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Title: Rhymes of Old Plimouth

Author: Herbert Randall

Release date: December 14, 2023 [eBook #72416]

Language: English

Original publication: Hartford, CT: Herbert Randall

Credits: Steve Mattern, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHYMES OF OLD PLIMOUTH ***
cover
title page

[1]

Rhymes
of
Old Plimouth

By
Herbert Randall

Published by the Author
Hartford, Conn.
1921

[2]

Copyright, 1921
By HERBERT RANDALL

[3]

FOREWORD.

If be it so—by chance—this little book should claim for me
a friend, who, sometime, when I’m far away, shall search
and find a bit of rosemary, swept through with light, and
scatter it among the grasses where I sleep,
Then, then will I have found the garland I had hoped to
win, and from that quiet spot, that Land of Youth,
where my immortal spirit dwells, I’ll send a little wandering
prayer of gratitude, that heart hath answered
heart.
[4]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

Acknowledgment is made to The Outlook, The American Magazine, The Youth’s Companion, New England Magazine, The Nautilus, American Forestry Magazine, Boston Transcript, The Hartford Courant and The Hartford Times, wherein have appeared many of the poems printed in this book.

Herbert Randall.

[5]

INDEX.

Foreword 3
Acknowledgment 4
To My Pilgrim Mother 7
The Tryst of Nations 8
Plymouth Rock 9
To the Standish Guards of the Old Colony 11
Burial Hill 13
The Old Road Down to Plymouth 14
Rose of Plymouth 15
The Angelus of Plymouth Woods 16
Plimoth Through an Old Spy Glass 17
The Dream That’s in the Sea 19
The Old Skipper 20
Romp of the Sea 21
The Derelict 22
Salt o’ the Sea 24
Mid-Ocean 25
Easterly Weather 26
“Outside” 28
Off 29
Dawn in Plymouth Harbor 30
Twin Lights 31
White Gulls 32
To the Red Man 33
To Massasoit 34
The Winnetuxet 35
Hymn Ancestral 36
Feel of the Wander-lure 37
Overheard at the Money Changers of Nineveh 38
The Innermost 39
The Autumn Rain 40
Cry of the Wounded Loon 41
The Old Bush Pasture 42
A Garland 43
The Umpame Musketeers 44
A Memory 46[6]
New England 47
Hills o’ My Heart 48
Mascotte 49
Ye Olden Time 50
Sundown on the Marshes 52
Neighbors 54
A Pastoral 55
The White Pine 56
The Colonial Pioneer 57
The Lindens 58
The Old Rockin’ Chair 59
Out of Gethsamane 60
Greetings 61
Love o’ My Heart 62
To a Friend 63
“Aunt Sally” 64
Intimacy 65
My Mother’s “Bible-Book” 66
My Faith 68
An Apostrophe 69
Glimmer 70
A Nocturne 71
The Invisible 72
Antiphonal 73
Lady May 74
A Fragment 75
Away From Home 76
Grandma Brown 78
Slumber Song 80
The Enigma 81
The Passing of the Old Elm 82
Afterward 84
“The Pilgrim Spirit” 86
In Memoriam 87
L’Envoi 88
[7]

TO MY PILGRIM MOTHER.

To her who sanctified the simple things of life,
Across the journeying years I bring
A wreath of amaranth and asphodel
To mingle with the everlasting light about her brow,
And on her breast, serene,
I fold the glory of an angel’s wing.
Singlehurst,
Plympton, Massachusetts.
[8]

THE TRYST OF NATIONS.

Tremendous dawn! that turns its back upon a fumbling
past, and then, in radiant ecstasy, sweeps up the heavens,
down the spaces of the wind, revealing, healing, seeking
out the darkest places of the world.
Night, still crimsoned by the blood of sacrifice, has sung its
Sorrow-Song; we must forget, and pray for those who
day by day must grow more intimate with pain, or some
unspoken loneliness.
O Dawn of Love’s completion, though earth still trembles
we no longer fear imperial will, and, phoenix-like, the
peasant rises from the dust, stares with his blinded eyes,
and praises God.
Cold Royalty, intolerable, an outcast, false and dull, the
cruel lines about its lips still tightly drawn—lost in the
art of savagery—sees not the new rich dawn, hears not
the herald-trumpetings, knows not the meaning of a
broken crown.
Written for the Pilgrim Tercentenary, Plymouth, 1921.
[9]

PLYMOUTH ROCK.

Archaic sphinx, but speak to me
Of things when this old world was new,
When Chaos was baptized in fire,
Such secrets must be known to you.
Would that the magic wand were mine
To rend the silence! Yours the heart
More wise than babbling multitudes;
Of what strange scenes were you a part?
An offspring of some glacial slope,
You may have been a thing of grace
Some ancient caryatid poised,
To hold Earth’s architrave in place.
Mayhap you were a thunderbolt
By Vulcan forged for Thor, red hot;
A miracle was never made,
So this may all be true, or not.
A child of some wild catapult
Who toyed with Sisyphus, and then,
Broke loose, went tumbling down to earth,
To habitat with tribes of men.
A missile from Orion’s belt,
Some dullard chiseled out of clay;
Perchance some treasure, Glancus owned,
Before his Furies ran away.
The throne of Neptune washed ashore
From some old chamber of the sea;
A Dryad-altar, pagan-blest,
An aerolite, lo! such it be!
Made sacred by the pounding waves,[10]
To mark the aeons on the slopes
Where time looks out to heavens afar,
And God again renews man’s hopes
And rallies him to dare and die,
For Liberty, through all the years,
To dyke and drain and build anew,
By labour, gladness, dreams and tears.
’Tis here I lift my humble prayers,
And thanks for Life’s sweet mysteries,
For joy of song within my soul,
And chant its solemn histories;
If kings shall reign, O make us kings,
On seas and on the land,
Kings of the One Great Church where all
Shall bow at Love’s command.
Thou prophet, orb, and corner-stone,
As things immortal are as one,
Clad in the garb of wonder-fire,
Of gloom and the Olympian sun,
I bring a spray of arbutus,
From underneath the snow and sleet,
The angels fashioned like a star,
And drop at your anointed feet.
[11]

TO THE STANDISH GUARDS
OF THE OLD COLONY.

New England’s old three-cornered hat still guards this ancient town,
The men who followed Lafayette are marching up and down.
The spirit born at Lexington, and all the men are here,
With fife and drum, and here they come, and each a brigadier!
The heirs of Freedom ne’er broke ranks, or failed to face the brunt,
In every fight for righteousness our men are at the front;
In every battle fought for peace the past and future meet,
And grenadiers and cavaliers still flank each home and street.
The covenants our fathers made forever move in rhyme,
They’ve never found the Port of Rest; the iron tongues of Time
Are bugling men to saddle, and comrades, side by side,
From Gettysburg to Flanders join in a dusty ride!
And here they come! and there they come! The farmer and the knight,
And dead men, shouting—“load and fire!” from parapets of light.
And every one a mother’s son, the khaki, and the gold,
Old Glory prancing on ahead, a shout in every fold!
In every star a mother’s prayer, in every stripe is found
A country’s solace for the slain to wrap him, ’round and ’round.
March on, and let your scabbards swing, your swords shall never rust;[12]
Ride! Ride! ye belted horsemen! the sacrificial trust
Of bygone days is haloed by bayonet and scroll,
Where millions read a simple creed that binds a nation’s soul.
High on the walls of Heaven it crowns a lifting sky;
Hats off! ye peoples of the earth, America goes by!
Written on the return of the Plymouth Boys from the World War.

