“Songs Of A Semite.”

I.

Armed soul that ridest through a land of peace, Her borders filled with finest of the wheat, Her children reaping, where with weary feet Sad sowers trod who taste not the increase: We hear thy trump, whose echo shall not cease, In hush of night resounding, while we meet Around unthreatened fires, but pressing fleet Thou passest, proud, to claim thy kin’s release; Thy trump, that doth arraign the entombèd Past, Till shapes that march as if with martyr-psalm In glow and gloom of kindly hearths we see: And now to present war a keener blast Calls loud, and spirits late content and calm Spring up enforced, and spur to follow thee!

II.

To war? What words are mine, that do thee wrong! Whose suit is powerful Peace, resplendent-shod, Fair on the mountains; who wouldst set the rod Borne as a staff o’er stony ways and long Yet withered not, to strike new root and strong Deep in its nursing earth. Oh, there the clod Were virtue, and the sun the smile of God, And buds should break to bloom, as maids to song!

Aye, would for thee that,—even as the dove Whose silver wings have o’er waste places passed, When in the lonely west the evening burns, Her unforgetful breast a-throb with love, To her own pillared porch of flight returns,— On the old hills might Israel rest at last!

ON READING THE POEMS OF EDITH THOMAS.

Then will I, tasting, say— This is arbutus’ gift, Reached from the leafy drift On a glistening April day.

WILD HONEY.

Arbutus’ gift, in very truth, I deem These gathered, golden songs that keep the gleam Of early sunlight through the awakened wood; The vernal spirits of the sisterhood There cloistered, rosy-cool and vestal-shy, Are in these lucent cells enforced to lie; Here bides the baffling fragrance, here the charm. Henceforth I fear not frosty Hiems’ harm, Though all his bluff besiegers he should bring; Behold, my bookshelf lodges Ver, the Spring!

POSIES.

—Is this ... the posy of a ring?

HAMLET.

I.

FRIENDSHIP.

I were not worth you, could I long for you; But should you come, you would find me ready. The lamp is lighted, the flame is steady: Over the strait I toss this song for you!

II.

A ROSE.

Too-perfect Rose, thy heavy breath has power To wake a dim, an unexplained regret: Art body to the soul of some deep hour That all my seasons have not yielded yet?

But if it be so—Hour, too-perfect Hour, Ah, blow not full, though all the yearning days Should tremble bud-like, since the wind must shower Thine unreturning grace along the ways!

III.

WISTARIA.

—lumenque juventæ Purpureum—

O smile of spring, that o’er the worn gray brow Of some old many-memoried house dost run, The very light of purple Youth art thou The laughing goddess shed upon her son!

IV.

ON A FLY-LEAF.

“It is the nightingale, and not the lark!” O poet-heart, enamored of the Past, That Romeo with the ruby in his ear! No longer sicken to detain the dark: Thine eyes along the clear horizon cast: Behold, a fresh imperious dawn is here!

AN IVORY MINIATURE.

When State Street homes were stately still; When out of town was Murray Hill; In late-deceased “old times” Of vast, embowering bonnet-shapes, And creamy-crinkled Canton crapes, And florid annual-rhymes,

He owned a small suburban seat Where now you see a modern street, A monochrome of brown; The sad “brown-brown” of Dante’s dreams, A twilight turned to stone, that seems To weight our city down.

Through leafy chestnuts whitely showed The pillared front of his abode: A garden girt it ’round, Where pungent box did trim enclose The marigold and cabbage-rose, And “pi’ny” heavy-crowned.

Yea, whatso sweets, the changing year’s, He most affected. Gone: but here’s His face who loved them so. Old eyes like sherry, warm and mild; A cheek clear-hued as cheek of child; Sleek head, a sphere of snow.

His mouth was pious, and his nose Patrician; with which mould there goes A disaffected view. In those sublime, be-oratored, Spread-eagle days, his soul deplored So much red-white-and-blue!

In umber ink, with S’s long, He left behind him censure strong In stiffest phrases clothed; But Time—a pleasant jest enough!— Has turned the tory leaves to buff, The liberal hue he loathed.

Of many a gentle deed he made Brief simple record. Never fade Those everlasting-flowers That spring up wild by good men’s walks; Opinions wither on their stalks, And sere grow Fashion’s bowers.

Erect, be-frilled, in neckcloth tall, His semblance sits, removed from all Our needs and noises new; Released from all the rent we pay As tenants of the large To-day, Cool, in a background blue.

And he, beneath a cherub chipped, Plump, squamous-pinioned, pouting-lipped, Sleeps calm where Trinity Points finger dark to clouds that fleet; A warning, seen from surging street, A welcome, seen from sea.

There fall, ghosts glorified of tears Shed for the dead in buried years, The silver notes of chimes; And there, with not unreverent hand Though light, I lay this “greene garlànd,” This woven wreath of rhymes.

TO MY GOLDFISH.

O my gorgeous-mailéd knight, Whom a finger-tip can fright! At my touch upstarting shy, With a silvery-rolling eye, Leaping, winding, sudden splashing, This way dashing, that way flashing! I’ll not harm thee; lie thou still; Heave not fin nor glittering gill; Globe-kept captive, thou shalt find Fellow-feeling makes me kind.

I, too, own a hermit’s heart, Swift at aught unknown to start: And I, too, am walled about, Though the sunbeams find me out. Scarce I see the stirring world More than thou the brook breeze-curled, But must make, like thee, delight From a few small pebbles white; Trifles, that may fancy bear To some rippled pleasance rare.

Let thy thought, free-swimming, make This, thy globe, a spring-fed lake, And with water crystal-bright I’ll refresh it morn and night, That such dreams the easier be: Deal, sweet Fates! as well by me.