This volume has been garnered from the author's earlier books. Two poems have been chosen from "The White Sail" (1887); nine Oxford Sonnets from a privately printed booklet (1895), since added to, and much altered; and many lyrics, under a revised form, from "A Roadside Harp" (1893), and "The Martyrs' Idyl" (1899), plus some twenty newer titles transferred, with grateful acknowledgments, from McClure's Magazine, The Atlantic, Harper's, Scribner's, and The Century. The principle of exclusion goes far enough to cover all poems in narrative form, or of any appreciable length, or translated; also, any which seemed out of keeping with the character of the present collection. Such as that is, it comprises the less faulty half of all the author's published verse.
L.I.G.
Boston, October 21, 1909.
A man said unto his Angel:
"My spirits are fallen low,
And I cannot carry this battle:
O brother! where might I go?
"The terrible Kings are on me
With spears that are deadly bright;
Against me so from the cradle
Do fate and my fathers fight."
Then said to the man his Angel:
"Thou wavering witless soul,
Back to the ranks! What matter
To win or to lose the whole,
"As judged by the little judges
Who hearken not well, nor see?
Not thus, by the outer issue,
The Wise shall interpret thee.
"Thy will is the sovereign measure
And only event of things:
The puniest heart, defying,
Were stronger than all these Kings.
"Though out of the past they gather,
Mind's Doubt, and Bodily Pain,
And pallid Thirst of the Spirit
That is kin to the other twain,
"And Grief, in a cloud of banners,
And ringletted Vain Desires,
And Vice, with the spoils upon him
Of thee and thy beaten sires,—
"While Kings of eternal evil
Yet darken the hills about,
Thy part is with broken sabre
To rise on the last redoubt;
"To fear not sensible failure,
Nor covet the game at all,
But fighting, fighting, fighting,
Die, driven against the wall."
While all was glad,
It seemed our birch-tree had,
That August hour, intelligence of death;
For warningly against the eaves she beat
Her body old, lamenting, prophesying,
And the hot breath
Of ferny hollows nestled at her feet
Spread out in startled sighing.
Across an argent sea,
Distinct unto the farthest reef and isle,
The clouds began to be.
Huge forms 'neath sombre draperies, awhile
Made slow uncertain rally;
But as their ranks conjoined, and from the north
The leader shook his lance, Oh, then how fair
Unvested, they stood forth,
In diverse armour, plumed majestically,
Each with his own esquires, a King in air!
Up moved the dark vanguard,
With insolent colours that o'erdusked the skies,
And trailed from beach to beach:
Massed orange and mould-green; vermilion barred
On bronze or mottled silver; saffron dyes
And purples migratory
Fanned each in each,
As the long column broke, athirst for glory.
Sudden, the thunder!
Upon the roofed verandas how it rolled,
Twice, thrice: a thud and flame of doom that told
New-fallen, nor far away,
Some black destruction on the innocent day.
And little Everard
Deep in the hammock under, eyes alight
With healthful fear and wonder
The brave do ne'er unlearn,
Clenched his soft hand, and breathing hard,
Smiled there against his father, like a knight
Baptized on Cressy field or Bannockburn.
A moment gone,
Into our paradise from Acheron,
With imperceptive sorcery crawled ashore
Odours unnamable: an exhalation
Of men and ships in oozy graves. (Ah, cease,
Derisive nereids! cease:
Be it enough, that even ye can pour,
From crystal flagons of your ancient peace,
So strange obscene libation.)
But with the thunder-peal
Sprang the pure winds, their thurible swung wide,
To chase that tainted tide;
Fresh from the pastures and the cedar-grove,
They rode the copper ridges of the main,
And bared a league of distance to reveal
A sail, aslant, astrain,
Impetuous for the cove;
And tossing after, panic-stricken,
Another, and a third: white spirits, fain to sicken,
Nor out of natural harm salvation gain.
The selfsame hunter winds that drave
The horror down, as faithful-hearted drew
The sad clouds from their carnage, and up-piled
Their rebel gonfalons, or jocund threw
Their cannon in the wave;
And subtly, with a parting whisper, gave
An eve most mild:
A sunset like a prayer, a world all rose and blue:
A good world, as it was,
And as it shall be: clear circumferent space,
Where punctual yet, for worship of their Cause,
The stars came thick in choir.
Sleep had our Everard in her cool embrace,
Else from his cot he hardly need have stooped
To see (and laugh to see!) the headland pine
Embossed on changing fire:
For close behind it, cooped
Within a smallest span,
In fury, to and fro and round and round,
The routed leopards of the lightning ran:
Bright, bright, inside their dungeon-bars, malign
They ran; and ran till dawn, without a sound.
Open, Time, and let him pass
Shortly where his feet would be!
Like a leaf at Michaelmas
Swooning from the tree,
Ere its hour the manly mind
Trembles in a sure decrease,
Nor the body now can find
Any hold on peace.
Take him, weak and overworn;
Fold about his dying dream
Boyhood, and the April morn,
And the rolling stream:
Weather on a sunny ridge,
Showery weather, far from here;
Under some deep-ivied bridge,
Water rushing clear:
Water quick to cross and part
(Golden light on silver sound),
Weather that was next his heart
All the world around!
Soon upon his vision break
These, in their remembered blue;
He shall toil no more, but wake
Young, in air he knew.
He hath done with roofs and men.
Open, Time, and let him pass,
Vague and innocent again,
Into country grass.
(Donatello’s Saint George)
Spirits of old that bore me,
And set me, meek of mind,
Between great dreams before me,
And deeds as great behind,
Knowing humanity my star
As first abroad I ride,
Shall help me wear with every scar
Honour at eventide.
Let claws of lightning clutch me
From summer's groaning cloud,
Or ever malice touch me,
And glory make me proud.
Oh, give my youth, my faith, my sword,
Choice of the heart's desire:
A short life in the saddle, Lord!
Not long life by the fire.
Forethought and recollection
Rivet mine armour gay!
The passion for perfection
Redeem my failing way!
The arrows of the upper slope
From sudden ambush cast,
Rain quick and true, with one to ope
My Paradise at last!
I fear no breathing bowman,
But only, east and west,
The awful other foeman
Impowered in my breast.
The outer fray in the sun shall be,
The inner beneath the moon;
And may Our Lady lend to me
Sight of the Dragon soon!
The gusty morns are here,
When all the reeds ride low with level spear;
And on such nights as lured us far of yore,
Down rocky alleys yet, and through the pine,
The Hound-star and the pagan Hunter shine:
But I and thou, ah, field-fellow of mine,
Together roam no more.
Soft showers go laden now
With odours of the sappy orchard-bough,