[13]

BURIAL HILL.

How many years have ripened, gone to seed, and died,
Since first this Holy Precinct of the Dead was set apart and sanctified.
Sunset and purple cloud have kept their vestal watch,
The morning breezes played,
And noontide spanned the waters, day by day;
The lightnings and the frost disturb them nevermore,
Wrapt in a reverie of God, they heed not if the Shepherd-stars be caring for a weary world or no,
Or violets be budding in the melting snows.
They wonder not at creeds of men,
Or why their prayers are lost in space;
Long since they found the sky-hung stretches of Eternity,
The pastorals of peace.
And yet, as ’twere a spectral mist,
I half suspect they may return sometime,
Remembering the beauty of this sylvan scene,
The wide blue vista of the deep,
Its glinting sails;
Perhaps they come to brush away the withered leaves that clog our minds,
And blaze a trail for Immortality,
More sunshine and more flowers;
To help us hear the blackbird’s whistle in the trees,
The rustle in the hedge,
The whisper in the grass when dandelions bloom,
The madrigals that lift the dampness hanging over graves.
[14]

THE OLD ROAD DOWN TO PLYMOUTH.

The old road down to Plymouth can never change for me,
In vagabond abandon it roams a century,
Braids through the dusky mornings, and evening’s afterglow,
An irridescent sunbeam, no matter where I go.
The old road down to Plymouth leads from a farmhouse door,
Leads like a jewelled ribbon, a thousand miles or more;
The door has lost its hinges, the barn has tumbled down,
But the old road down to Plymouth, the only road in town,
Winds in and out the bluets, the butterflies and hay;
I’ve sometimes made the journey a dozen times a day.
And yonder lies the vision, a sheltered, calm retreat,
For the old road down to Plymouth is a balm for weary feet.
[15]

ROSE OF PLYMOUTH.

(THE SABBATIA).

By the fairy-gods who nursed thee,
Suns and satellites grown cold,
By the loves our fathers plighted,
By my dearest thoughts untold,
Rose of Plymouth, here’s my promise,
I will wear thee in my heart,
Shield and cherish as a lover,
Nevermore with thee to part.
I will wear thee as a rainbow,
Radiant with light and spray,
Radiant with tomorrow’s splendor,
And a far-off yesterday.
I will wear thee as an emblem.
Of New England’s pride and power,
Wear thee as a starry token,
O my pretty, pretty flower.
Symbol of the pure and comely,
She that maiden of repose,
She the one they called Priscilla,
O my fair, my winsome rose.
Scintilating, brave and blushing,
Like that maiden time adores,
She the one that crossed the waters,
Idol of our Pilgrim shores.
[16]

THE ANGELUS OF PLYMOUTH WOODS.

I know a place ’mid desert wilds,
From city cares apart,
Where sheening ponds, like sleeping swans,
Dream on the world’s warm heart;
Its vesper-bells are calling, and ever calling me,
To worshipful devotion, from every leafy tree.
And none hath caught the music
Of praise and prayer divine,
More distant from life’s bitter hour
Than murmurs in the pine;
Nor acolyte of incense, nor robed Te Deum choirs,
E’er awed my soul with mysteries, so free from vain desires,
As cherubim and seraphim,
Who stay their phantom flight,
Amid the choirs of God’s green spires,
To tune their harps of light,
When evening’s drowsy whisper, the new moon in the west,
Broods Nature’s benediction, where lapwings float at rest.
[17]

PLIMOTH THROUGH AN OLD SPY GLASS.

(A SKETCH).

Deep nestled in my heart there glows,
Against an azure sky,
A picture I would paint for you,
But O, how dare I try?
My brush should be a sheldrake’s wing,
My palette were the moon,
My colors were the pulsing morn,
With mystic odors strewn;
Its background wandering tribes of men,
The wilderness, the sea,
Whose vast unbroken solitudes
Were moaning to be free.
Or yet, as on that natal day,
The fate-winds, white and cold,
The tide and wrack, far ebbing back,
Strange secrets should unfold.
We blot a page, and cross ourselves,
The cross is red, blood red;
Eternal change in girded loins,
And progress, hide the dead.
The hour glass turns, the mill-wheels hum,
O’er arching field and hill,
In rainbow tints a finger writes:
“Peace, Peace on Earth, Good Will.”
I glimpse the narrow winding streets,
Where linden trees bend o’er,
And homes with windows quaintly draped,
With hollyhocks by the door.
[18]
How were my picture made complete,
No kindly faces here?
But do I need the master-touch,
So radiant they appear.
How filled with joy, forever young,
The wanton breezes play;
How magical the distant blue,
How lily-white the way
Of phantom sails, all shimmering,
With lights where shallops roam,
When Aphrodite from the mist
Salutes the sea-born foam.
Dim as a half forgotten dream
The pageant moves along,
The Land of Promise beckoning;
I hear a spinning-song,
From lighthouse, school and steeple-bell,
O’er country-side and glen,
Love’s madrigals go ringing out
In praise of honest men.
But I would paint the twisted pines
On that old sturdy strand,
And I would have you see me kneel
And kiss the holy sand.
And then, my brush all palpitant
With light of virgin skies,
I’d consecrate my little sketch
And name it “Paradise.”
[19]

THE DREAM THAT’S IN THE SEA.

You ask me why I love the sea?
How can I tell?
I only know, the miracle, flowing, flowing, ever flowing,
And the white foam blowing,
The bubbling undertones,
The madness when the old gods rave,
The eddies, far and wide, that swing the door to memories,
When I am sad, make me glad,
With a tremulous joy,
As if I were a boy.
How can I tell the legend of its spell,
When skies are blue,
And earth rings true?
Or, underneath the mystic moon,
When I, the happiest of men,
Behold a love so great as that of life?
’Tis written in my soul,
Yet O, so far beyond the utterance of human tongue!
But sometimes, in the night,
Like a flash of light,
When I hear it breaking on the rocks,
Then speed away,
It seems to say,
“Defeat is not!”
Perhaps that’s why I love the sea.
[20]

THE OLD SKIPPER.

