
     
      Just a moment of gray rags,
     
      Ere the wind has pounced and packed
     
      All her baggage and her bags
     
      Into limbo, and the dust
     
      Rises in a smoke, and wracked
     
      Drives the cloud in shreds and shags.
     
       43
      
      Laughter falling coolly clear,
     
      Widens air and broaches sun,
     
      Comes as healing to a fear
     
      But of self and shadow spun:
     
      Self, a lantern-candle, throws
     
      Hugeous spottings on the wall;
     
      Dance the tragic giant Oes,
     
      Rayed from pin-points punctured small,
     
      In the battered shadow-tin
     
      Fused of deed and circumstance:
     
      Coward in the gaping ring,
     
      Bound without and look within,
     
      Learn where fable flows and whence.

      Speech is but the fluid mind,
     
      Reaching outward over life.
     
      Where quick speech is dammed we find
     
      Cactus deserts sharp and dim,
     
      Dead for water, ruin lined,
     
      With a mirage on the rim
     
      Of the sundown. Let speech flow
     
      Like the air, which is the soul
     
      Of the world, from pole to pole;
     
      Shaking in the swamp of death
     
      With the poison bred of heat,
     
      Timing with a tidal breath
     
      The deep swaying of the wheat.
     
      Not till mind is massed as near
     
      Servant of the lucid soul,
     
      Sensitive as ether clear,
     
      Joining planets pole to pole,
     
      Shall we have a dearth of this
     
      Talk that lays the lash on life.
     
      Only when the mind rings true
     
      To the deep-held undertone
     
      Heard where Nature moulds her young,
     
       44
      
      Will the fancy fail to brew
     
      Noisome liquor for the tongue.
     
      Heighten mind and heighten life,
     
      Heighten comment above lure,
     
      Heighten laughter above strife,
     
      Bred to scourge the fancy pure.
     
      Then will come the days of men,
     
      When the mind will govern power;
     
      When clear speech will spring again,
     
      Flower unto a lovelier flower;
     
      When dear laughter, victor browed,
     
      From her scorning of your Dame,
     
      Will play out a lambent flame
     
      Over life to saneness vowed.

      Contrast to the present hour!
     
      As a sage might leave a coast
     
      Where the cities shambles are,
     
      And the people herded flesh,
     
      Climb the uplands into wood
     
      Where the trees are vined in mesh,
     
      Where noon dreams with eyes of eve,
     
      Where the beck is flecked with gold,
     
      And the silver violets fold,
     
      Under leafage cool and lush,
     
      Where the moss is drenched with sleep,
     
      Where the music-memoried thrush
     
      Broods in dingles dusk and deep,
     
      Upward to the brow of hill,
     
      Where the wind soars cool with scent,
     
      And the twilights end in stars,
     
      Where upon the glimmering plain
     
      Fire-flies with the lights are blent
     
      From the huts and haunts of men,
     
      Jewels in the crown content.

THE CUP.

      Here is pleasure; drink it down.
     
      Here is sorrow; drain it dry.
     
      Tilt the goblet, don’t ask why.
     
      Here is madness; down it goes.
     
      Here’s a dagger and a kiss,
     
      Don’t ask what the reason is.
     
      Drink your liquor, no one knows;
     
      Drink it bravely like a lord.
     
      Do not roll a coward eye,
     
      Pain and pleasure is one sword
     
      Hacking out your destiny;
     
      Do not say, “It is not just.”
     
      That word won’t apply to life;
     
      You must drink because you must;
     
      Tilt the goblet, cease the strife.
     
      Here at last is something good,
     
      Just to warm your flagging blood.
     
      Don’t take breath—
     
      At the bottom of the cup
     
      Here is death:
     
      Drink it up.

THE HAPPY FATALIST.

      We plough the field,
     
      And harrow the clod,
     
      And hurl the seed.
     
