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diff --git a/76602-0.txt b/76602-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b236fbb --- /dev/null +++ b/76602-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3993 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76602 *** + + + + ON OLD CAPE COD + + _By Ferdinand C. Lane_ + + _Drawings by Rena V. Rockwell_ + + SECOND EDITION + + To Emma - my Wife + + Copyright 1961 by Ferdinand C. Lane + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + ON OLD CAPE COD + + + How rich is life on old Cape Cod + Where autumn smiles in golden rod, + And marshes flame, though not with fire - + A region blest of heart’s desire. + In vain we’d roam the Seven Seas + There are no quainter shores than these. + + Here nature in indulgent mood + Enfolds us with her solitude; + And here her cleansing winds combine + The tonic of the salt and pine, + The while old ocean’s muffled swells + Are chiming like cathedral bells. + + The days drift by without a care + As sweet fern odors scent the air, + And watching wheeling gulls at play + The world of strife seems far away. + It must have been a kindly God + Who shaped the sands of old Cape Cod. + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + On Monomoy 5 + + The Song of the Sea Shell 6 + + Winds of the Cape 7 + + The Enchanted Marsh 8 + + The Fragrance of the Cape 9 + + Sea Lavender 10 + + The Final Rose 10 + + Fairy Rings 11 + + Beach Plums 12 + + On Truro Hills 13 + + My Drift Wood Fire 15 + + The Sand Piper 16 + + The Whistling Buoy off Nauset 17 + + Peaked Hill Bars 18 + + The Rime of the Three Captains 19 + + Storm Signals 20 + + Neptune’s Coursers 21 + + To a Spider Web wet with Dew 22 + + The Dunes 23 + + The Flight of the Wild Geese 25 + + Sweet Fern 26 + + White Sail 26 + + The Humming Bird 27 + + O Road that Winds Among the Hills 28 + + The Beach Grass Threnody 28 + + To a Rose Jar 29 + + Blue Berries 30 + + The Watcher 31 + + The Sea Shell Boat 32 + + Flotsam 33 + + The Ancient Log Book 34 + + The Dance of the Moon Beams 35 + + Marshes of Sandwich 37 + + The Smile of the Sea 37 + + Our Cape Cod Home 38 + + Thunder Storm Off Race Point 40 + + To a Scrimshawed Whale’s Tooth 41 + + Creeping Fog 42 + + Wooden Sailor 43 + + The Dreamer 44 + + The Chant of the Night Wind 45 + + Midnight 46 + + The Golden Rod 47 + + Wild Roses 48 + + The Coast Guard Station 49 + + Keeper of the Light 50 + + On Chatham Bars 51 + + The Old Timer’s Lament 52 + + Revery 53 + + The Old Hulk 54 + + The Modernists 55 + + When the Locusts are In Bloom 57 + + The Harvest of the Sea 58 + + Beach Grass 59 + + The Swamp Heron 61 + + The Throes of Creation 62 + + Hog’s Back Church 63 + + Beyond the Point 66 + + The Winds of Time 67 + + To an Aged Willow 68 + + The Old Woods Road 69 + + The Poverty Weed 70 + + The Sweep of the Tides 71 + + Lost Billingsgate 73 + + Transformed 74 + + Haunting Echoes 74 + + Lost at Sea 75 + + The Aspen 76 + + The Song of the Sea Gulls 77 + + Broken Fragments 78 + + Workers of Magic 79 + + My Golden Fleece 80 + + The Lone Lilac 81 + + Friendly Lights 82 + + To My Cherry Blossom 83 + + Grains of Sand 84 + + The Funeral Wreath 84 + + Memory 85 + + The Stoker 89 + + Imagination 91 + + In Wellfleet by the Sea 95 + + + + + ON MONOMOY + + + Gigantic finger, joint by joint, + Thrust out in warning from the land + To lurking shoals, along your point + We tread a skeleton of sand, + Till at the end we seem to be + Where all the world dissolves in sea + On Monomoy. + + O’er Stone Horse shoal and Pollock Rip + The sullen tides sweep on apace + Where many a gallant sailing ship + Has found her final resting place; + But of the dead - no man may say + Till redly dawns the judgment day + On Monomoy. + + For fishermen tell ghastly tales + Of wrecks and shuddering moons that mark + Red murder done, and spectral hails + Of Yo-Hoes keening from the dark! + So in the night when breakers moan + Fear trails his steps who walks alone + On Monomoy. + + Waif of the seas and old Cape Cod + Where Gosnold voyaged long ago, + Where bold Champlain in armor trod, + What tales the muttering undertow + Could Whisper - or the sea birds scream + To brooding dune and marsh adream + On Monomoy. + + + + + THE SONG OF THE SEA SHELL + + + Come press your coral lip against my ear + Frail vagrant of the sea, + And sing to me the songs I love to hear + From ocean’s symphony. + + Of tides that set in far off palmy isles + Where ukuleles strum, + And star eyed maidens wreathed in flowers and smiles + Dance to your rhythmic hum. + + No plaintive bird, full throated with the spring, + Warbles a sweeter note + Than those enchanting melodies that ring + Within your pearly throat. + + Sonorous chords that sound a minor key, + Sea chanties hoarse and low, + The echoes of the mermaid’s minstrelsy, + And songs the sirens know. + + But now a bit of flotsam on the beach + Imprisoned in my hand, + I listen to the mysteries you teach + And strive to understand. + + Your music leaves me in a brooding vein + Sweet chantress of the deep, + For in those elfin strains you wake again + From death’s engulfing sleep + + And when, like you, upon life’s farthest shore + Time bears my empty shell, + O may such songs as your immortal store + Be mine as well! + + + + + WINDS OF THE CAPE + + + Winds of the Cape, go tearing by + Down the wild canyons of the sky! + When winter’s cold has stripped the trees, + And fields are bare and waters freeze, + We hear them in the dead of night + Careering on their headlong flight - + The formless horsemen of the blast + In gales of darkness rushing past! + + Winds of the Cape in gladness ring + With all the lilting songs of spring! + When fresh and clean the world awakes, + And petals fall in snowy flakes + From beach plum bush and apple tree + There comes the haunting melody + From sky land’s caravans once more - + Wild geese in flight for Labrador! + + Winds of the Cape in Summer days + When shore and dune dissolve in haze, + Come drifting down the heavenly leas + From cloudland’s floating Hebrides, + Caressing with your langorous calm, + And coolness like a healing balm; + And whispering tales of Araby + Palm fringing some enchanted sea. + + Winds of the Cape, what sadness blends + In those wild gusts that Autumn sends + Down empty hallways of the sky, + To echo ever mournfully + The footsteps of the dying year; + To grieve o’er woods and meadows sere + For things we loved so much - but lost + Like blossoms withered by the frost. + + + + + THE ENCHANTED MARSH + + + O ripples in the marshland grass + Like waves on an enchanted sea, + The winds, with trailing garments pass + Invisible adown the lea + Each footprint, evanescent, pressed + In shadowed highlight, trough and crest. + + No spray upon those waves is seen + To splash upon the marshy bank; + Uncanny sea so strangely green! + While lurking in those coverts dank + What things of the abyss may dwell + Only the fear hushed winds might tell. + + Far off where dunes aspiring melt + Into the sky, those currents flow + In turmoil neither heard nor felt + How furtively they come and go! + Things yet undreamed of well might be + Submerged beneath so weird a sea. + + No surges break but in our ear + An elfin murmuring seems to sound, + So vague it is we scarce may hear. + O can it be the far off pound + Of foamless surf on sands unseen + Beyond that shimmering waste of green? + + And we who sail that eerie sea + Go drifting on a tide of dreams + To unknown isles in fantasy, + Borne on the undulating beams + Of sun, dim litten, or the moon + That cringes o’er the farthest dune. + + How timelessly it ebbs and flows, + That sea of ever changing light, + And whence it bears us no one knows + To what wild chasms of the night + Where fancy, yearning to explore + Pauses, aghast, upon the shore. + + + + + THE FRAGRANCE OF THE CAPE + + + The sun, that sovereign alchemist, and winds + That do his bidding, gleaning from the wilds + Sweet essences and savory condiments + Have mingled them in that vast crucible + Of hill and hollow, swamp and circling sea, + And like the witch’s cauldrons, from that brew + Evoked a fragrance sweet as Araby. + The honeyed breath of Mayflowers in the spring, + The nectar lingering in the elfin cups + Of purple lilacs, fairy scents distilled + By pendant locust blossoms, essences + That lade the air when the wild roses bloom + In scarlet flames that beautify the hills; + The resinous aroma of the pines + In summer heats when crows call languidly + To droning bumble bees and gulls float past + Like wisps of snowy cloud; the musk of swamps + Where swaying cat tails shimmer in the sun + And the noon stillness echoes to the calls + Of blackbirds clarion shrill; the pungent smell + Of sage grass by the tidal pool, the spice + Of sweet fern from the hillsides redolent + With beachplum and the subtle frankincense + Of waxen bayberry, and over all + The faint, elusive permeating scent + Of sand and salt and spray from shore and sea. + The mace and cinnamon of far off isles + Are in that odor intimate and quaint + And lasting as the memories that cling + To weathered houses, gardens colorful + With hollyhocks and dahlias, rimmed with shells; + Or stranded hulls that brood in lonely coves + By crumbling piers where once proud vessels lay. + The romance and adventure of those days + When stanch descendants of the Pilgrim band + Carved out from sand and wilderness their homes + And wrung a hard subsistence from the deep, + Still linger in the memories of that time, + And in the perfume subtle, vague and strange + That charm elusive as the whispering breeze, + Sad as the setting sun athwart the dunes, + Mysterious as the ever changing sea, + The wild sweet, haunting fragrance of the Cape. + + + + + SEA LAVENDER + + + Upon the marsh a filmy blur + As delicate as gossamer; + A wraith of fog, a vaporous wisp + With stem and leaves and branches crisp, + Their fibre toughened by the gale, + Can plant so hardy seem so frail? + + Half hidden mid its stalks of green + The flowerets are scarcely seen + As dainty specks of ocean’s blue, + Or bits of sky that filtered through, + To melt in tints of amethyst + As evanescent as the mist. + + And now through many a lacey line + That fairy fingers intertwine + Upon my mantelpiece at last + You shed the fragrance of the past; + A wraith of marshland witchery - + A floral memory of the sea. + + + + + THE FINAL ROSE + + + From an ember + bud that glows, + In September + flames a rose. + + Bursting prison + doors of bark, + Blithely risen + like a lark. + + Sweetly winging + to my room, + Ever singing + in perfume. + + Tardy comer, + woodsprite blest, + Dying summer’s + last and best! + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + FAIRY RINGS + + + Far and near on every hand + Fairy rings bedeck the sand, + Footprints of the sportive elves + Dancing gaily with themselves; + Hand in hand and round and round + Treading circles on the ground + Nightly, by the glow worm’s ray + To the cricket’s roundelay. + + Ardently each woodland gnome + Clasps a fairy from the foam, + Waltzing till the wondering moon + Sees each circle as a rune + In a maze of mystery + For the puzzled stars to see, + While the revellers at dawn + Leave a myriad circles drawn. + + Or perchance the compass grass + Whirled by wandering airs that pass + Has engraved those strange designs + In its circumscribed confines. + Archimedes never drew + Circles more exact or true + Than each needle pointed blade + Razor edged and green as jade. + Can we delve the cryptic sense + From each grooved circumference? + In the grass that etched those rings + What immortal spirit springs? + Or what inspirations stir + The bewitched geometer + To such elfin tracery + On the sands beside the sea? + + + + + BEACH PLUMS + + + How daintily your blossoms cling + Like memories of winter snows; + The maiden promises of spring + That Nature, wakening, bestows; + White as a bridal veil of gauze + O’er branches gnarled like eagle’s claws. + + How richly ripe and purple hued + You lure the eager appetite + When autumn yields in kindliest mood + Those luscious globules of delight! + The sylvan elves must brew that taste + From sea and dune and scented waste. + + For only skill like theirs could blend + From woodland wild and rolling brine + Such flavors. Or perchance they lend + Their elven powers to those divine + So that the tang of earth and sky + Is mingled in their alchemy. + + Or were some darker rites invoked + Some ritual of the churchman’s hell; + Malignant imps and beldams cloaked + In blackness capering neath the spell + Of gibbous moons obscure and lone - + Such witchcraft we might yet condone. + + Yes, though we know not whence you came + Your sweet caresses to the tongue + Would still delight us just the same + Whether from day or darkness sprung; + Content and carefree, from the stems + To pluck such epicurean gems. + + + + + ON TRURO HILLS + + + Upon those dome like hills of sand + A wonderous carpet has been laid, + Rich as the rugs of Samarkand + And gorgeous as some rare brocade + Wrought on the looms of far Cathay + Or by the shrines of Mandalay. + + It covers well those hills of sand + That glaciers rounded long ago, + Nor can the dyes of Samarkand + Display a stranger, deeper glow + Such tints of red and gray and green + With gold and amber in between. + + To rolling slopes the lichens cling + And tufts of bunch grass russet sere, + Through them the murmurous breezes sing + While clustering sweet fern, far and near + Wafts spicy smells like incense o’er + Those lonely hills from wood to shore + + The wild bearberry shyly twines + Its sinuous length through grass and moss, + How glossy are its clinging vines + From green to rusty red. Across + Its sheen the sunbeams dreamily + Play like the waves upon the sea. + + Blueberry clumps in curving lines + Mingle with waxen bayberry + To trace their arabesque designs + On richly wrought embroidery, + With borders in the marshy sedge + And fringing beach grass for the edge. + + A treeless waste it seems, but no + The scrub oak, lichen crusted, cowers + And dwarf pines, gnarled and twisted, grow + By beach plum thickets, white with flowers + A waste that blooms with rarer dyes + Than jungles turn to tropic skies. + + And there are thread bare patches too + That add more color to the heath + For where the texture is worn through + It shows the golden sands beneath, + While in the afternoon’s slant rays + All outlines blur in purple haze. + + Uncanny moorland, desolate + And in the dusk how weirdly still, + A landscape one can ne’er forget. + O’er ghostly hollow wraithlike hill + What timid moonsprites nightly flee + The muttering demons of the sea! + + The ebbing seasons merely change + That coverlet from day to day, + By shifting, in their varied range + From sober hues to some more gay, + While from the sea and sky and air + Fresh color splashes everywhere. + + That turf rough seeded by the wind + And nurtured by the pensive sun, + Is richer than the shawls of Ind, + Or that famed carpet once begun + By Jinns and Peris, known of yore, + That through the air the Genii bore. + + Perhaps on some enchanted breeze + From Kurdistan or Araby + Those Genii over unknown seas + Have borne this priceless tapestry, + This fabric wrought in Faery land + To beautify a barren strand. + + ’Tis woven on the loom of time + Spun from the filaments of dreams, + This magic carpet. Age nor clime + Can match its pattern, or the streams + Of color lavish Nature spills + O’er Truro’s ancient, windswept hills + + + + + MY DRIFT WOOD FIRE + + + Heap high the wood on my rusty grate + As I sit enthroned like a potentate + In my old arm chair, while the crackling blaze + Unbars the gates, to my dazzled gaze, + Of a flame bright world that my fancy weaves + Though the storm may batter the creaking eaves. + + There is Norway pine from the Arctic’s chill + From wrecks that splintered off Peaked Hill; + There is stout oak fashioned by broad axe blows, + And stranger wood that the jungle grows; + For such is the tribute I levy, - these + Are the far flung gifts of the seven seas. + + The surf that claws at the wind swept beach + Like skeleton fingers seems to reach + For my lonely shelter; but staunch it stands + Though its walls resound to the rattling sands + In volleys hurled by the howling blasts; - + Pile on those staves and that stump of mast! + + Up the roaring chimney the black smoke goes + But O the glory that ebbs and flows + On the heat warped ceiling and buckled floor, + In green and purple; with ruddy ore + That glints in gold where the salt burns through + Mid flames that dance in an elfin blue! + + My home may seem but a weathered shack + Where the cold creeps in through many a crack; + But my fire’s bright magic has changed all these + To a castle hall where I take my ease, + With the window flaunting in sparkling lines + My royal crest that the frost designs. + + Yes, I am a king carefree and bold + And I laugh at the gale and the winter’s cold. + My grate? ’Tis a jewel vault of Ind. + That music wild? - It is not the wind + But my minstrel’s songs, for my heart’s desire + I have found at last in my drift wood fire! + + + + + THE SAND PIPER + + + Quaint manikin, what bids you keep + Such formal distance with your droll + Divertisements, the while I stroll + In solitude beside the deep? + + Your mannerisms first suggest + A Puritan sedate and prim; + Then change you by capricious whim + Into a gnome with hooded crest, + + Or bit of animated foam, + Or e’en a cloud wisp drifting by, - + What region in the sea or sky + Or lonely dune can you call home? + + Your footsteps mincing gleefully + Thread in and out along the verge + Embroidering the creamy surge, - + Strange little old man of the sea! + + But in your antic frolicking, + Your beak grotesque and solemn eye, + Your stilt-like legs, your piping cry, + And sudden ecstasies of wing, + + There is a kinship with the spray + Wind driven, and the restless sand, + A mingling of the sea and land, + The hither and the far away. + + Blithe atomy, bold Nature’s child + Within you pulses glad and free + With joyous spontaneity + The tameless spirit of the wild! + + + + + THE WHISTLING BUOY OFF NAUSET + + + Voice of unutterable woe + Wailing alone at sea! + Borne on the shuddering winds that blow + Out of the dark to me. + Now far - now near + To the frightened ear + Comes that monody wild and free. + Mingled of menace and grief and fear + With a maniac chuckle of glee - + O hear! + That note of demoniac glee! + + Prophet of peril and storm, + Harbinger, Triton and brute, + Mariners peering to glimpse your form + Cheer at your hoarse salute - + That gurgling sound + Of a sob half drowned + That is vague as the muttering foam! + Staggering drunkenly to and fro, + You buffet the tide rips and undertow, + A fettered gnome + In the grip of the shoals below. + + Hark to that ominous roar + Freezing the blood with dread! + Vampire waves on a spectral shore + Ravening over the dead. + O-oo, O-oo! + Is your wild adieu + To the souls that the winds have sped! + Breakers are howling like wolves on the