I laud no fabled glory
Of potentate or kings,
No beatific story
Of Love’s meanderings.
My pennon not for conquest
That gloats above the slain,
But let me hoist the halyards
Above the wind and rain
For him, the sun-burned sailor—
The skipper, with an eye
Long searching to the windward—
If be it wet or dry,
The hurricane, hell-haunted,
And sundogs in the sky,
The jib and topmast splintered,
The breakers mountain high.
God help him keep the channel,
If nor-nor-east or snow,
Or be the night red-footed,
And “kiss the bride,” or no.
God bless the weathered sailor—
The “outside” fisherman—
Who swears a little when he must,
And whistles when he can.
[21]

ROMP OF THE SEA.

(Off the coast of Boulogne at midnight, awaiting the Spaandam.)

O, the romp and the rift of the shifting sea!
The pomp of the lifting sea!
O, the hurrying rills where the cauldron spills
On the rocks in their scurrying glee!
O, the bellowing leagues of the sea’s intrigues,
As we row like a galley-slave,
Where the breakers glide as we slither and ride
On the back of a balky wave!
O, we whistle a song as we swash along
Through gullies and mountain high,
As we hunt the dark, and we hunt the rain,
And we hunt the haunts of the wind’s domain,
For a glim in the inky sky.
O, the bloom of the night as she heaves in sight,
On the desolate water’s wings!
O, the bellying sheer (and no Chaplain near)
Where the old ship’s ladder swings.
O, the pomp and the rift, the slip and the shift,
The wheel of the Stygian foam;
O, the shimmering shroud where the thunders crowd,
And wilder our dreams of home.

[22]

THE DERELICT.

Make way! Make way! to the larboard! port!
The chop and the swell are mine!
And I am the ghost of the brawling tide,
The lord of the whelming brine!
And I am the wraith of the inky rain,
Made mad by the swash and swirl,
That pillaged the souls of a hundred men,
Who sunk in a dizzy whirl.
Dip, dip your flag and your milk-white rag,
And lavish your dole and fee,
But turn your prow! Make room! Make room!
For there’s never a truce for me!
I challenge the bar and the stout sea-wall;
I silence the brazen bell;
I muffle the song of the galley-slave
In a maze and a dream of hell.
For mine is the blood of the blackest night,
Made red by the comet’s flare;
And I am in league with the rampant blade
That leaps from the thunder’s lair.
I masque in the targe of the afterglow,
When the fisherman tacks for home;
I crouch in the track where the green-bills whirl,
And hide in the gullied foam.
O, the long-wide waves, with their snowy bloom,
When the winds are at rest, are mine;
And the organ-shrill of the equinox,
Which musters the hordes in line,
[23]
Comes echoing back from the low frontier,
And crags where the breakers boom,
Like the crooning notes of a lorelei,
For I am the sleuth of Doom.
And ever the cry of the wander-lure,
Alert with a lifting wing,
Is urging me on through the sludge and spume,
With a sugg and a heave and swing.
And I am alive! though the dead be dead,
And huddled in crowds below,
With their faces paled in a murky sleep;
Make way! Make way! Yo ho!
For I am in search of the glut and sack,
The plunder of ship and crew,
And I am the skipper of wrack and raid,
And my hundred souls are true!
And I am the stumbling-block of life,
The lord of the whelming brine,
I flank the gates of the curving world,
And its great sea-paths are mine.
[24]

SALT O’ THE SEA.

I love the sea, as I’ve often said,
An’ I mean it, too, from my boots to my head;
I love the joggle, the lurch an’ swell,
I love the taste o’ the salt, an’ the smell;
I love the cap’n what’s brown an’ tanned,
An’ I love to roll in the yaller sand,
An’ soak my soul in the heavin’ blue,
An’ I love to rock in a boat, don’t you?
Yes, I love the pranks o’ the handsum sea,
An’ the handsum things what it sez to me;
An’ I love its flash at the peep o’ day,
When the sails is fillin’ an’ goin’ away;
An’ I allers sez to myself, sez I,
As they nose an’ dip in the mornin’ sky,
“How I’d love to go!” An’ I would, ’tis true,
For I love to sail in a boat, don’t you?
I love the slide o’ the slantin’ deck,
An’ the old blue shirt folded in at the neck;
I love the slip o’ the greasy coat,
An’ the feel o’ the brine on my face an’ throat,
An’ the things I hears, an’ the things I see,
When the skipper is drivin’ his helm hard-a-lee,
Wall—I love the tune, an’ I love the view,
But I don’t guess much it’s consarnin’ you.
But the best of all is the smell I get,
When the tides is out an’ the flats is wet;
An’ I love to think when the tides come in
Of the things they’s seen, in the place they’s been;
An’ there ain’t no end o’ the things I’d do
Ef I owned a boat, an’ I owned a crew,
An’ an ile-skin coat, ’n’ a sweater, too,
For I love the salt o’ the sea, don’t you?
[25]

MID-OCEAN.

The wholeness of Almighty God lies fathoms deep, and stretches either side;
Colossal splendor rolls whichever way I look,
And never terminates,
Extols the secret power of Life.
Our keel divides the waters in a silver streak,
Our prow, a golden sword, goes plunging toward the dawn,
I gaze in wonderment and awe,
Confused by unknown tongues, and towering sounds,
I long to clasp the world in one embrace.
On board the “Kronprinz Wilhelm,” Sept. 1, 1911.
[26]

EASTERLY WEATHER.

OFF MANOMET POINT.

The winds had whiffled for a week,
The tides ran high with choppy seas,
The buoys that marked the channel rocked,
The mortar-guns slept on their knees,
In readiness to leap when called;
The coast-patrol saw boding sign;
Men climbed the cliffs to scan the deep,
And spliced an extra breeches-line.
And then the weather settled down,
The green of every wave took flight,
And one great hollow voice made moan,
And rumbled, rumbled day and night,
In dull unbroken monotone,
The breakers running breast to breast,
Like hounds of Death, with frothy jaws,
From north to south, from east to west.
The low horizon rocked and swayed
To mazy motion of the spume,
Till ’yond the fog it crawled away
And hid behind a leaden gloom.
Oblivion swept through the night,
And coiled the dark through every place;
The old tarpaulins dripped with salt,
And flapped it in the eyes and face.
[27]
The dawn rolled in with rush and roar,
And blubbered with an outworn groan,
And up the sand-dunes’ terraced sides
In layers were the waters blown.
At last the drift of wreckage came;
What matters that to you or me?
Wild, with the east wind in their teeth,
The hounds of Death ran out to sea.
[28]

“OUTSIDE.”

O the rolling sea is the place for me,
With the whine of the wind at play,
And the skies a-brim to their hazy rim
With the dream of a summer’s day;
With the dip and drip and the shifting whip
Of the sail in the silvery blue,
And the swish and blow of the summer-snow
From the hills that are lost to view.
O the rolling sea is the place for me,
With its hush and its rush and swirl;
With its bugling quest to the sloping west,
And its flurry and drift and whirl;
With its shifting race and the salt in my face,
With its spill and its gusty rhyme,
With its mermaids fair, with the dusk in their hair,
And its drench and its mystic chime.
O the rolling sea is the place for me,
With the kittiwakes swaying by,
On their lyric wings where the breaker swings,
In the trail of their haunting cry;
Where the whispering lip and the ragged rip,
With the kiss of the tide entwine;
Where the billows crash and the rainbows flash,
And the heart of the world is mine.
[29]

OFF.