      Trust for trust:
     
      The germ yields,
     
      The wheat brairds,
     
      We gather the sheaf,
     
      Deed for deed:
     
      The stubble moulds,
     
      The chaff is cast,
     
       46
      
      Dust for dust:
     
      The man is worn,
     
      His days are bound,
     
      But his labor returns,
     
      The child learns
     
      Round for round:
     
      The god is astir,
     
      Firm and free,
     
      Weaving his plan,
     
      Swelling the tree,
     
      Bracing the man:
     
      All is for good,
     
      Sweet or acerb,
     
      Laughter or pain,
     
      Freedom or curb:
     
      Follow your bent,
     
      Cry life is joy,
     
      Cry life is woe,
     
      The god is content,
     
      Impartial in power,
     
      Tranquil—and lo!
     
      Like the kernels in quern,
     
      Each in turn,
     
      Comes to his hour,
     
      Nor fast nor slow:
     
      It is well: even so.

SONG.

      When the ash-tree buds and the maples,
     
      And the osier wands are red,
     
      And the fairy sunlight dapples
     
      Dales where the leaves are spread,
     
      The pools are full of spring water,
     
      Winter is dead.

      
       47
      
      When the bloodroot blows in the tangle,
     
      And the lithe brooks run,
     
      And the violets gleam and spangle
     
      The glades in the golden sun,
     
      The showers are bright as the sunlight,
     
      April has won.

      When the color is free in the grasses,
     
      And the martins whip the mere,
     
      And the Maryland-yellow-throat passes,
     
      With his whistle quick and clear,
     
      The willow is full of catkins;
     
      May is here.

      Then cut a reed by the river,
     
      Make a song beneath the lime,
     
      And blow with your lips a-quiver,
     
      While your sweetheart carols the rhyme;
     
      The glamour of love, the lyric of life,
     
      The springtime—the springtime.

A SONG.

TO B. W. B.

      The world is spinning for change,
     
      And life has rapid wings;
     
      Oh, one needs a steady heart
     
      Not to falter while he sings.

      But this is made for my Dear One
     
      When we are far apart;
     
      That she may have wherever she goes
     
      A song of mine in her heart.

      
       48
      
      A song that will move with a memory
     
      Of something she loves best;
     
      A song that will throb at her waking,
     
      A song that will lull her to rest.

      A song that will serve for an anchor,
     
      Compass, and pilot, and chart;
     
      A song that will bid her remember
     
      That love is the crown of art.

      A song that will bid her remember
     
      The north nights cool and still,
     
      With the thrushes fluting deep, deep,
     
      Deep on the pine-wood hill,

      With a star at her open window,
     
      When the cuckoo wakes with a start:
     
      Oh! can she ever forget me
     
      With a song of mine in her heart?

SONG.

      The wind is wild to-night,
     
      In the dark he turns and stirs,
     
      Or he falls into dream and quiet,
     
      In the gloomy heart of the firs.

      He springs upon the trees,
     
      And he shakes the sleeping nest;
     
      And every little water-pool
     
      Has a troubled breast.

      
       49
      
      He has come from a weary land,
     
      Where the rivers of memory spring;
     
      Their waters are bitter, are bitter,
     
      And have dampened his wing.

      The very flowers are musing
     
      On something they longed to be,
     
      In a land of peace and promise,
     
      In a province of the sea.

      The birds cry out and are silent,
     
      They are dreaming once again
     
      Of the tawny-throated hollow,
     
      And the fern in the glen.

      And the wind raves out like a spirit,
     
      With his hands hid in his hair,
     
      And my heart is leaping, and leaping,
     
      To follow him—where?

A SONG.

      In the ruddy heart of the sunset,
     
      Fading and fading still,
     
      A planet throbs and smoulders,
     
      Over the sapphire hill.

      A mist steals up from the marshes,
     
      Spreading tender and bright;
     
      A heron floats from his haunt in the reeds,
     
      Through the ruby light.

      
       50
      
      The elm-trees towered with shadow
     
      Seem dripping and cool with dew;
     
      There’s a sigh in the cedar covert,
     
      But never a breeze comes through.

