Read Ebook: The American Missionary — Volume 32 No. 08 August 1878 by Various

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POEMS

DEDICATION THE COAST OF BOHEMIA THE VOICE OF THE SEA LONG ROLL AT NAPOLEON'S TOMB THE PRINCESS' PROGRESS YOUTH AMERICA: GREETING DAWN THE POET ON AGRADINA THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEAS SLEEP TO A LADY AT A SPRING UNFORGOTTEN THE OLD LION THE DRAGON OF THE SEAS THE BENT MONK THE MESSAGE THE NEEDLE'S EYE THE CLOSED DOOR CONVENTION THE MAGDALEN THE REQUIREMENT THE LISTENER CONTRADICTION THE QUESTION OUR DEAD MY MOTHER HER INFLUENCE MATTHEW ARNOLD THE STRANGER LOVE AN OLD REFRAIN TO CLAUDIA THE APPLE-TREES AT EVEN MY TRUE-LOVE'S WEALTH A VALENTINE A PORTRAIT F?LICE LOVE SONG THE HARBOUR LIGHT FADED SPRAY OF MIGNONETTE LOST ROSES DE NAME OF OLE VIRGINIA THE DANCER THE APRIL-FACE COME BACK TO US, DAVIE THE WITCH HUMANITY ASPIRATION REALITY LITTLE DOLLY DIMPLE A VALENTINE

DIALECT POEMS

UNCLE GABE'S WHITE FOLKS LITTLE JACK ASHCAKE ZEKYL'S INFIDELITY MARSE PHIL ONE MOURNER

THE COAST OF BOHEMIA

DEDICATION

TO F. L. P.

As one who wanders in a lonely land, Through all the blackness of a stormy night, Now stumbling here, now falling there outright, And doubts if it be worse to stir or stand, Not knowing what abysses yawn at hand, What torrents roar beyond some beetling height; Yet scales the top to find the dawn in sight, And Earth kissed into radiance with its wand: So, wandering hopeless in the darkness, I, Scarce recking whither led my painful way, Or whether I should faint or strive to prove If 'yond the mountain-top some path might lie, Climbed boldly up the steep, and lo! the Day Broke into pearl and splendor in thy love.

THE COAST OF BOHEMIA

There is a land not charted on all charts; Though many mariners have touched its coast, Who far adventuring in those distant parts, Meet ship-wreck there and are forever lost; Or if they e'er return, are soon once more Borne far away by hunger for that magic shore.

Its mystic mountains on the horizon piled, Some mariners have glimpsed when driven far Out of life's measured course by tempests wild, Or lured therefrom by the erratic star They chose as pilot, till their errant guide Drew them resistlessly within its witching tide.

For oft, they tell, who know its sapphire strand The golden haze enfolding it hangs low, And those who careless steer may miss the land, Embosomed in the sunset's purple glow, Its lights mistaken for the evening stars, Its music for the surf-beat on its golden bars.

Young Jason found it when he dauntless sought The golden fleece by Colchis' perilous stream, And in his track full many an argonaut Hath found the rare fleece of his golden dream, And at the last, Ulysses-like, surcease From Sorrow's dole and Labor's heavy prease.

One voyager charted it for every age, From azure rim to starry mountain core. A nameless player on the World's great stage, He spread his sails, adventured to that shore And reared a pharos with his art sublime, Like Ilion's song-wrought towers, to beacon every clime.

The great adventurers reached it when they brake Columbus-led into the unknown West, And those who followed in their shining wake, But left no trace of where their keels have pressed; Yet have through stress of storm and tempests' rage Won by his quenchless light a happy anchorage.

There rest the heroes of lost causes lorn, On their calm brows more fadeless chaplets far Than all their conquerors' could e'er adorn, When shone effulgent Fame's ascendant star; There fallen patriots reap the glorious prize Of deathless memory of their precious sacrifice.

There many a dream-faced maid and matron dwells, From Argive Helen on through gliding time; There drink the poets draughts from crystal wells, And choir high music to their harps sublime: And there the great philosophers discourse Divine Philosophy in due and tranquil course.

There not alone the great and lofty sing; But silent poets too find there the song They only sang in dreams when wandering Amazed and lost amid the earthly throng; Their hearts unfettered all from worldly fears. Attuned to meet the spacious music of the spheres:

Gray, wrinkled men, the sea-salt in their hair, Their eyes set deep with peering through the gloom, Their voices low with speaking ever, where The surges break beneath the mountains' loom; But deep within their yearning, burning eyes The light reflected ever from those radiant skies.

There fadeless Youth, unknowing of annoy, Walks aye with changeless Love; and Sorrow there Is but a memory to hallow Joy, With chastened Happiness so deep and rare, Well-nigh the Heart aches with its rich content, And Hope with full fruition evermore is blent.

Constant Penelope, her web complete, Rests there content at last and smiling down On worn Ulysses basking at her feet; Calm Beatrice wears joyously the crown Bestowed by exiled Dante in his grief, And Laura, kind, gives Petrarch's tuneful heart relief.