The wind is where we want it with a hornpipe in its heels,
The harbor-bar is spouting like a whale;
There’s the flash and splash of morning spun behind a dozen keels,
And a nixie-band a-whistling in the sail.
There’s a rolling path of glory for a hundred leagues or more,
With a streak of tumbling shadows breaking through;
O these foaming hills of wonder, where the siren trumpets roar,
While the seraphs are a-singing in the blue!
O the huddle of the waters, O the babble of the brine,
And the swing and tip and dip that sets you free;
With this sad old world behind us, and the top-sail dripping wine,
O the deep true-hearted solace of the sea!
[30]

DAWN IN PLYMOUTH HARBOR.

But half awake, the ripples twine,
And brimming, tangle into wine;
More vibrant than adoring strings,
A random pennon slowly bears away;
The fleet, alert to greet the day,
In buoyant beauty, spreads its wings,
With glowing expectation, preened for flight,
An airy phantasy of light.
In raptured unison the morning nears;
The Oreads on distant hills have heard the ripple-song,
On, past the gilded Gurnet, trails the snowy-pinioned throng,
Old Saquish far behind,
’Till ’mong the sister-clouds it disappears.
[31]

TWIN LIGHTS.

Out where the sirens laugh,
And winds make faces at the moon,
When cloud-wrack, glooming from the East,
Comes swaying on the blast,
And tides are babbling long-forgotten lore,
While dead men’s cups brim high,
And clash and spill about the keel;
’Tis then you blaze a road of fire
For frail and puny folk who fear the dark,
And sweep the dreams from blinded eyes,
That so the ships that chariot the deep
May learn of safety where the green bill preens her feathers, thin and light,
To breast the gale,
And wonders at the clumsy, strange device of man.
[32]

WHITE GULLS.

We are the butterflies of the sea,
White butterflies,
Shining in the sun,
Dipping the sun,
For we are made of light,
Our bones are hollow as a straw.
We pluck the rain from clouds,
And so, are always crying;
But we are butterflies,
White butterflies,
Children of our old mother—
The sea.
[33]

TO THE RED MAN.

No pastoral ditty, withering with time, should consecrate your unremembered dust,
No sickly taper as a monolith should burn, and flicker out,
Had I the mystic power to chant a deathless rigadoon
With this elusive pan;
’Tis not for me.
But I would plant a live-oak by your wigwam door,
So safely closed,
Whose grandsire knew your clan;
I’d woo the goshawk come and build among its knotty boughs, and year by year,
And nevermore should pale-face desecrate your name, that evermore should rustle in the leaves;
By light of every harvest moon, the noble footed deer should follow up the trail to that sequestered spot,
And kneel in reverence;
The fires of happy hunting grounds should streak and flush the northern sky on every ice-hung night,
To soothe your dreams, and keep you warm;
Yea, more, above your bleaching bones, the revelry of nomad-winds along the gullying wave, you loved so well,
Should be an after-song of unsung yesterdays, more peaceful than the heart of river-reeds.
[34]

TO MASSASOIT.

CHIEF SACHEM OF THE WAMPANOAGS.

The vaulted skies your rosary,
The wilderness your shrine,
The lifting sea your ritual,
Would I might make them mine,
O brother Pagan! Here’s my hand,
Would, ’mid the Sisters Seven,
Of yellow hair, in yonder air,
I were as sure of Heaven
As you—who know the trail of Death,
The sorrow of the bird,
The whither, whence, a white-moth flies,
The wood-brook’s laughing word.
[35]

THE WINNETUXET.

I’ve rowed the Juniata,
I’ve trailed the Kennebec,
I’ve drifted down Algerian shores
Stretched on the upper deck.
I’ve seen the Golden Gate swing wide
To let the sunset through
On wings of flowing opal,
With tangerine and blue.
I’ve idled down the Congo
And dallied up the tide
That girdles the Bahamas,
I’ve floated down the Clyde,
But let me hear the music,
And smell the briar rose,
Of summer’s listless noontide where
The Winnetuxet flows.
Singlehurst,
Plympton, Mass.
[36]

HYMN ANCESTRAL.

O, the glory of the Autumn
On the old New England hills,
When the summer-leaf is dying in its pride;
O, the song of wine and wonder
Where the wild grape’s udder fills;
O, the hymn of homage where the gentians hide.
O, the dream enchanted woodlands;
O, the spell that’s on the seas,
And the cricket’s lovesick murmur of repose;
O, the gossamer and damask
Spreading underneath the trees;
O, the silken tassels where the tangle grows.
Let me slumber ’neath the shadow
Of the old New England hills,
Weave my raiment of the starlight when I die;
May the storms caress my temple,
May the winds caress my throne,
In the Pilgrims’ hallowed sands O let me lie.
[37]

FEEL OF THE WANDER-LURE.

My sandals are of starlight,
My soul has a flame,
And all the spheres along the sky
Are trumpeting my name.
My spirit, warm and eager,
And longing to be free,
Tired of a Shadow-house of Dreams,
Lured by immensity,
Will answer when the wild winds call
My name, on some dark night,
And I, a lone adventurer,
Will take the Road of Light.
[38]

OVERHEARD AT THE MONEY CHANGERS OF
NINEVEH.

Our Pilgrim sires—brief the story—
They planted and we reaped the glory;
Their simple thrift and noble deeds
We swapped for affluence and creeds;
Our bank account the trickster rifles,
Their Sabbath Day we sold for trifles;
They, wisdom-governed, graced creation,
Ill-timed and aimless, now a nation
Has bartered Freedom at its forum,
Where statesmen wait to find a quorum.
[39]

THE INNERMOST.

I would not like to think my song will die into the arching night;
I would not like to think my soul will lose itself in morning light;
But I would have my song increase and star some little world with peace;
My soul, with beauty stretching far should be the spirit of that star.
[40]

THE AUTUMN RAIN.

Mother of Darkness, Mother of Pain,
White on the rim of the autumn rain,
Pressing the cold of your cheek to my face,
Roving the infinite hills of space,
Wandering, wandering everywhere,
Wearing a leaf that is dead in your hair,
Mother of Darkness, Mother of Pain,
White on the rim of the autumn rain.
[41]

CRY OF THE WOUNDED LOON.

A dirge was on the waters,
Each wave a muffled bell;
Against the west a hunter strolled,
Nor heeded he the knell.
I heard a cripple calling,
In one unwonted cry of pain,
And down the sorrow of the wind,
The darkness and the river-rain,
The cry went wandering, alone,
Through gloomings of abysmal space,
Till, midst a weary waste of marsh
We met as lovers, face to face.
A dirge hung on the waters,
As from a convent bell,
Against the west a hunter strolled,
Nor wist he of the knell,
But sobbing, sobbing down the years,
Through all my joys and all my tears,
Along the silence comes to me
That Ave Mary of the sea.
Written at Cut River, 1920.
[42]

THE OLD BUSH PASTURE.