trail, + Foaming and gnashing and leaping the rail, + Where a shrieking crew + Are lost in the maddened gale. + + Wraith of the dangerous seas, + Haunting the skeleton sands, + Creature of iron and billow and breeze + Wrought by a mortal’s hands. + Your eerie moan + So weird - so lone + Is a medley of boding and rapture and groan. + Roisterer, mourner and demon I wis + Strangest of beings in ocean’s abyss + Your elfin cry + Is a note of its infinite mystery. + + + + + PEAKED HILL BARS + + + On the dread bars at Peaked Hill + The sullen waves are strangely still; + And o’er that eerie sand dune’s crest + The winds, beguiling, seem at rest; + As the wild flare of Highland Light + Goes surging up into the night. + + What sinister serenity + Pervades that graveyard of the sea, + Where sand bars, white as bone, submerge + Down where the tides intone a dirge + For houseless and unhallowed souls - + ’Tis Death who broods among the shoals! + + For hark, it comes, the thunderous gale + That makes those dunes and beaches quail, + As the wild winds and waves embroil + Those shoals until they seem to boil + And lift to heaven as loud a din + As though the fiends were caged within. + + No mariners of old e’er sailed + More dangerous seas. Charybdis veiled + No starker terrors than those blue + And greenish shallows hide from view, + Where, crouched like tigers on the kill, + Lurk the dread bars at Peaked Hill! + + + + + THE RIME OF THE THREE CAPTAINS + + + Three captains lounged before the blaze + Of drift wood burning cheerily, + And they warmed to ventures of other days + In salty tales of the sea. + + Tarred were the ropes coiled under the eaves, + Tar had dripped on the warping floor, + Beach sand fluttered like withered leaves + And sifted under the door. + + The salt that crusted the chimney wide + Had tinged the flames with yellows and reds; + Salt were the wavelets that lapped outside, + And white as the salt were their heads. + + Visions of many a tropic clime + In the firelight seemed to come and go; + Till friends they had known in their youthful prime + Took form in the radiant glow. + + As time cracked voices droned away + Through strange adventures in days gone by, + One voyaged with them to far Cathay + And spice swept Araby. + + Quaint were the islands they knew so well + Zanzibar, Pitcairn, and Celebes; + Isles enchanted where reigned the spell + Of other and lonelier seas. + + Seas that cringed at the typhoon’s wrath + When his thunderous roar was heard; + Silent seas in the calm of death + Where never a whisper stirred. + + And the pulses quickened to hear their tales + of voices hailing from spectral sands; + Of dead men’s ships with their ghastly sails + Unfurled by skeleton hands! + + Legends weird of an unplumbed deep + Where galleons foundered in days of yore; + And sightless monsters that grope and creep + In the slime of the ocean floor. + + Sagas of shipwreck in days long gone, + Of pirate treasure and revelry, + Of clashing cutlass and fights hard won + In some blood stained mutiny. + + On decks awash how they held their own + When faced by the knives of a cursing crew. + And they spoke of shoals and of ledges lone + Which only the sea birds knew. + + Youth flushed once more on withered cheeks, + Bent shoulders squared defiantly, + At such deeds as fired the warlike Greeks + In their legended Odyssey. + + And the murmuring tide ebbed once again, + And the fire burned low e’re the captains three + Recalled with a sigh they were old, old men + Who were done with their toil on the sea. + + + + + STORM SIGNALS + + + Red blur against the western sky + A banner flutters threateningly + The sport of every treacherous air + It flaunts its warning note - “Beware” + Each wrinkle in its protean form + A portent of impending storm. + + The darkening smudge where sank the sun + In bloody embers smoulders on + With brooding wrath. But angrier red + Invests that standard with the dread + Of unseen terrors. For it holds + Death’s shadow in its writhing folds! + + + + + NEPTUNE’S COURSERS + + + Horses of Neptune that bound and dash + Maddened with fear at the tempest’s lash, + Pawing the sand with their thudding feet + In a crashing rhythm of thunderous beat, + Swift as the startled winds they race, + Straining ever at fleeter pace; + Forms that curve where the billows comb, + Breasting a welter of seething foam, + What unseen riders spur them on + In a fierce stampede to be up and gone? + Out of the hoary deep they come, + Surging on with a booming roar, + Pounding ever along the shore, + Till the senses whirl and the ear grows numb. + + Manes that stream in the wind swept spume, + Necks that arch in the breakers’ crest, + Hoofs resounding like drums of doom, + Rearing forward with frantic zest, + Wild are the steeds of the storm scarred deep! + Trident driven, they plunge and leap, + With nostrils spread and their eyes aglow, + And fetlocks gripped by the undertow, + Boisterous, raging, uncanny steeds + Out of an ocean waste that breeds + Chargers fit for a sea god’s needs - + Neptune’s coursers, untamed and free, + Fleeing the wrath of the unknown sea! + + + + + TO A SPIDER WEB WET WITH DEW + + + Suspended o’er the grass there floats a web + More delicate than strands of gossamer + Wet with the morning dew, in pendant gems + That flame with reds and greens and darting blues + From the bright sun. A filmy nothingness + Made visible by jeweled drops and etched, + Like frosted silver, on a background dark + Of drooping pines. An airy talisman + As lustrous as a diamond necklace draped + About a Peri’s throat. What fleeting glimpse + Of loveliness ethereal and unreal + Inspired that rapt enchantment of design, + That harp of strings attuned to elfin songs, + That ladder for the moonsprites nightly trail + From sky to earth. What miracle of line, + What shimmering grace, what witchery of form! + So fragile that a fallen leaf may rend + Its warp of magic ne’er to know the woof + Of hard reality. A diagram + Of elfin tracery impalpable; + Each angle and its intersections squared + By that grotesque geometer who spins + Unseen, a hateful spider, ogre grim + To all the insect world. Can ugliness + So venomous create a thing so fair + Beyond the range of art? In pensive mood + We pause a moment to admire and scan + Its meaning. Can such fairy elegance + Spring from so foul a source? Yet legends tell + How crippled Vulcan, grimed with dust and smoke, + In darkness wrought the glorious shield of Mars. + The water lily, blossom honey sweet, + Draws nectar from the mire. Nor time nor bounds + May curb that hidden beauty that wells up + From secret springs in nooks obscure and dark, + Till gems of dew upon a spider’s web + Glow like the Pleiades in frosted skies. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + THE DUNES + + + The dunes, the silent sentinels of the land + That range along the lea, + In revery unbroken, there they stand + And gaze far out to sea + + Across their wind swept crests the breezes play + In cadence sad and sweet, + The restless sands whip ever day by day + Their surf tormented feet. + + The dying sunbeams gild their crags with gold + Then purple into night, + Around their slopes the elves of twilight fold + A film of spectral light. + + A landscape wild that one might see in dreams + Or on the pallid moon, + Blue shadows traced in silver by her beams + In many a cryptic rune. + + Or etched against the winter sky they show + An outline weird and stark, + Their pale sands melting like the sparser snow + Into a background dark. + + With scudding clouds, reflected on the dull + Gray mirror of the sea. + Cut by the wing points of a lonely gull + In poised expectancy. + + The distant sand bars mark the skeletons + Of other vanished dunes, + Their crests were once upreared to other suns + And other ghostly moons. + + The seething shoals once foamed beneath your feet + And maddened tide rips swirled + Whence risen proudly you can stand and greet + The older, firmer world. + + Unstable element of shifting sand + Whose contours ever change, + But moulded by great nature’s groping hand + In shapes bizarre and strange. + + We too, from sand have fashioned castled towers + For waves to wash away, + But her creations crumble much like ours + Though in a grander way. + + Nature, like man, forever vainly strives + To conquer time and tide; + She toils long aeons, we our briefer lives + And both unsatisfied! + + + + + THE FLIGHT OF THE WILD GEESE + + + Out of the sky they call to me + Honking geese in the far flung V + Of an angle traced on the filmy skies + As they float along, and their plaintive cries + Are the pipes of an elfin roundelay. + Tis the call of the wild to the Far-away! + + “Northward Ho!” is their haunting chant + Down the rocking winds their long lines slant, + And the old gray gander who takes command + How he marshals the files of his climbing band, + As they wing their flight with a tireless haste, + To the ice rimmed seas and the tundra waste. + + To the spruce fringed lakes and the virgin sod + Where never the foot of man has trod; + To the empty lands unspoiled and clean + That never the eye of man has seen; + Where the frost wraiths flee in the melting nights + That throb to the dance of the northern lights. + + On their venturous voyage no compass guides + Through the murmuring reefs and the chartless tides + Of the upper air. But their leader hoarse, + Like a pilot sage directs their course + To the sheltered fens and the coves they share + With the snow white fox and the arctic hare. + + How we follow the wild