'Mid bloomy meadows laved by limpid streams, Repose the Muses and the Graces sweet; There kiss we lips we only kissed in dreams Meshed in the grosser world; and there we meet The fair and flower-like lost loves of our Youth, When unafraid we trod the ways with radiant Truth.

Those who return have pressed alone the coast; But tell of some lost in that charm?d strond: Aspiring souls who loving Honor most, Have sought the crystal mountain-tops beyond, And striven upward, heedless of their scars, To where all paths lead ever to the shining stars.

THE VOICE OF THE SEA

Thus spake to Man the thousand-throated Sea; Words which the stealing winds caught from its lips:

Thou thinkest thee and thine, God's topmost crown. But hearken unto me and humbly learn How infinite thine insignificance. Thou boastest of thine age--thy works--thyself: Thine oldest monuments of which thou prat'st Were built but yesterday when measured by Yon snow-domed mountains of eternal rock: The Earth, thy mother, from whose breast thou draw'st, The sweat-stained living which she wills to give, And in whose dust thine own must melt again, Was ag?d cycles ere thine earliest dawn;-- But they to me are young: I gave them birth. Climb up those heaven-tipt peaks thy dizziest height, Thou there shalt read, graved deep, my name and age; Dig down thy deepest depth, shalt read them still. Before the mountains sprang, before the Earth, Thy cradle and thy tomb, was made, I was: God called them forth from me, as thee from Earth. Thou burrow'st through a mountain, here and there, Work'st all thine engines, cutting off a speck; I wash their rock-foundations under; tear Turret from turret, toppling thundering down, And crush their mightiest fragments into sand: Thou gravest with thy records slab and spar, And callest them memorials of thy Might;-- Lo! not a stone exists, from yon black cliff To that small pebble at thy foot, but bears My signature graved there when Earth was young, To teach the mighty wonders of the Deep. Thy deeds--thyself--are what? A morning mist! But I! I face the ages. Dost not know That as I gave the Earth to spread her fair And dew-washed body in the morning light, So, still, 't is I that keep her fair and fresh?-- That weave her robes and nightly diamond them? I fill her odorous bowers with perfumes rare; Strew field and forest with bee-haunted stars; I give the Morn pearl for her radiant roof, And Eve lend glory for her rosy dome; I build the purple towers that hold the West And guard the passage of Retiring Day. Thy frailest fabric far outlasts thyself: The pyramids rise from the desert sands, Their builders blown in dust about their feet. The winged bull looms mid an alien race, Grim, silent, lone. But whither went the King? I cool the lambent air upon my breast, And send the winds forth on mine embassies; I offer all my body to the Sun, And lade our caravans with merchandise, To carry wealth and plenty to all climes. Yon fleecy continents of floating snow, That dwarf the mountains over which they sail, Are but my bales borne by my messengers, To cheer and gladden every thirsty land. The Arab by his palm-girt desert pool, The Laplander above his frozen rill, The Woodsman crouched beside his forest brook, The shepherd mirrored in his upland spring, Drink of my cup in one great brotherhood. 'T is, nay, not man alone--thou art but one Of all the myriads of life-holding things,-- Brute, beast, bird, reptile, insect, thing unnamed, Whose souls find recreation in my breath: Nay, not a tree, flower, sprig of grass or weed, But lives through me and hymns my praise to God: I feed, sustain, refresh and keep them all: Mirror and type of God that giveth life. I sing as softly as a mother croons Her drowsy babe to sleep upon her breast. On quiet nights when all my winds are laid, I wile the stars down from their azure home To sink with golden footprints in my depths: I show the silvered pathway to the moon, All paved with gems the errant Pleiad lost, That night she strayed from her sisters wan; But I sing other times strains from that song Before whose awfulness my waters sank, And at whose harmony the mountains rose, I heard that morning when the breath of God Moved on my face, and said, Let there be light! I thrill and tremble since but at the thought Of that great wonder of that greatest dawn, When at God's word the brooding darkness rose, Which veiled my face from all the birth of things And rolled far frighted from its resting-place, To bide henceforth beyond Day's crystal walls, While all the morning stars together sang, And on the instant God stood full revealed!

LONG ROLL AT NAPOLEON'S TOMB

'Twas the marble crypt where the Emperor lay, His mighty marshals on either side, Guarding his couch since the solemn day France brought him home in her chastened pride, To sleep on her heart, from the sea-girt cage Where the Eagle pined and died in his rage.

I thought of the long, red carnival Death held in the track of his sword, amain, From Toulon's bloom to the crimsoned pall He spread upon Waterloo's ripened grain; I thought of the long black years of dread When the nations quaked at his armies' tread.

In the purple glooming the spell was wrought; And forth from their tomb the legions sprang: A Cadmus-brood of a Master's thought; The long-roll beat and the bugles sang; The tattered standards again unfurled, And Napoleon once more bestrid the world.

I heard that instant the self-same drum Which beat at his call when France arose From her ashes and blood when he bade her come In Liberty's name to face her foes; I saw her invincible armies arise, The light of Liberty in their eyes.

O'er Tyranny's pyre her standards flew; I felt the thrill of the new-born life: As cleansed from Terror, France the true, Sprang forth rejoicing amid the strife, As a woman rejoiceth travail-torn At the living voice of her own first-born.