Give me the old bush-path again
Which wandered past my Uncle Tim’s,
The dusky dells, the musky smells,
That filtered through the sunset glims;
The goblins crouching ’neath the trees,
The bats and witches by the mill,
The foolish talk of all the leaves;
And let me hear the whip-poor-will
Above the pines, the old new moon
Hung high and dry, up there alone,
And golden-clear and far and near,
A-chanting in an undertone
Of something half a-kin to fear,
Which only whip-poor-wills can hear.
Give me the old bush-path again,
The barefoot days, the old-time ways,
The old-time ties, the dragon-flies,
And childish joys unfit for men.
Plympton, Mass.,
September 17, 1920.
[43]

A GARLAND.

In one aspiring carillon
God’s Sabbath-bells a-rhyme,
From country-side to country-side
Have set the world a-chime.
Like jewels dropped from heaven,
Ere time or death were known,
The arbutus is blooming,
Where never dust is blown,
For her—the Pilgrim Mother,—
Steadfast and halo-spanned,
Where, still, like constellations burn,
Her footsteps in the sand.
[44]

THE UMPAME MUSKETEERS.

The musketeers went marching by,
Went marching, marching, marching by;
On, on with sword and bandoleer,
I saw men come and disappear;
And no one knew the reason why
The musketeers went marching by,
Went marching, marching by.
But forward swept the caravan,
And step by step and man to man,
In gold and martial hue and sway,
I saw the column march away,
And breast to breast, and none knew why
The musketeers went marching by,
Went marching, marching by.
Would that my pen could write in time
To glorify this simple rhyme!
But why the dead that ever bleed?
And why was Standish in the lead?
But onward! on! with fife and drum,
With clank and rattle, still they come.
Who knoweth but the winds in flight,
A battle never won a fight?
And still the musketeers go by,
Go marching, marching by.
O Son of Heaven, answer, why
Do musketeers go marching by
With trumpet-blare, in fringe and gold,
And flags that flutter, fold on fold;
And rush and rattle, surge and swing,
And left to right, all glittering[45]
In lordly plumes, that flash and glow,
And guns and stretchers, row on row!
There’s no one knows the reason why
The musketeers go marching by,
Go marching, marching, marching by.
[46]

A MEMORY.

Long buried, that Elysian noon
When first I saw the wildering waste of sea,
And felt the call of rainbow wings a-flutter in my little soul—
That elfin music only childhood hears.
O barefoot days, the bickering rains have deluged all the years,
But still the wide blue wonder calls to me,
And some day I shall answer where the waves run wild,
Once more a happy child.
36 Woodland Street,
Hartford, Ct.,
January 17, 1921.
[47]

NEW ENGLAND.

New England—Daughter of the Sun—
A laurel on your brow,
The thrill of springtime in your heart,
Yea, we are lovers now,
And we shall wind a lover’s horn
High on the hills of space,
To echo far beyond the stars;
I shall behold your face,
With laughing eyes, when time is not;
Your lifting vistas then,
As now, will haunt and wake in me
A chording great amen.
[48]

HILLS O’ MY HEART.

The bloom of night lay on the hills,
Lay on the hills o’ my heart,
When a white star came as on wings of light,
And my soul grew warm,
And my soul grew bright,
With a wild-sweet wonder of yesterday,
Mid a valley green, but it would not stay,
For the bloom of night lay on the hills,
Lay on the hills o’ my heart.
[49]

MASCOTTE.

Plymouth wears a dimple,
Kingston wears a rose,
Plympton wears a feather,
Everybody knows.
Search the groves of Arcady,
’Neath the azure sky,
Carver, like a cherished dream,
With a flag goes by.
Like an old doxology,
Glittering, a bugle-mouth,
“Keep to the right, and go ahead!”
Trumpets from the South.
[50]

YE OLDEN TIME.

A TRIBUTE.

Written for Carver’s Old Home Day Celebration.

A song to the brave of ye olden time,
Who rest where the night hangs low,
Where never a breeze of the morning stirs,
And only the death-lamps glow.
Where ever and ever, a-side by side,
The prince and the pauper dwell,
While the summer blooms and the autumn fades
And the winter weaves its spell
Through the leafless boughs, and the snow descends,
And wraps them all as one,
And the stars adore, and the still moon waits,
While the hurrying world moves on.
A song to the man of a courtly mien,
With his buckles, and wig, and frill,
And a song to the man with a horny palm,
And the grip of an iron will,
Who planted these fields with their living green,
With the plough, and the hoe and pick;
Who lighted his way by the Psalmist’s lay,
And the glow of a tallowed wick.
A song to the maid of the minuet,
With a blush as of autumn fruit,
Whose wheel was rife with such magic strains
As the strings of a lover’s lute;
[51]
Who caught with her shuttle the firelight glim,
As she worked at her cloth of gold,
And took up her task at the early dawn
With the skillet and candle mould.
A song to the dame with her green calash,
Her curls and her pensive grace,
Who gladdened the days with her homespun ways,
And the charm of her tranquil face.
A song to the woman who made the Home,
Who hovered about the nest
With the sheltering wings of a mother’s prayers,
And the warmth of a mother’s breast.
To her be the chaplet of stars we bring!
To her be our gifts of myrrh!
For heaven is heaven and God is God,
For the goodness we found in her.
Swing out ye bells from your signal towers!
Swing out with your tongues of gold!
And mingle your strain, O ye fields of grain,
With a tenderness yet untold,
Till it reach the throngs on those peaks of light
Where the hosts of the holy stand,
And their voices wake for the old love’s sake—
For the loves of life’s yester-land.
[52]

SUNDOWN ON THE MARSHES.

The tide is ebbing out to sea;
Much as an old-time tapestry,
Bayeux or Gobelin, it might be,
The wizard weavers weave for me,
In strangely picturesque design,
Of colors rare that intertwine
Like those of Botticelli’s “Spring,”
Or tints that blend a wood-drake’s wing,
With rose-tipped grasses, amethyst,
And blazing jewels, Shylock missed;
While here and there, as if ’twere worn
By splash of spray, the threads are torn,
Or, as ’twere some old water-witch,
Grown weary eyed, had dropped a stitch,
Appears a patch of faded stuff,
Of fretted, dingy-brown, or buff,
With nets of fisher-folk, in spots,
Entangled with the lobster-pots.
But see! a bit of old brocade,
A water-kelpie must have made;
And there’s a garb of quaintest kind
Some Pilgrim farer left behind.
Out where the shallows turn to blood,
Lost in the trailing weeds and mud,
A crimson crescent blinks at me—
A vagabond who loves the sea—
While mythic muse with ancient loom,
Who knows where Clytie’s flowers bloom,
Has wrought of weeds and tinsel string,
A garment suited to a king.
[53]
And look! some oracle of time—
Some sorcerer of ooze and slime—
Has left a panoply most rare
For lazy-footed night to wear,
With girdle of a sombre dye,
And hung it on a rock to dry,
Where, flushed with slumber, drones a stream
To charm some lonely mermaid’s dream.
And this my heritage, more fair
Than mosque that ever called to prayer
A Moslem, bids me kneel and pray;
These simple words are all I say—
“I’ve been with God an hour or two”—
A shadow tiptoes down the blue;
And like a mother wraps the sea
In stillness of eternity.
Marshfield, August 16, 1920.
[54]

NEIGHBORS.