geese’s homing flight + Till their chorus dies and they fade from sight, + And our pulses thrill to be up and away + Joyously buoyant, as free as they. + For their far off challenge seems to ring + “Awake, glad world, to the songs of Spring!” + + + + + SWEET FERN + + + Strange perfume of the wilderness, + Elusive as an elfin child + That broods above the landscape wild - + And haunting as a last caress. + + From thickets broken and obscure + That spicy fragrance down the lea, + Brings to the ever murmuring sea + The sweetness of the barren moor. + + Low risen thickets, scarcely seen + Among the clumps of reindeer moss; + What elfin traceries emboss + Your leafy arabesques of green! + + And if no lonely passer by + Has trod your solitude to share + That incense - every wandering air + Has borne it to the bending sky. + + + + + WHITE SAIL + + + White sail beyond yon point of sand + Set like a gem upon the blue, + A fairy bark for elfin land + Receding gradually from view; + + White sail a snow flake come to rest + Like thistledown, upon the sea; + A distant beacon on the breast + Of watery immensity. + + White sail, a finger tip that seems + To beckon from the ocean’s rim, + To some enchanted isle of dreams + Beyond the skyline, vague and dim. + + White sail that like a lonely tern + Fades out against the dying day, + We watch till you are gone and yearn + To voyage into the far away. + + + + + THE HUMMING BIRD + + + Blithe wanderer from some happier sphere + What hither darting brought you here + Swift as a flash of light, + With rainbow spatters on your throat + Aflutter like a dancing mote + Upon a sunbeam bright. + + Bold atom of exultant life + With energy and action rife + And pinions all ablurr, + What glad exuberance of wing + Like harping on a fairy string + Evokes that vibrant whirr? + + With humming, strumming melody + Like some supernal bumble bee + You flit about to sup + On honey dew. Your fearless beak + Probes, lancet like, those sweets to seek + Within each nectared cup. + + Ah birdikin, now here, now there, + Poised elfinlike, upon the air + Aglitter like the dawn, + How ardently we would beguile + So fair a sprite to rest a while + But flash! and you are gone. + + Yet the unspoken word you bring + Still lingers. Time is on the wing + And never may be stayed. + So let us sip each honeyed hour + For life itself is but a flower + That all too soon will fade. + + + + + O ROAD THAT WINDS AMONG THE HILLS + + + O road that winds among the hills + With sinuous curves that lure the eye + Up distant slopes to meet the sky, + And wake a wanderlust that thrills + To scenes which beckon far beyond + From steep Kashmir or Trebizon. + + How like a bird, we’d love to roam + Beyond the gray Horizon’s rim + That shuts us like a prison grim + Within that narrow niche - our home + While thoughts unfettered steal away + To Istanbul and far Cathay. + + O road we tread in toil and strife + That climbs to greet the bending air, + The long, long trail to none knows where - + The weary highway we call Life - + What lies beyond? Ah, who can say + But we shall see and know - some day! + + + + + THE BEACH GRASS THRENODY + + + Lo in the wind the beach grass sings + A medley of fantastic things + That stirs the silence of the ear + With elfin notes we scarce may hear, + From formless shapes grotesque and strange + That lurk beyond the vision’s range. + + The fingers of what moon beam sprite, + Or lonely demon of the night, + Have strummed those sweetly plaintive strings + To the weird melody that wrings + A note of haunting mystery + From the chill vastness of the sea. + + + + + TO A ROSE JAR + + + Fair chalice in your spicy store + The roses seem to blow + And childhood’s simple faith restore + In legend’s long ago; + Such as the Arab’s jewelled prose + Where Genii from the bottle rose + The magician’s command obeyed + And at his feet whole kingdoms laid. + + From odorous depths I summon thee + O spirit of the past! + Weave all your spells of fantasy + And may your visions last. + Bring to my ear the murmuring breeze + The drowsy, far off hum of bees, + Unfolding to my raptured gaze + Those scenes beloved, of olden days. + + Once more within this scented gloom + Forgotten sunbeams rest + On hedges drooped with odorous bloom + By blushing lips caressed. + Those roses faded with the dusk - + Her lips grew cold, but fixed in musk + The fragrance lingers - and her eyes + Do they smile down from Paradise? + + Prophetic incense, subtly rare, + O may I understand + The poignant messages you bear + From Memory’s holy land + For petals torn from withered stems + Have filled this treasure casque with gems + And their sweet perfume brings to me + A hint of immortality. + + + + + BLUE BERRIES + + + From elfland’s glades and coverts green + Peering through bars of sun and shade + Are friendly little eyes, I ween, + That glow like sapphires set in jade, + And shyly veil their azure spheres + In summer’s filmiest atmospheres. + + There banqueting, we half recline + And sip the perfume redolent + With sweet fern, aromatic pine, + And bayberries’ seductive scent, + An incense rare as smoking spice + That censers raise to Paradise. + + The stillness brooding like a pall + O’er thickets and entangled trees + Is stabbed by the shrill blackbird’s call, + And rippled by the wandering breeze + That trails a buzzing dragon fly + Where bumble bees hum drowsily. + + Athwart the slant rays of the sun + Far off there glides a cloudland sail + To faery shores. Our task is done - + Our treasure won - a brimming pail. + And no blithe argonaut e’er bore + From legend’s quest a richer store! + + + + + THE WATCHER + + + A frail old lady bent and gray + She gazes out into the west. + To her it seems but yesterday + He sailed away with eager zest + “I pinned a rose upon his coat” + She falters, clutching at her throat. + + A mariner he put to sea, + Twas more than fifty years ago, + The neighbors nod in sympathy, + She cannot understand they know. + What fancies throng her poor old head + “My Robert lost? He can’t be dead.” + + And she is right. Her clearer eye + Sees through the storms and stress of years, + Full well she knows he did not die + The rainbow glistens through her tears + Enshrined within her heart in truth + + Her Robert lives in deathless youth. + From her lone window on the shore + She nightly sets a lamp to burn + A beacon when the breakers roar + To guide him on his safe return. + No matter what the neighbors say + These two shall meet again some day! + + + + + THE SEA SHELL BOAT + + + How now, little maid, in your bonnet arrayed + With that quaint little shell in your hand! + Not a shell but a boat? Ah, I see, let it float + Far away from these mountains of sand. + + It will sail so I’m told, down the pathway of gold + Where the sun paves the sea with its beams, + To some fortunate isle where the skies ever smile + Upon childhood’s endeavors and dreams. + + But, Honey, don’t cry if it sinks bye and bye + Like a fluttering bird to its nest; + For the wild waves at play in their blundering way, + Like the oncoming years never rest. + + My hopes were aglow in the long, long ago + When my own little ship left the shore; + But my hair has grown grey since it drifted away + And it never came back any more! + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + FLOTSAM + + + O flotsam stranded on the beach + Half buried in the oozing sand, + A sudden step, an outstretched hand, + And you are snatched beyond the reach + Of clutching waves. What brought you here + From far off climes beyond the seas, + The sport of every furtive breeze, + A wanderer for many a year? + + What gulfs of ocean’s nether world + Your paths have plumbed, I cannot know, + To what abyss the Krakens go, + Or where Leviathan was hurled. + What current dark, I wonder, links + Your lot with mine on this lone shore, - + But there is only silence more + Unbroken than the Memphian spinx. + + And am I fain to speculate + Upon the burden of your past? + When I, myself, am flotsam cast + Ashore a little while to wait + For Time’s resistless tides that sweep + In endless waves of night and day + Across the shoaling milky way + From some vast, unimagined deep! + + + + + THE ANCIENT LOG BOOK + + + ’Tis a time eaten volume with pages so blurred + That they seem to peer out through a fog, + But our fancy illumines each lustreless word + Of that battered old “wind-jammer’s” log. + + Till our eyes gazing out through those angular lines + Like windows, transparent, behold + Far vistas of seas where adventure combines + With “spices” and “teak wood” and “gold.” + + “Off the Horn” where the “greybeards” loomed up “mountain high” + All “our topsails were carried away”; + Then ’twas “cutlass and pike” when the “pirates drew nigh” + As “becalmed off Macassar we lay.” + + “One man hurt” then a later notation, “he’s dead” + And “was buried at sea” all we know, + He “signed from Tahiti” a “good man” they said, + “The fo’castle hands called him ‘Joe’” + + Lone wanderer far from his native lagoon + Was he mourned by some garlanded maid? + We ponder till jarred by a “roaring Typhoon” + And “there on our beam ends we laid”. + + “With our water casks low” when our “Bread had give out” + “We fetched by some island unknown” + Though we “dragged on the coral” while “Going about” + We added “their stores” to our own. + + There’s the wash and the surge of the murmurous deep + In each billowing flourish of ink. + Though the captains are silent in fathomless sleep + What they tersely inscribed is a link. + + With a past, when our banner, its