From the ruddy morning on Egypt's sands, When her eagles rose in their terrible flight To stretch their shadow across the lands Till it perished in Russia's frozen night, When th' insatiable conqueror's reckoning came And his Empire melted away in flame:

When there at Moscow the Lord God spoke And said, "Thine end is at hand: prepare," As at Kadesh once, from amid the smoke, To the prophet who led His People there; "I set thee up, I will cast thee down, For that thou claimedst thyself the crown.

"Thine eyes have seen; but thou shalt not stand On the promised shore of a world set free; The People shall pass alone to the Land Of Promise and Light and Liberty: Of Peace enthroned in a Nation's trust, When thou and thy throne alike are dust."

THE PRINCESS' PROGRESS

Across the dusky land The Gracious Goddess, Spring, In vernal robes arrayed, Last night her royal progress made, Scattering with lavish hand Her fragrant blossoming. Along the wold, In spendthrift glee, She strewed her gold And gilded all the lea. The dandelions' yellow coin Lie scattered in the tangled grass, And buttercup and crocus join To tell the way she chose to pass. In lavish wealth the gleaming daffodil Shines on the cloudy April hill, And many a yellow marigold Marks where her brazen chariot rolled; The slender-necked narcissus bends His dewy head, and leaning down, Looks deep to find within a dew-drop's lens A mirrowing pool where Love may drown. No cranny deep nor nook But felt her tender look; No secret leafy place But warmed before her face And blossomed with her grace. The woodland, sombre yesterday, Hath in her presence donned a brave array, And in a night grown gay. Her purple cloak, all careless flung, Upon the red-bud hung; And on the forest trees, Her richest laceries. While sprinkled deep with dust of gold The tender, flowery branches hold Her verdant robe blown fold on fold. Her queenly figure clad In broidered raiment glad, Complete and passing sweet, Hath set the sylvan zephyrs mad. About her breathed rare odors sweet, Of roses blowing neath her feet: About her breathed sweet odors rare, Of violets shaken from her hair, As though unseen of mortal eyes, She 'd jarred the gates of Paradise. Her crystal horn in passing by she wound, And at the witching sound, As by the enchanter's stroke, The fields in music broke, And every silent grove in melody awoke. Responsive to her charm?d lyre The dewy-throated choir Carol in every brake and brier, And flood with golden song The verdant reaches ranged along-- Where drinking deep from fountains clear Their inspiration, They hymn their jubilation That Spring again is here; And all together sing The Goddess of the Year, The Spring: the gracious Spring.

YOUTH

I once might hear the fairies sing Upon the feathery grass a-swing, Or in the orchard's blossoming: Their melody so fine and clear, One had to bend his ear to hear, Or else the music well might pass For zephyrs whispering in the grass.

I once might see the fairies dance A-circle in their meadow-haunts, Soft-tapered by the new-moon's glance: Their airy feet in crystal shoon Made twinklings neath the silver moon. Such witchery, but that 't was seen, Might well have been the dew-drops' sheen.

I've wandered far yond summer seas, Where Music dwells mid harmonies That well the Seraphim might please; But never more I catch, ah me! The fairies' silvery melody-- Their crystal twinkling on the moonlit lea.

AMERICA: GREETING

I have journeyed the spacious world over, And here to thy sapphire wide gate, America, I, thy True Lover Return now, exalted, elate, As an heir who returns to recover His forefathers' lofty estate.

I 've seen visions of castle and palace Up-soaring to sun-flooded skies, Where men have drunk deep of Death's chalice, In infinite soul-agonies-- Where Tyranny glutted her malice And battened on Liberty's cries.

Where splendor of palace and tower Cried up unto God with men's blood; Where th' emblems of Tyranny's Power Imperial and brazen have stood, With faggot and sword to devour, And the rack scowling hard by God's Rood.

And now at thy fair, open portal, I stand as I stood in my Youth, Amazed at the vision immortal Of naked and unashamed Truth: The Truth that the Fathers have taught all Their children: their birth-right in sooth.

I greet thee: thy purple, large reaches,-- From the snow-mantled, spire-pointed pine, To thy golden, long, low-lying beaches, Awash with thy tropical brine, And thine infinite bosom that teaches How God hath made Freedom divine.

God dowered thee fair mid the Oceans: He bulwarked thee strong with the seas, That Man might preserve here the motions He gave Freedom's bold processes: That Man in his loftiest devotions Might serve Freedom's altars in Peace.

How crude then and rude then soever Thy struggles to lift from the sod, Thy Freedom is strong to dissever The Shackles, the Yoke, and the Rod; Thy Freedom is Mighty forever, For men who kneel only to God.

DAWN

Who hath not heard in dusky summer dawns, Ere winds Aurora's horn, the dreamy spell Just rippled by some drowsy sentinel. Who from his leafy outpost on the lawns Chimes sleepily his call that all is well? A moment--pipes another silvery note: Aurora's crystal wheels flash up the sky; The sentries cry the Dawn and joyously Glad Welcome peals from every dewy throat, And every leafy bough chimes melody.

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