I love to think o’ days what’s been
’th all the neighbors droppin’ in
To spend the day, or arternoon,
’n in the evenin’ have a tune
Like Mear or some such ainshunt air,
’th cider, ’n’ doughnuts; I declare
It seems jest like they’s settin’ there
A-bindin’ shoes, or knittin’ lace,
Eround that old big fireplace,
Afore some blazin’ apple bough.
There’s too much cultivation now!
I love to think o’ days what’s been—
“Good night—good night, run in agin’.”
[55]

A PASTORAL.

The little village of my heart
Hath tangled lanes and roses,
And paths of musky hollyhocks
Wherein the wild bee noses.
’Tis summer, summer everywhere,
And drowsy pipes are playing,
Some little peace-dream all the while,
Where sweethearts go a-straying.
Just follow where the piper leads,
With Love—the gypsy rover—
You’ll find the little barefoot joys
You lost out in the clover.
Singlehurst.
[56]

THE WHITE PINE.

’Tis not the grace of yonder beach,
Its crescent-curve and swing,
Nor bastion-crags of Manomet
Whose sarabands I sing.
Mine be those woodland symphonies
Of spirit-power divine,
Like lullabies when evening wraps
The old storm-beaten pine.
Or, be it their defiant chords,
When wintry hordes complain,
While Triton thunders down the gale,
The lightning in his train;
And I would hymn their litanies,
The incense on my breath,
Like Alp-horn notes that echo on
Oblivious of death.
Plymouth,
September 21, 1920.
[57]

THE COLONIAL PIONEER.

A soul that like a column white
Survives the wind and rain,
Immortal as the Infinite,
Thy precepts shall remain
While man shall reverence motherhood,
Or galleons sail the seas,
While Earth shall clothe thy mortal frame,
Or leaves shall clothe the trees.
E’en as a shaft of morning burns,
Thy spirit, ever new,
Shall symbol the Eternal mind,
The Brave, the Good, the True.
Knight of the Forum of the Dead,
A hero of the past,
Born of New England’s virgin soil,
Lord of the Nation’s cast
Our daily lot with common men,
Of rectitude of heart,
Give us the burdens of the world
And help us act our part.
[58]
And look! some oracle of time—
Some sorcerer of ooze and slime—
Has left a panoply most rare
For lazy-footed night to wear,
With girdle of a sombre dye,
And hung it on a rock to dry,
Where, flushed with slumber, drones a stream
To charm some lonely mermaid’s dream.
And this my heritage, more fair
Than mosque that ever called to prayer
A Moslem, bids me kneel and pray;
These simple words are all I say—
“I’ve been with God an hour or two”—
A shadow tiptoes down the blue;
And like a mother wraps the sea
In stillness of eternity.
Marshfield, August 16, 1920.
[59]

THE OLD ROCKIN’ CHAIR.

It tilts a little to the left,
An’ wiggles here and there,
It’s kind-o’ creaky in the j’ints,
An’ ’taint plumb anywhere.
But s’pose you hitch up to’rds the fire,
There, try it ’rond this way;
You’re got to git it joggin’ right,
An’ when you’re tired, w-a-l-l, say,
You’re comforted, you’re comforted,
An’ rested thru an’ thru;
Why, that old rocker’s heaven to me,
But ’taint the same to you.
I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you why,
There ain’t no fairies here,
I h’an’t hearn Annie Laurie sung
For more nor fifty year.
There’s folks what thinks they know “Ben Bolt,”
An’ “Comin’ Thru’ the Rye,”
An’ “Ride away to Boston town,
To make a rabbit pie,”
An’ “Twinkle, twinkle little star,”
But you don’t know ’bout then,
When “Jack the Giant Killer” lived,
An’ Towser ’n’ Uncle Ben.
You don’t know “When they sheared the sheep,”
An’ “England had a King;”
You never had a trundle-bed;
There, now you’ve got the swing.
Of course it wiggles when you rock,
An’ ’taint plumb anywhere,
But ain’t you full o’ happiness,
In that old rockin’ chair?
[60]

OUT OF GETHSAMANE.

Give me the common task,
The little prayers to say,
The common, homely things of life,
To love in the old sweet way.
Give me a wounded heart,
Then bring me the flutes of May,
Teach me ye bells of the summer-grass,
Then give me your tunes to play.
[61]

GREETINGS.

TO THE SOCIETY OF MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS
IN AMERICA.

A cup to Elder Brewster,
A jewel for his crest,
And every Pilgrim “handed down”
By him and all the rest.
For you, betrothed and plighted,
Forever ships at sea,
Forever world’s to conquer,
And dreams to set you free.
Leagues to the East, forever,
Your spirit outward bound,
Life’s squadrons e’er returning
With treasure yet unfound.
Your soul the soul of Nation,
Your heart the heart of Youth,
Remembering our living dead!
Your sword the sword of Truth.
[62]

LOVE O’ MY HEART.

Give me the same old road,
With its old stone walls and vines,
The same old hearth and the same old friends,
And the same old love that never ends;
Stars in the self-same-sky,
And the long lost dreams of bliss,
In the old-time way,
And my gods of clay,
And the same dear lips to kiss.
Give me the slender hands,
Ah yes, give me the tears,
The same old grief,
And the withered leaf,
The largo of the years.
[63]

TO A FRIEND.

You dread my hand when white and cold,
When death has closed my eyes!
Will mine be then forbidding lips
Because the silence lies
So heavily upon your heart?
Ah, passing sad, ’twere so,
Stay, stay your tears and speak to me,
For I shall surely know,
And at the daybreak I shall come
And touch your face in sleep,
And breathe a thought around your soul,
So tenderly, so deep,
Like unto music it shall be,
Though you no sound shall hear,
Yet in your dreaming you will smile,
And know that I am near.
[64]

“AUNT SALLY.”

Born at Plymouth, June 4th, 1795.

O’ I tell you she’s a picter
That no artist couldn’t draw,
As she sets there in the open kitchen door,
With the sunlight streamin’ down
On her quaint old-fashioned gown,
An’ the shadders stretchin’ in across the floor.
An’ the ivy-vines a-twinin’
Lend a sort o’ glory round,
When the listless autumn lights lie on the land,
There she takes her drowsy nap,
With her Bible in her lap,
Like as ef she’s claspin’ heaven by the hand.
There’s a sort o’ blendin’ beauty
’Twixt her cap-rim an’ her face,
An’ the hollyhocks an’ rustlin’ ripened corn,
An’ the crickets chirpin’ there,
On the soft untroubled air,
“It is harvest time, Aunt Sally, summer’s gone.”
[65]

INTIMACY.