      A thrush keeps ringing and ringing—
     
      Ringing—now he is still,
     
      There’s a starry light in a window
     
      On the dark, dark hill.

      The home that’s far away
     
      Comes stealing back to me,
     
      With the calling of the thrushes
     
      In the bonny birch-tree.

      My eyes are full of tears
     
      For to-day and yesterday,
     
      For the yearning and the yearning,
     
      And the heart that’s far away.

SONG.
October 3rd, 1893.

      Sorrow is come like a swallow to nest,
     
      Winging him up from the wind and the foam;
     
      Mine is the heart that he loves the best,
     
      He dreams of it when he dreams of home.

      Strange! in the daylight off he flies,
     
      Swift to the south away to the sea;
     
      But when in the west the ruby dies,
     
      With the growing stars he comes back to me.

      
       51
      
      With the salt, cool wind in his wing,
     
      And the rush of tears that tingle and start,
     
      With a throb at the throat so he cannot sing,
     
      He nestles him into my lonely heart.

      And he tells me of something I cannot name,
     
      Something the sea with the sea-wind sings,
     
      That somehow he and love are the same,
     
      That they float and fly with the same swift wings.

      I cherish and cherish my timid guest,
     
      For oh, he has grown so dear to me
     
      That my heart would break if he left his nest,
     
      And dwelt in the strange land down by the sea.

A SONG.

      ’Tis autumn and down in the fields
     
      The buckwheat is browning still:
     
      Gather yourself in your cloak,
     
      The winter is over the hill.

      There’s a cloud of black in the north,
     
      The aurora is smouldering behind,
     
      There are stars in the parting clouds,
     
      And a touch of frost in the wind.

      Down in the icy dew
     
      The crickets are cheering shrill:
     
      “There is time for another song,
     
      Though winter is over the hill.”

      
       52
      
      Out of the great black cloud
     
      The aurora leaps and flies,
     
      Pushing its phosphor spikes
     
      In the deeps of the violet skies.

      The moon is wrapped in a film,
     
      She looks wan and chill:
     
      Gather yourself in your cloak,
     
      The winter is over the hill.

SPRING SONG.

      Sing me a song of the early spring,
     
      Of the yellow light where the clear air cools,
     
      Of the lithe willows bourgeoning
     
      In the amber pools.

      Sing me a song of the spangled dells,
     
      Where hepaticas tremble in starry groups,
     
      Of the adder-tongue swinging its golden bells
     
      As the light wind swoops.

      Sing me a song of the shallow lakes,
     
      Of the hollow fall of the nimble rill,
     
      Of the trolling rapture the robin wakes
     
      On the windy hill.

      Sing me a song of the gleaming swift,
     
      Of the vivid Maryland-yellow-throat,
     
      Of the vesper sparrow’s silver drift
     
      From the rise remote.

      
       53
      
      Sing me a song of the crystal cage,
     
      Where the tender plants in the frames are set,
     
      Where kneels my love Armitage,
     
      Planting the pleasant mignonette.

      Sing me a song of the glow afar,
     
      Of the misty air and the crocus light,
     
      Of the new moon following a silver star
     
      Through the early night.

SUMMER SONG.

      Sing me a song of the summer time,
     
      Of the sorrel red and the ruby clover,
     
      Where the garrulous bobolinks lilt and chime
     
      Over and over.

      Sing me a song of the strawberry-bent,
     
      Of the black-cap hiding the heap of stones,
     
      Of the milkweed drowsy with sultry scent,
     
      Where the bee drones.

      Sing me a song of the spring head still,
     
      Of the dewy fern in the solitude,
     
      Of the hermit-thrush and the whippoorwill,
     
      Haunting the wood.

      Sing me a song of the gleaming scythe,
     
      Of the scented hay and the buried wain,
     
      Of the mowers whistling bright and blithe,
     
      In the sunny rain.