glory aflame + To the winds of the heavens was flung; + And their deeds are forever an epic of fame + Such as Homer of old might have sung. + + + + + THE DANCE OF THE MOON BEAMS + + + O the moonbeams dance down the broad expanse + Of a path o’er the heaving sea, + And they blithely trip from tip to tip + Of the billows ranging free. + + Down a highway bright of silvery light + They dance to the ghostly moon, + In the sprightly set of a minuet + And the whirl of a rigadoon. + + To our lonely shore like a burnished floor + Streams that river of luminous sheen; + ’Tis a fairy track through the shadows black + ’Tis a bridge that spans between. + + The regions here and that unseen sphere + Far off in the western sky, + Where the day is done with the setting sun + And the sunsets fade and die. + + Where the moon holds court and her minions sport + As over the seas they roam, + And they dance their way through the glistening spray + And laugh in the rippling foam. + + “O the night is ours and its witching powers + “And there’s never an eye to mark, + “For the demons sleep in the caverned deep + “And the goblins of the dark. + + “Are far away where the shadows gray + “On the spectral sand dunes lie, + “So join in our mirth that is not of the earth + “But more of the sea and the sky!” + + To the rhythmic beat of their twinkling feet + The creaming breakers fret, + As to and fro on a rollicking toe + They gracefully pirouette. + + For the surges roll o’er the murmuring shoal + Through a brooding harmony + And the night wind sings of unspoken things + In an eerie melody. + + “O cast your cares on the buoyant airs + “Where the star points smoulder dim” + Is their lilting song as they float along + To the skyline’s molten rim. + + As their footsteps pave o’er the frosted wave + A path to the magic west, + With a carefree shout we would join the rout + And follow their homing quest. + + But our feet are banned from that faery land + Though our vaulting fancy yearns + As it throbs in tune to the dying moon + Till the morning redly burns. + + With our hearts in tune to the dying moon + We stand in the hush of dawn; + There are cryptic runes on the windswept dunes + But that luminous path has gone. + + And the wet sands lie neath the empty sky + As drear as the lifeless sea, + But through our dreams flit the elfin beams + Of that moonsprite revelry. + + + + + MARSHES OF SANDWICH + + + Marshes of Sandwich where slow currents wind + Languidly seeking the outermost sea + Drifting, some ultimate haven to find, + Where far horizons stretch, boundless and free! + + Out there beyond the white sea wall of dunes, + Murmurs of ocean that breathe faint and low + Looming like mountain peaks crusted with snow + Weaving blue shadows through hot afternoons. + + Languorous meadows where dragon flies dream, + Level green solitudes soothing the eye, + Golden with mist from the sun’s slanting beam + Purpled by patches of cloud floating by. + + Prairies beloved of the homing wild geese + Nature’s hurt children are healed by your balm; + How we have longed for the infinite peace + Born of your timeless, unchangeable calm! + + + + + THE SMILE OF THE SEA + + + O the sun’s molten gold seems to spatter and spill + O’er the wavelets so dazzlingly bright, + As they dance to the songs of the sandpiper’s shrill + With their numberless sparkles of light. + + For the languorous winds with their deft fingers press + Those wrinkles of sapphire and flame, + And the fires they enkindle all surge to express + A shout of exultant acclaim. + + How they twinkle and glitter like sparks from the steel + While the gilded foam chuckles with glee, + Till all nature, attuned to the rapture they feel + Seems aglow with the smile of the sea. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + OUR CAPE COD HOME + + + O ancient Cape Cod house whose drooping eaves + Prim as the bonnet of a Pilgrim maid + Are sere and grey as Autumn’s driven leaves, + What comfort seems to drowse beneath their shade + Comfort that fairly drips like Heaven’s own dew - + The tranquil calm that our forefathers knew. + + How many gales about those eaves have roared, + How many summer heats have come and gone, + And left their imprint on each weathered board + Time seasoned and discolored, handed on + To younger generations. Quaint and queer + You seem, but O your wealth of homey cheer! + + Your architects were of a sombre breed, + Their doctrines gnarled and knotty to the core, + And yet you gave them refuge, ’twas their need; + What battlemented towers had yielded more? + A treasure galleon, in your roomy hold + Were sanctuary from the storm and cold. + + And beauty thralled them too, those builders dour, + Though beauty was to them, sedate and plain; + They wrought in harmony with marsh and moor + In simple lines, and time’s enduring stain + On crumbling shingles, where the lichens grow + To mingle with the greys their golden glow. + + With broad axe and with adze those builders wrought + And in the wilderness foundations laid + For our great nation. Liberty they sought + With toil and thrift - sound virtues roughly made + Of homespun stuff, quite like the clothes they wore + As out of fashion as your buckled floor! + + The times were hard, the men who lived them rude, + They lacked the many luxuries we know; + The life within your walls was drab and crude, + At least our demagogues have told us so; + And yet along your pathway rimmed with flowers + How shallow flows this flippant life of ours! + + The new apartment in the city’s maze + Has fixtures that your age had never seen, + Machine made gadgets, till our very days + Seem spun for us, upon a vast machine; + And we ourselves an inconspicuous part + Of some grim Frankenstein without a heart. + + Caught in the maelstrom of the times we strive + To please our gods of gold with feet of clay; + Exchange your solace for a noisy hive; + Clutch at the shell and throw the pearl away; + And your unbounded views of ocean’s foam + Shut out with walls that never can be home. + + O quaint old Cape Cod house, precarious link + Between the past and present, Life, no doubt, + Means progress, - so at least we’re taught to think + Though often wonder what ’tis all about - + But as we smile at customs you have known + How are the angels saddened at our own! + + + + + THUNDER STORM OFF RACE POINT + + + Beyond the dunes what monstrous shapes are these + Like Titans rearing out of the abyss + To menace heaven? Terrible they loom + Upheaving with their shoulders till the sky + Is warped and yielding, and the trampled sea + Pales into death white foam. Impending doom + Sweeps to engulf the world, when flash on flash, + As far heat lightnings glint on burnished arms, + The wild Valkyries come! Their jet black steeds + Outpace the furious winds; and hark, the stroke + Of Thor, the Thunder God! His hammer dread + Splinters the silence, crashing downward, stuns + The firmament. That glare that blinds the eye + Is Woden’s Sword! It pierces coil on coil + Night’s writing dragon, pouring forth its flood + Of venomed gloom. + Redoubled is the din + The powers of Tartarus and Heaven locked, + In mortal strife. The adamantine base + Foundationing the everlasting hills, + And the resounding archways of the sky, + Reverberate and tremble! + Wildly burst + Like pent up tears, the rains that hurtle down + Sodden with chill; while whimpering, the surge + All tempest frayed and besomed, choked with sobs, + Fingers the whining sands. + Ages it seems, + Tumultuous aeons, e’er the torrents cease + And tides of blackness ebb. Far out to sea + The mighty conflict drifts, the thunders die + As scorpion whips of forked lightnings scourge + The cringing giants of the cloud that flee + Down to their dungeons in the vasty deep; + While o’er their tatters rides the full orbed moon + Glorious, resplendent like the shield of Mars, + Triumphant o’er the terrors of the storm. + + + + + TO A SCRIMSHAWED WHALE’S TOOTH + + + Quaint relic that the mellowing years + Have tinged with Autumn’s ripened gold, + What scene of olden time veneers + Your ivory surface smooth and cold! + Hard bitten by some huge sperm whale + You often gored the giant squid, + That nightmare of the deep, amid + Unfathomed gulfs of crag and vale. + + Remotest seas, their bounds unknown, + That old bull whale was wont to cross + By ways uncharted, he alone, + Shared with the wandering albatross. + Marauder savage and morose, + He spurned the waves in pride and wrath, + No killer dared dispute the path + The monarch of the ocean chose. + + Then came the whaler’s crew - and this + Lone carven fragment now remains + Of all his bulk, that the abyss + Long since engulfed. Yet it explains + A graphic story. Clothed with life + Its dead white surface - line by line - + Unfolds in intricate design + A sailor’s dreams - etched by his knife. + + Through many an hour of summer haze + While the long swells rocked languidly + His patient fingers graved that maze + Of intertwining tracery. + And that sweet face with hair so trim, + Love’s arrow, and two hearts that bleed, + What touching romance we may read + In “H to J” - to Her from Him. + + Old Time united them we trust - + Initials linked but separate - + Though both long mingled with the dust + Their story we may still translate + From this rude sketch. Devotedly + They passed a lifetime richly blest + And safe at home, together rest + In sad, sweet graves beside the sea. + + Or did perchance, Fate intervene + To bow that head in sorrow low + For lover lost - what came between + Those twain we cannot hope to