I am part of the greening grass,
A part of the stars and sun.
My heart is a part of the falling dew,
The rose and my soul are one.
I shall live in a silver maple
When the winds and the rain are old;
In the sunset light of a winter night
I shall sail in a ship of gold.
For I am a part of a day gone by,
A part of the years to be,
A part of the strife and the joy of life,
And they each are a part of me.
[66]

MY MOTHER’S “BIBLE-BOOK.”

Her little old red “Bible-book”
Lies here upon my stand,
So precious are its memories
I keep it close at hand.
Here on the fly-leaf is her name,
Long since ’twas written there,
Long ere she took the wander-road
In Sabbath-deeps of air.
How glad with gladness is the book,
Forever, ever new,
How dear with unforgetting love,
How sad with sadness, too.
The silver clasp is warped and worn,
And buckles with a lurch,
This Holy, Holy “Bible-book”
My mother took to church,
When I, a village six-year-old,
In dainty tier and frill,
Walked close beside, as hand in hand,
We climbed the steep, long hill.
There were no priests in white array,
How simple were the rites,
No lofty arch, no ruby glass,
Beadle nor acolytes,
But glory touched each sacred word,
Love rippled like a brook,
As we together, side by side,
Read from this “Bible-book.”
[67]
Gone with the leaf and summer shine,
And youth, but even so,
How white and stainless is the page,
And O, how long ago
It seems since that immortal day!
But God, there is no smirch
On this—that Holy “Bible-book”
My mother took to church.
[68]

MY FAITH.

I shall be fired with strength for that divine event—
The mightiest of life—
When these inspiring scenes, so beautiful,
Relinquish to that subtle and resistless spell
Which waiteth every man,
And every flower and leaf that grows.
I shall be given courage of a flying star,
The peerless chivalry of convoys of the air;
Half unaware I shall pursue my quest,
Same as a sea-bird mounts,
As light of wing;
The flush of morning in my face,
The flash that baffles minions of the dark,
The power that swung the constellations ’long the upper sky,
Impulse, like music, guiding me,
Song in my soul;
Still knowing I am loved, and love;
The friendly past,
The lifting present mine, as now,
I’ll not distrust,
And Life will not deceive me,
This I know.
[69]

AN APOSTROPHE.

Old Plymouth is a rambling town,
And many leagues of beach there are,
Where echoes still the iron-sleet
And glows the crimson heart of war.
The smoke of battle pressing down
Still lurks where Liberty was bought,
And minute-men come pouring in,
Nor lust of power, or gold they sought.
Clear eyed they stand, of knotty arm,
O God of Fortune, Fate and Crown,
Make sure the bonds of brotherhood
’Twixt this old world and Plymouth-town.
[70]

GLIMMER.

TO EUNICE.

Ever the witch in a school-girl’s eyes,
The toss and the flutter of flaxen hair,
The titter, and blush of a rosy cheek,
Are calling away from a world of care.
Leading the hours with a hop and a skip,
Down through a path where the wind-flowers grow,
White are the ribbons tied under her chin,
White are the ribbons that flutter and blow.
Ever the ring of a roguish laugh,
The swing of a rope, or a bonnet blue,
And a bright little band on a dainty hand,
Where twinkles a stone of a ruby hue,
Are daring me climb to the highest limb,
Or to jump the brook in a wild-fire race,
I’m as free and as light as the tail of a kite,
And I’ve two pouting lips for a resting place.
[71]

A NOCTURNE.

How oft I feast with the dearest ones, now dead,
Or stroll the gardens through at night,
Indifferent to sleep.
’Tis then our footprints turn to gold,
For these are Love’s eternal hours,
That follow me in loneliness;
How often, when the leaves are listening,
I clasp white hands, I do not feel,
More delicate than touch of moonbeams in the grass;
’Tis then the thoughts arise like incense from a silver bowl.
We never hurry through the flowers,
Or miss the color of a dreaming rose,
Nor kiss too long.
But when the careless dawn comes whispering my name,
And seeking in the ashes grey, that once were fire,
We part;
And this is what has made the silences supreme.
[72]

THE INVISIBLE.

The vast unconscious night hangs near and far,
Darkness born of day,
And sorrow born of joy;
But glowing everywhere is the tenderness of God,
Sun, moon and stars, and the living consciousness that I am I, supreme;
A sense of nearness unto hidden mysteries that overreach the dark,
And claim my spirit as their own.
[73]

ANTIPHONAL.

When I am gone the stones will talk of me,
The elm-trees speak together in the blast, as now,
And weep that I shall never more return;
And, be it that the dust shall grasp the throat of prayer, and strangle it,
My hands, white-rising from the earth,
Will try again to sweep the lyre of song,
And quench the voice of death above my grave;
The day star in its flight will answer me.
[74]

LADY MAY.

You will know her, by her bonnet with the strings a-blowin’ out,
An’ a laylock she’s a wearin’ in her hair;
You will know her by the sunshine she’s a scatterin’ about,
An’ her whistle in the birches over there.
You will know her by her slippers, an’ the color of her eyes,
An’ the kisses on her pretty poutin’ lips;
You can tell her by her giggle, an’ her look o’ glad surprise,
An’ the dewdrops on her rosy finger-tips.
She’s a-comin’ up the medder, don’t you see her yaller gown?
She’s a-tip toe, an’ a-comin’ right this way,
With a trail o’ joy behind her, an’ a new moon for a crown,
An’ a—bless your heart! why, howdy, Lady May?
[75]

A FRAGMENT.

Love calls to me from near and far,
From every flower, from every star,
In every drop of rain I see
A jewelled finger beckon me.
[76]

AWAY FROM HOME.

Carry me back to the hills of New England,
Back to the land of the woods and the sea,
Back to the shores where the blue waters beckon,
Back where the sunshine is waiting for me.
Make me a bed in the lap of the meadow,
Near where his rain-flute the reed-piper blows,
Cover me up with the wild things and clover,
Leave me alone where there’s nobody knows.
Leave me alone with the drift and the gladness,
Drenched with the long, lazy, midsummer noon,
Soothed like a child on the breast of its mother,
Soothed by the chirp and the twitter and croon.
There let me dream till the dusk on its bosom
Bears me away to the kingdom of sleep,
Where to the hush of mellifluous music,
Slumbering, slumbering, quiet and deep,
I shall be watched by the Night in her beauty,
Fanned by the breath of the pine I shall lie,
Lost in the wiles of the whip-poor-will’s calling,
Calling the infinite silences nigh.
There I shall rest in the gold and the purple,
Under the clouds with the moon peeping through,
I shall not wake at the stir of the grasses,
I shall not wake at the fall of the dew.
[77]
I shall awake when the bell-throated veery
Calls from his castle to welcome the sun,
Or, it may be from the glance and the glitter,
Brewed in the marshes and over me spun.
I shall arise when the elm-branches rustle,
I shall look out on the blue tossing sea,
Daylight and dawning, God in the morning
Stirring the dauntless eternal in me.
I shall go forth to the rapture of living,
Lightness of spirit my staff and my girth,
Moulded anew in the greatness of being,
Purged in my soul by the sweetness of earth.
Carry me back to the hills of New England,
Back to the land of the woods and the sea,
Back to the shores where the blue waters beckon,
Back where the sunshine is waiting for me.
[78]

GRANDMA BROWN.