      
       54
      
      Sing me a song of the quince and the gage,
     
      Of the apricot by the orchard wall,
     
      Where bends my love Armitage,
     
      Gathering the fruit of the windfall.

      Sing me a song of the rustling, slow
     
      Sway of the wheat as the winds croon,
     
      Of the golden disc and the dreaming glow
     
      Of the harvest moon.

AUTUMN SONG.

      Sing me a song of the autumn clear,
     
      With the mellow days and the ruddy eves;
     
      Sing me a song of the ending year,
     
      With the piled-up sheaves.

      Sing me a song of the apple bowers,
     
      Of the great grapes the vine-field yields,
     
      Of the ripe peaches bright as flowers,
     
      And the rich hop-fields.

      Sing me a song of the fallen mast,
     
      Of the sharp odor the pomace sheds,
     
      Of the purple beets left last
     
      In the garden beds.

      Sing me a song of the toiling bees,
     
      Of the long flight and the honey won,
     
      Of the white hives under the apple-trees,
     
      In the hazy sun.

      
       55
      
      Sing me a song of the thyme and the sage,
     
      Of sweet-marjoram in the garden gray,
     
      Where goes my love Armitage
     
      Pulling the summer savory.

      Sing me a song of the red deep,
     
      The long glow the sun leaves,
     
      Of the swallows taking a last sleep
     
      In the barn eaves.

WINTER SONG.

      Sing me a song of the dead world,
     
      Of the great frost deep and still,
     
      Of the sword of fire the wind hurled
     
      On the iron hill.

      Sing me a song of the driving snow,
     
      Of the reeling cloud and the smoky drift,
     
      Where the sheeted wraiths like ghosts go
     
      Through the gloomy rift.

      Sing me a song of the ringing blade,
     
      Of the snarl and shatter the light ice
      
      makes,
     
      Of the whoop and the swing of the snow-shoe raid
     
      Through the cedar brakes.

      Sing me a song of the apple-loft,
     
      Of the corn and the nuts and the mounds of meal,
     
      Of the sweeping whir of the spindle soft,
     
      And the spinning-wheel.

      
       56
      
      Sing me a song of the open page,
     
      Where the ruddy gleams of the firelight dance,
     
      Where bends my love Armitage,
     
      Reading an old romance.

      Sing me a song of the still nights,
     
      Of the large stars steady and high,
     
      The aurora darting its phosphor lights
     
      In the purple sky.

THE CANADIAN’S HOME-SONG.

      There is rain upon the window,
     
      There is wind upon the tree;
     
      The rain is slowly sobbing,
     
      The wind is blowing free:
     
      It bears my weary heart
     
      To my own country.

      I hear the white-throat calling,
     
      Hid in the hazel ring;
     
      Deep in the misty hollows
     
      I hear the sparrows sing;
     
      I see the bloodroot starting,
     
      All silvered with the spring.

      I skirt the buried reed-beds,
     
      In the starry solitude;
     
      My snowshoes creak and whisper,
     
      I have my ready blood.
     
      I hear the lynx-cub yelling
     
      In the gaunt and shaggy wood.

      
       57
      
      I hear the wolf-tongued rapid
     
      Howl in the rocky break,
     
      Beyond the pines at the portage
     
      I hear the trapper wake
     
      His
      
        En roulant ma boulé
       
      ,
     
      From the clear gloom of the lake.

      Oh! take me back to the homestead,
     
      To the great rooms warm and low,
     
      Where the frost creeps on the casement,
     
      When the year comes in with snow.
     
      Give me, give me the old folk
     
      Of the dear long ago.

      Oh, land of the dusky balsam,
     
      And the darling maple-tree,
     
      Where the cedar buds and berries,
     
      And the pine grows strong and free!
     
      My heart is weary and weary
     
      For my own country.

MADRIGAL.