know. + The sadness of a far off day + The fading of a golden dream + Dim memories, how fresh they seem + To ever youthful H and J! + + Enshrined as on a magic page + A clasp knife for his only aid, + Still fondly lingers age by age + The love a sailor bore a maid. + His name, nor hers, no one can say, + No evidence besides, endures, + But silent eloquence like yours + Immortalizes H and J! + + + + + THE CREEPING FOG + + + Rolling in from the sea, rolling on + Ghostly floods chill as death, in the dawn + Swallow up all the world in their sweep + As the grey currents stealthily creep + Over marshland and dune, while the sun + Dripping mist, scarce proclaims day begun + To a landscape all eerie and wan + Drowned in fog, rolling in, rolling on! + + Trees by oceans of droplets bedimmed + Loom like shapes that our fancy has limned; + Beacons set where the weird torrents range + Through invisible channels and change + All the loved, olden landmarks we know, + Till dissolved in that strange overflow + Earth and sky seem to blend and begin + In the fog’s swelling tide, rolling in! + + + + + WOODEN SAILOR + + + Wooden sailor swinging war clubs + On my lawn with furious tempo, + Like the Don of Spanish legend + He of old, who braved the windmills + Looming up like giants, charged them + Splintering his lance and bruising + His frail bones on mad illusions; + You resemble him - bold warrior, + Struggling with the summer breezes, + Lunging at the clouds above you. + + But your ludicrous gyrations + In my yard, your droll gymnastics + Point a world of deeper meaning, + For we too, are often harried + By imaginary perils; + Spend the years in aimless striving + Wearying the heart and sinews + On fantastic undertakings; + Cursed by impotent endeavor + Unproductive, never-ending. + + If we smile at your contortions + Toiling furiously for - nothing + It is less in mirth than sadness. + For I fear we fail to equal + Your stout heart and resolution + Wigwagging your bold defiance. + Yes, while we are battling shadows, + Wasting life in futile effort, + Can we wonder that the angels + Grieve in Heaven at our folly? + + + + + THE DREAMER + + + He lounges on the wharf and whittles pegs + While his pathetic gaze drifts out to sea, + Around him fishnets, anchors, empty kegs + And coils of rope are stored. His revery + Though deep, is sometimes broken by a sigh + As strange lights kindle in his faded eye. + + A shapeless hat seems floating on his hair + Of wavy white. His clothes are patched and worn + His fingers palsy shaken, and an air + Of pathos and of helplessness forlorn + Enfolds him, as he lays his pipe aside + And gazes sadly at the ebbing tide. + + His vision seems athirst to drink its fill + Of ocean’s mystery that he loves so well, + For he has lived adventure, lives it still, + Though age, long since, has yielded to the spell + Of brooding calm. No idle dreamer he, + His thoughts are busied on some far off sea. + + Stern old Magellan and Sir Francis Drake + Heard tales from just such ancient sailor men, + Tales that inspired a zeal to undertake + Those stirring voyages beyond the ken + Of their small world. Discoverers bold, - and yet + They steered the course some unknown dreamer set! + + + + + THE CHANT OF THE NIGHT WIND + + + O the wind in the chimney place thrums a wild strain + A chant that no mortal has known, + And my soul deeply stirs at its eerie refrain + In my dim lighted chamber, - alone. + + For strange lifting cadences mark its sweet song + With gladness and beauty and fear, + Till chords, long forgotten, in memory throng + Like a shell that I press to my ear. + + O where have you wandered, melodious breeze + That sounds such a magical note, + Have you winged on your journey, o’er limitless seas + From some Ultima Thule remote? + + A region no mortal may ever explore + Whose legended boundaries lie + On foam whitened beaches and sinister shore + And crags that are gnashing the sky! + + Where ice fields aglow in the dark of the moon + Reflect the volcano’s red glare - + We may ponder and doubt - but our souls are in tune + To the verve of that uncanny air! + + For the spirits of night strum their wild elfin lyres + And they harp on invisible strings, + While a music, unearthly, floats down from those wires + Like the tremulous flutter of wings. + + For those notes so elusive, so mystically sweet, + We may sense but their vague undertone, + For they baffle our hearing, so faintly they beat + On the verge of the audible zone. + + O restless and fitful, those wandering airs, + As the sad breezes sigh to the rain, + Then dying, evasively mock at our prayers, + For silent, we hear them again! + + ’Tis the music of elfland that rings in our ears + With its haunting notes witching and low, + Like the voices of friends that have gone with the years + Or the echoes of songs long ago. + + + + + MIDNIGHT + + + In the dead watches of the night + As time drifts by on endless flight, + Drowsing upon our couch we hear + A distant clock sound faint but clear, + And chiming from its lonely tower + Ring out the solemn midnight hour. + + That warning stirs the unquiet air + A golden day has flown - but where? + Another burns to greet the dawn + But one day has forever gone - + And pendulum and iron tongue + Their mournful requiem have sung. + + Aghast the present moment flies + Midway between eternities, + As, winging on without a stay + Tomorrow flees from yesterday, + And vanished moments that have been + Will never come to us again! + + + + + THE GOLDEN ROD + + + What dazzling shape is this that seems to rise + At the command + Of some magician, till it glorifies + The barren sand? + + A stately canopy for some proud elve! + And that rich sheen + The grand creation of the gnomes that delve + Grotesque, unseen, + + In caverns dim. There while the forges ring + To blow on blow + Those humble artisans are burnishing + That wondrous glow! + + How gorgeously the molten yellow gleams + As they combine + The sand’s bright ore with sunlight’s minted beams + In rare design. + + Until the wealth that jade green leaves disguise + And buds enfold! + Wells upward with resplendent ecstasies + In jets of gold! + + Fountains that o’er the sterile desert play + Erect and tall + With pendent droplets from their golden spray + That never fall. + + Oases of enchantment where the bees + And beetles come, + To mingle with the murmur of the seas + Their drowsy hum. + + Such splendor glitters in each regal nod + Of gilded bloom + We pause in doubt; is this the golden rod, + Or seraph’s plume? + + A scepter, or perchance a magic wand + For elfin kings? + Our fancy pictures in each jewelled frond + Fantastic things. + + And still our wonder grows, and a vague fear + Of regions banned + Steals o’er us--lest our footsteps draw too near + To fairyland! + + + + + WILD ROSES + + + Whence comes that swooning fragrance on the air + That riot of rich color on the hill + Like smouldering embers? red, deep red, and fair + They are, beyond our groping words. We thrill + To inner surgings of unuttered things + When we behold, strewn o’er this alien lea + Exotic bloom that to our spirit sings + In perfume sweet as lifting melody, + Fresh from immortal Eden’s radiant bowers + Where angels coveted our earthly flowers. + + Like elfin torches tipped with odorous fire + Raining their ashen petals on the grass, + These flowering censers rouse a wild desire + For beauty yet unseen, in those who pass + This solitary way. O incense sweet! + The bees are drunken with it, the wild bees + And dragon flies that hunt this still retreat + Far from the world of men. Is it for these + That Nature lavishes her perfume rare + To scent this moorland waste and wandering air? + + Wild roses, O but they were meant to be + More than the sweet companions of an hour; + Theirs is a loftier role, their destiny + In this sad world, to glorify the power + Of beauty welling up beyond the range + Of mortal view. Strange ecstasies concealed + Aforetime from our blighting frost and change + Aurora’s swinging gates have here revealed; + Such perfect beauty as the seraph knows + Hid in that floral miracle - a rose. + + + + + THE COAST GUARD STATION + + + Stout fortress on the battle line + Of shrieking winds and thunderous surge, + A barbican against the brine, + A challenge to the breakers’ dirge; + Not all the wild Atlantic’s wrath + Can bar your men from life boats frail, + Nor all the fury of the gale + Can swerve them from their destined path! + + The churning foam may pelt and freeze, + The stinging sleet cut to the bone, + They venture forth on perilous seas, + They venture forth, unsung, alone. + Like knights of olden time arrayed + In oilskin armor, theirs the role + To battle with the raging shoal + And beard the tempest unafraid! + + No martial strains ring in their ears, + No banners blaze their desperate way; + Only a wife or mother peers + From distant sand dunes through the spray. + And yet no crown that fame may give + Can e’re transcend the solemn pride + Of men, whatever may betide, + Who risk their lives that men may live. + + + + + KEEPER OF THE LIGHT + + + Aloft within the beacon tower alone + She trims the lamps that send their luminous beams + Far out into the night. The eerie moan + Of the wild shoal is smothered by the screams + Of winds that make the thrumming walls resound + With deafening din. She listens, mute with dread, + To voices mingling vaguely in the sound + Of the storm maddened waves, and shakes her head. + “Is it the waves?” she mutters. Bent and old + Her fingers tremble so,--but not from