She wasn’t very handsome,
I hate to put that down,
For to paint her as I knew her
She was belle of all the town.
She was doubled up and crooked,
And her hands were all a-skew,
Her face an old baked apple,
But her eyes were always new.
And you never would have known it
From a murmur or a sigh,
That the stars of God had faded
And the blue had left the sky.
And you never would have guessed it,
That these lines were lines of care,
The broken chords of music
Which the world had written there.
So I’ll paint her as I knew her,
With her cane and faded gown,
And a smile they made in heaven,
Just for dear old Grandma Brown.
’Twould have done you good to ’ve seen her
Settin’ out there in the sun,
Jest to keep the hens from scratchin’
When the plantin’ was begun.
An’ she allus took her knittin’,
Jest to pass the time away,
Or some darnin’ for the neighbors,
An’ she didn’t work for pay.
[79]
But she didn’t work for nothin’,
For we all loved Grandma Brown,
An’ I really think the bluebirds
Had a fondness for her gown.
She was “kind-o’ thick o’ hearin’,”
But she used to say to me,
“I can hear the things a-growin’
Jest as plain as plain can be.”
Then she’d take me up an’ kiss me,
An’ she’d trot me up an’ down,
Then she’d feel ’round in the pocket
Of that old blue gingham gown
Till she found a broken cookie,
Or a peppermint or two,
Then she’d pat my cheek and hug me
Like she loved me thro’ and thro’.
But the day came when I missed her
From her rickety old chair,
It was in the early springtime
When the lilacs drugged the air,
An’ the world was bright and merry,
An’ the little birds, a-wing,
Were as happy as the sunshine,
But it didn’t seem like spring.
Then I thought how once she told me
She was “goin’ abroad some day,”
An’ she said, “I’m good for nothin’,
An’ I’m sort of in the way.”
Well, she wasn’t very handsome,
But if God e’er made a crown
For the good folks up in heaven,
There was one for Grandma Brown.
[80]

SLUMBER SONG.

Gae to sleep, my bonnie baby,
Gae to sleep, my bairn, an’ dream;
Shadows thro’ the pines are creeping,
Lilies on the wimplin’ stream
Noo are rockin’, rockin’, rockin’;
A’ their snawy besoms gleam
Wi’ the gold o’ starlight folded
In their hearts to light their dream.
Sae may luve my kisses gi’e you
On your dainty lips to-night,
Wi’ the tenderness o’ roses;
Bless your dreams; guid-night, guid-night!
Gae to sleep, then, bonnie babie,
Gae to sleep, my bairn, and dream,
While the lily-buds are rockin’,
Rockin’, rockin’ on the stream.
[81]

THE ENIGMA.

With Hope a guest at my right hand,
And Death upon my left,
Life entertains me royally,
While Time with warp and weft
Of doubt and pain and smiles and tears
And irridescent dream,
In arabesque to me unknown
Pursues its endless theme.
[82]

THE PASSING OF THE OLD ELM.

The orioles are weeping by the roadside down the way,
And the robins, heavy-hearted, still their laughter for a day,
For the old elm tree is passing, in the middle of the town,
And the axes will not tarry till the old elm tree is down.
You may share no more its message in the springtime of the year,
With the joyful lilting concord when the song-birds first appear;
You will miss the calm enchantment of its leafy choirs in June,
And its heavenly benediction on an August afternoon.
You will miss the sunset glory where it yellowed in the fall,
And the swarm of stars that gathered in the branches at the call
Of the sparrow at his vespers; you will miss the joy and glow
Of the melting moonlight blended with its legion flowers of snow.
You will miss its stately lyric as it broke the mystic flight
Of the wild wind-shattered tempest thro’ the solitudes of night;
For the old elm tree is passing from the middle of the town,
And the axes will not tarry till the old elm tree is down.
[83]
’Tis a century, they tell us, since it sprung up by the wall,
Full of love for all God’s creatures, yet the old elm tree must fall;
But its strong sap mounting skyward with its tidings of good will,
With its sturdy flow of courage for a soul that’s standing still,
Will forever thread my dreamings with the wonder unimpaired,
And the spirit of devotion for its blessings I have shared.
Yes, the robins, heavy-hearted, still their laughter for a day,
And the orioles are weeping by the roadside down the way.
[84]

AFTERWARD.

Great God of storm and battle,
We feel Thy clasping hand;
Thy voice along the wilderness
We hear and understand.
The constellations hymn Thy praise;
Thy glory crowns the day;
Thine awful wrath, in swinging seas,
Commands and we obey.
The vanquished with the victors rest;
They sleep on hill and plain;
The heaven’s azure noon descends,
And wraps as one the twain.
In fondest brotherhood they share
One common lot of land;
Great God of storm and battle,
We feel Thy clasping hand!
How undiscerned Thy sovran laws,
Thy wisdom how sublime;
Thy torch of progress ever leads
The flying march of Time;
And though athwart the fiery track
Contending armies fall,
How soon the chastening blossoms come
And smile above them all.
[85]
Great God of storm and battle,
We feel Thy clasping hand,
The lightning is Thy chariot,
We see and understand.
The conquered and the conqueror,
Each wears the hero’s star,
Amidst his blood-stained wreath of thorns
The iron wheels of war
Are rusting in the mountain-side,
By thick roots intertwined,
Unmindful of the broken hearts
Their madness left behind;
While Peace, Thy benediction,
With outspread wings hath spanned
Our country; God of battles,
We feel Thy clasping hand.
[86]

“THE PILGRIM SPIRIT.”

Its argent unassailed,
Its purposes undimmed,
Its soul a crystal-hearted star
The conqueror hath rimmed
With broken swords, a restless shape,
Where birth and love are one,
Where death lies dead and worlds divide,
Still shoulders toward the sun.
[87]

IN MEMORIAM.

If from the crimson dust of war
A new Republic rise,
Still shall the martyr bleed
Who made the sacrifice.
The threnody from his dead lips
Shall never, never die,
Forever will his thorn-crowned head
Be lifted to the sky.
[88]

L’ ENVOI.

No flag so spanned by Freedom’s stars,
No hearthstone more a shrine,
No latch-string graces wider doors,
No warmer hearts than thine.
Plymouth, 1921

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

The poem, The Lindens, listed in the Index as being on page 58, does not appear in this edition.