      Snow-drops now begin in snows,
     
      Crocuses to flush,
     
      Gentle scilla buds and blows
     
      Nurtured in the slush;
     
      All about, like tinkling bells,
     
      Falls the ice a-melting;
     
      Ring, dilly dilly,—Sing, dilly dilly,—
     
      Spring is here,
     
      And the wolf is out of his den, O;
     
      With a ren, O; and a fen, O;
     
      And a den, den, den, O;
     
      Sing, dilly dilly.

      
       58
      
      Slender moon is floating down
     
      Through a vat of wine,
     
      Bells knoll from the drowsy town,
     
      Din—din—dine;
     
      All about the red robins
     
      Whistle in the dusk;
     
      Ring, dilly dilly,—Sing, dilly dilly,—
     
      Spring is here,
     
      And the lambs are safe in their pen, O;
     
      With a ren, O; and a fen, O;
     
      And a den, den, den, O;
     
      Sing, dilly dilly.

      Comrade virgins clad in green
     
      Quaff the nimble air;
     
      Each one, if her mate’s unseen,
     
      Is the fairest fair;
     
      Bran is hidden in the hedge
     
      Breathing on his reeds;
     
      Ring, dilly dilly,—Sing, dilly dilly,—
     
      Spring is here,
     
      And maidens beware of the men, O;
     
      With a ren, O; and a fen, O;
     
      And a den, den, den, O;
     
      Sing, dilly dilly.

WORDS AFTER MUSIC.

      Where go all the melodies fair,
     
      They that flow and fade in air?
     
      Was their beauty all foredone?
     
      (Ah, no—no!)
     
      Pulse and cadence truth did tell,
     
      Vowed to music’s magic spell,
     
      Passionate and ineffable.

      
       59
      
      Where do all the roses go,
     
      They that die before the snow?
     
      Was their beauty all forsworn?
     
      (Ah, no—no!)
     
      Flush and odor vowed aright,
     
      When they promised rare delight,
     
      Perennial and exquisite.

      Fragile flowers and melodies
     
      Claim a dual paradise,
     
      Beauty is not feof to death;
     
      (Ah, no—no!)
     
      Beauty lives in essence free,
     
      In the inner heart we see
     
      Beauty’s immortality.

THIS BOOK IS PRINTED DURING OCTOBER 1898 BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

Footnotes

1 . The Woman who Conquers.

Transcriber’s Note

On Page 55 , it was not clear if the following line should end with a comma or a semi-colon:

Of the snarl and shatter the light ice makes,

On Page 20 , it was not clear if fail should read fall :

To fail below the hill.

The author’s choice of spelling and punctuation has been maintained.

Repeating titles in the front of the book have been reduced.

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Labor and the Angel

E-text prepared by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team ( http://www.pgdp.net ) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive ( https://archive.org )

LABOR AND THE ANGEL

TO MY WIFE

CONTENTS.

LABOR AND THE ANGEL.

THE HARVEST.

WHEN SPRING GOES BY.

MARCH.

IN MAY.

ON THE MOUNTAIN.

I.

II.

THE ONONDAGA MADONNA.

WATKWENIES. [1]

AVIS.

THE VIOLET PRESSED IN A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE.

ANGELUS.

ADAGIO.

DIRGE FOR A VIOLET.

EQUATION.

AFTERWARDS.

STONE BREAKING.

THE LESSON.

FROM SHADOW.

THE PIPER OF ARLL.

AT LES ÉBOULEMENTS.

THE WOLF.

RAIN AND THE ROBIN.

THE DAME REGNANT.

THE CUP.

THE HAPPY FATALIST.

SONG.

A SONG.

SONG.

A SONG.

SONG. October 3rd, 1893.

A SONG.

SPRING SONG.

SUMMER SONG.

AUTUMN SONG.

WINTER SONG.

THE CANADIAN’S HOME-SONG.

MADRIGAL.

WORDS AFTER MUSIC.

Footnotes

Transcriber’s Note

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

E-text prepared by Larry B. Harrison
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
( http://www.pgdp.net )
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
( https://archive.org )

LABOR AND
THE ANGEL

WATKWENIES. ^[1]

SONG.
October 3rd, 1893.