cold! + + Her husband tosses on his cot below + Burning with fever, often calls her name. + But she must stand his watch though none may know + Of her long vigil. Vestal of a flame + Whose warning beams guide mariners aright + Mid perilous reefs, through all engulfing gloom + Though unclean spirits rage throughout the night + Riding the furious winds in rain and spume, + No matter if she shivers and turns pale, + Her courage, like her light, endures the gale. + + But what drives hard like spray against the glass + Hurtling from out the dark? a tiny form + With battered wings, a tern which flees, alas, + Like some lost soul from the pursuing storm + Dashed to the rocks below. “Dear God!” she cries + “Why must my light that points great ships the way + “Be blooded by his piteous sacrifice? + “Life saving beams, who gave them power to slay? + “How hopelessly must good and evil blend + “When harmless birds meet such a cruel end.” + + + + + ON CHATHAM BARS + + + On Chatham bars the surges moan + And sea birds cry; + A gull goes winging stark and lone + Across the sky; + While on the shore, with menace low, + Mutters the seething undertow. + + O’er Chatham bars a frighted cloud + Goes driven fast; + The shoals are answering hoarse and loud + The roaring blast, + And joining that wild revelry + Of frenzied winds and raging sea. + + Through blinding sands with bended head + The coast guard goes + By Chatham bars, in silent dread + For well he knows, + That surf may leave, on its retreat, + Some ghastly trophy at his feet! + + On Easter morn the mourners stand + On Chatham hill, + To chant again His high command, + Of - “Peace be still” + And scatter flowers upon the wave + To drift above some nameless grave. + + For Chatham bars are silent now + On Easter Day, + Before that solemn group who bow + Their heads and pray + To Him, the Risen One, Who said, + “Then shall the sea give up its dead.” + + + + + THE OLD TIMER’S LAMENT + + + O where is the Cape that I used to know + In the quaint old days of the long ago? + The weathered house with its friendly smoke + From the looming background of silver oak; + And the huge brick oven that flanked the grate + Where the fireplace yawned like the flaming gate + Of a fairy world to my childish gaze + While the russets sputtered before the blaze-- + Was there ever such comfort and homey cheer + As the Cape that my memory holds so dear? + + There were braided rugs on the sanded floor + And that queer round cellar--what bounteous store + Of pickle and relish and sweet preserve + Seemed overflowing each ample curve! + What jars of berries and stewed beach plum + And jugs--half hidden--of cherry rum-- + And jugs that frothed with potato yeast, + And the dainties saved for Thanksgiving’s feast + I think of them often and sigh--“Heigh-ho” + O where is the Cape that I used to know? + + And that open chamber and corded bed + Where I listened to pattering rain overhead. + Rope handled sea chests and leathern trunks + And models of clippers and Chinese junks, + And apples drying in clustered strings + With numberless other wonderful things. + No cave from the storied Arabian Nights + Was filled with more treasures and marvelous sights + Than our storehouse under the eaves could show-- + O where is the Cape that I used to know? + + And the fragrant gardens that memory links + With the olden days--O those sweet Cape pinks, + And the hollyhocks and the columbine, + And the savory herbs by the ivy vine, + With the fish nets drying along the slope + Mid tangles of buoys and fresh tarred rope-- + Yes the modern gardens are trim and neat + But I often think--“Do they smell as sweet + “As those beds where the roses loved to grow?” + O where is the Cape that I used to know? + + The captains turned from the seven seas + To end their days in such homes as these; + And the tales they spun for my youthful ear + I have waited a lifetime their like to hear. + But they sleep where the mournful willows bend + O’er that silent city where voyages end; + Though their memory lingers in many a page + Of log books crumbling with salt and age, + And many a rare old curio-- + O where is the Cape that I used to know? + + But time flows on like the ceaseless tide + And cabins clutter the country side + Like nesting gulls. Where the horse, hock deep, + Once plodded the sands the autos sweep + Before my eyes in a dizzy blur + Of mad confusion and noise and stir. + For peace and quiet have never a place + In this modern world with its feverish pace + + With its movie glare and its radio-- + O where is the Cape that I used to know? + + + + + REVERY + + + Sweet angel of the backward look + And trailing wings, + We wander by Time’s restless brook + Of transient things + That from some far off, unseen nook + Forever springs. + + Old Time may lay aside his glass + For just a day, + Let not the jewelled moments pass + But bid them stay, + The while we stretch upon the grass + In revery. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + THE OLD HULK + + + Moored to the decaying piling + Of a ruined wharf, and whiling + Endless hours away in dreams of days gone by, + Lies a battered hulk, dismasted, + Broken backed and tempest blasted, + Like a dolphin fast aground and left to die. + + Deck awash and planking slanted + Like a broken lily planted + In the mud, where every tide the eddies swirl, + Years have gone since last it floated + And the sea growths all unnoted, + Underneath its rotting timbers twine and curl. + + Often when my footsteps tended + To that lonely shore that ended + All its voyagings there sounded in my ear, + What the shrilling sea birds uttered + And the voiceless current muttered + Solemn messages it meant for me to hear; + + “Far off seas no more beguile me + “But their memories reconcile me + “To the shelter of this silver mirrored cove + “Where my outline seems engraven + “Like an etching. Safe in haven + “I am home at last, and nevermore shall rove.” + + + + + THE MODERNISTS + + + Bam, wham! + Clangor of cymbals and shriek of a fife, + That stabs like a knife. + Zam, slam! + Bang on the tambourine, beat on the drums, + Symphony comes! + Greet her with tom-toms while savages dance, + Let any discord the riot enhance, + Down with all melody, harmony, poise, + Give us more noise! + Tonal inebriates, drunken with sound, + Pound, brothers, pound! + Furiously, frenziedly, round and around + Whirls the mad medley of ear splitting notes, + Like the yelling of demons with flame blackened throats. + + Music is stricken, is dying, ’tis said, + Over her head, + Set all the boiler works off on a spree! + Jazz and more jazz in a mad jamboree, + Music is dead! + + But still in the morning the song sparrow sings + And blithely she wings, + And from her gay throat a sweet melody springs, + Old as the Pyramids, new as the dawn, + Music will live when this madness has gone. + + Blah, blurb! + Pronoun and verb. + For poetry give us a barbaric yawp + Slop, Stop! + The stuff that some long haired Bohemian raves + Would make Keats and Tennyson turn in their graves + Miscalled free verse, + And trash that is worse. + Nothing too banal or trite or absurd, + Such is the artistic triumph preferred, + To melodies sung + When old Homer was young. + Out with the rhyming brook, limpid and pure, + Open a sewer! + + Let the nymph Poesy cover her face, + Downcast and blushing at such a disgrace. + Garbage of words and cesspool of thought + Columns and pages of rubbish and rot, + Only a blot! + + This is not Poesy spawned in the mire, + High on Olympus she still sounds her lyre + With the immortals. Her rapt, vibrant fire + Blasts like a flame + All the abortions brought forth in her name. + + Smear, daub! + Plaster on canvas an unsightly gob + Yellow and scarlet and purple and pink, + Looks like a mess that has spilled in the sink. + But call it a sunset o’er Harlem, in truth + Or a beautiful woman enamoured with youth. + Just a name, any name that you think of will do, + And if you insert a poor outline or two, + Be sure that you violate all the known rules. + The masters were fools! + For painting is only a sleep walker’s trance. + Walpurgis is with us so on with the dance! + For the forms that great Phidias carved out of stone + Misshapen monstrosities, muscle and bone + Now simper and leer, + At vapid admirers who openly jeer + At beauty of tinting or outline or form + And foment a storm, + Of sickly approval at each newest fright + That clutters our galleries, angers our sight. + For art is a blight! + + O that some genius great hearted and sane + Would banish such trash of a disordered brain! + For beauty will ever be noble and fine + And speaking through music or color or line + Her voice is divine! + + + + + WHEN THE LOCUSTS ARE IN BLOOM + + + When the locusts are in bloom + Every bud - a riven tomb + Yields a spirit form, emerging pure as snow, + Dancing lightly on the breeze + Like the foam on fairy seas, + Swinging like enchanted censers to and fro. + + And the moonbeams, white and chaste, + Through the branches interlaced, + How they seem to drip into each ivory cup, + Where anon, the summer heats + Mingle all those honeyed sweets + That the bee, with nectar drunken, loves to sup. + + Wondrous pendants set with gems + Clinging to the swaying stems + How each chalice overflows into the stream + Of the scented hours that glide + Down a timeless, golden tide + To the islands where the lotus eaters dream. + + So we idly float along + On the bluebird’s lilting song + To a region where the blossoms never die. + For through all the cloying hours + In the thralldom of the flowers + Fancy roams in far off cloudlands of the sky. + + + + + THE HARVEST OF THE SEA + + + It is harvest time in the teeming sea + And the surges labor tirelessly + Like toil bent reapers with sickles of foam + They garner the harvest and carry it home, + Till the beaches throb to the rhythmic beat + As they strew it in windrows at our feet. + + Slender strands like a whip lash, tear + At the cowering sands - ’tis the Dead-Man’s Hair + And the rockweed bulges with bulbous lumps + All yellow and brown, with the jagged stumps + Of kelp stalks wrenched by the undertow + From sunken glens where the sea things grow. + + Eel grass rolled by the waves at play + In fresh cut swaths like the new mown hay; + Lettuce that glints with a fragile sheen: + And Irish moss with its mottled green + And cream and purple and pink and brown + From the matted gulfs where sailors drown! + + Algae dyed like a fresh blown rose + Red is their telltale hue that glows + On the white sands edging the brooding sea. + A network of delicate imagery + Like the thin fine lines of an etching traced + That the blundering surges have not erased. + + Harvest from tide tilled fields that bloom + Deep down where the sunlight fades in gloom. + Gardens of sinister mystery + Under the waves of the heaving sea. + Gardens the living may never know + Where dead men drift in the ebb and flow! + + Jungles where fishes and creatures strange + Through the lush profusion may freely range. + Not for the living but for the dead + Are those fields submerged that we may not tread, + But their harvest is scattered within our reach + By the wild waves mourning along the beach. + + + + + BEACH GRASS + + + Tremulous as elfin lances + Are the thin shafts of the beach grass, + Blades and tufted points that quiver + Eerily to winds of midnight; + Magic strings on lyres enchanted, + Strings that strum a lilting cadence + Played upon by fairy fingers. + + Beach grass blades that whirl and struggle + In the clutch of boisterous breezes. + Needle tips that mark strange circles + In the cowering sands beneath them, + Tracings of a fairy stylus, + Runic etchings vague and ghostlike. + + Tenuous roots, like bamboo jointed + Delving, burrowing neath the surface + Of the rough hewn sand dunes moulded + By great Nature’s groping fingers; + (Waves and tempests are her fingers) + With their living network binding + Crumbling sands that melt and vanish - + In a woven web of fibre. + Threading with tenacious purpose + Mantles lovely and protective, + Till the battered landscape brightens + Smiles through scars and cruel gashes + Smiles in glossy, rippling beach grass + Undulating in the breezes + Like a field of ripened barley. + + Beach grass, desperate, clinging, gripping + Braving wrath of winter tempests, + Scourged by sands that sting like nettles, + Blinding clouds that lash and smother, + Wet with driven spume and frosted, + With the salt and oft half buried, + As the tortured dunes roll landward, + Uncouth monsters, struggling, straining + By the rage of Neptune driven + Stumbling, sprawling, lurching onward. + + But the beach grass, fragile, yielding + Like a seine whose mesh entangles, + Binds their heaving bulks together - + In a fibrous web of rootlets; + Gripping fiercely for each foothold + Yielding grudgingly and battling + Till the storm winds howl in fury, + And the baffled ocean smothers + Futile wrath in foam and roaring, + Till the lowly beach grass triumphs; + Holds in magic chains the forces + Of ungovernable chaos. + + Beach grass drawing life and nurture + From the sterile sands, a living + Energy from out the desert. + Hardy warrior, silent tamer + Of primeval urgings rampant, + Barrier to the clamorous ocean, + Staunch preserver of the landscape, + Not content with curbing surges + Or restraining restless sand dunes, + How you bless that sterile desert + With your wild and pensive beauty; + Cover o’er its savage harshness + With the mantle of your verdure + Till your patient, steadfast purpose + Glorifies the vanquished sea shore. + + + + + THE SWAMP HERON + + + “Quawk”, comes that harshly guttural note + In the night stillness, hear it? “Quawk”. + A hoarse “good hunting” from the throat + Of a night heron, feathered gawk, + Ungainly, droll, the awkward child + And threadbare outcast of the wild. + + ’Tis not his custom to intrude + Where others are, while on his way + To his beloved solitude + Nor has he overmuch to say; + His only greeting is a squawk + But filled with cheer, a friendly “Quawk”. + + Thanks, humble neighbor of the moors + For such philosophy is rare; + Though neither grace nor charm are yours + You envy no one, nor compare + Their lissome poise - your stilt like walk! + Their lilting song - your throaty “Quawk”. + + He knows, illfavored bird of night + The finest feathers in the dark + Are little worth, nor pleasing flight + Nor beauty’s form with none to mark; + Contented but to nightly stalk + His supper like a wise old quawk. + + + + + THE THROES OF CREATION + + + Crash and a smother of foam + Drowned in a booming roar! + That is the way the surge comes home + Pounding along the shore. + + Hiss and a seething tongue + Laps at the crumbling sand! + That is the way the sea has wrung + Room from the grudging land. + + Rasp of the undertow + As its white tongue flays the beach, + Flensing the pebbles to and fro + Into its treacherous reach. + + Ever the sob and moan + Of the tortured ledges rings + Grinding to dust and welding to stone + Ever the hammer swings. + + Never a solid ground + Nor a fixed and steadfast place; + Shoals new risen and islands drowned + Sculpture the landscape’s face. + + Thus were the corners laid + For the continents and the seas; + That is the way the world was made + Out of such conflicts as these. + + Up from the ocean’s bed; + Into the ocean cast + Surging through infinite ages ahead + Out of an infinite past. + +[Illustration: + + The Methodist Meeting House at South Truro was known to many old + timers as Hog’s Back Church. The following verses were written + while it was still standing, though long deserted and neglected. + But to those who knew and admired it, as I did, it deserves + something more than the simple granite slab that marks its site. + For it remains a lasting memory of a former era on old Cape Cod.] + + + + + HOG’S BACK CHURCH + + + Foursquare it stands! + A stalwart witness year by year + To courage steadfast but austere. + The toilworn hands + That shaped its beams and laid its floors + Are folded now. The toilers lie + In marble dotted rows nearby + Though some found graves on distant shores + And some were lost at sea! + This fickle, carefree world might heed + Those iron men of Pilgrim breed, + Though rude their lives and stern their bent + They built a during monument + To strict integrity. + + Foursquare it stands! + And gazes out o’er Pamet Bay + Once whitened by the sails that lay + Where now are choking sands. + The weathered houses prim and square + That marked the hillsides everywhere + Have disappeared, + But that old church in stately pride + Still dominates the countryside; + Is still revered. + + Foursquare it stands! + The dust upon the pulpit lies + Whence lurid texts and prophecies + Were hurled like burning brands. + No more the silent walls are stirred + By thunders of Jehovah’s wrath + That seekers for the “Narrow Path” + Once, trembling, heard; + They reverenced an awful Name + And glimpsed the pit of quenchless flame + In God’s own word. + + Foursquare it stands on hallowed ground + And from its lonely windswept height + A landmark like a beacon light + Its spire is seen for leagues around. + Though times may change, and changing creeds + Are modified to modern needs + Still staunch and true, + Memorial of a former age + It keeps the priceless heritage + From olden time to new. + + The plaster from the ceiling falls + On creaking floors, and in the dead + Of night there sounds the ghostly tread + Of phantom footsteps. But the walls + Still battle with the winter gale + That roars about the ancient spire, + Nor all its torrents can avail + To drown that spark of living fire - + The spirit of that temple set + On crowning heights, lest men forget! + + Foursquare it stands! + The bell, long silent, seems to ring + And to the world its message fling; + “I yield alone to God’s commands. + “Though all about may change, not I. + “True to my settled destiny + “I still remain. + “Though constancy be but a wraith + “Steadfastly I have kept the faith + “And shall maintain + “That faith, unfaltering, down the years + “Through all the shoals of doubts and fears, + “A lighthouse on that shoreless sea + “That broadens to Eternity”. + + There, like the Sphinx the old church broods + Among its deepening solitudes. + In simple grandeur let it stand + For years unborn, to bless the land, + And when its timeworn tower has gone + Still may its memory linger on. + + * * * * * + + _Struck by lightning in a thunder storm + on the night of March 21, 1940 and + totally destroyed._ + + + + + BEYOND THE POINT + + + A ridge of sand dunes barricades the rim + Of the horizon like a gilded bar + To roving sight; a lonely point, the brim + Of earth against the moaning surge. Afar + My glances wander, wistfull, ill at ease + From longing to explore those far off seas. + + The murmuring tide creeps up before my feet + And leaves a shell or two, a broken spray + Of strange sea growth; then to some chill retreat + In ocean’s depths it slowly ebbs away. + How blithely thought can trail the screaming terns + Beyond the boundaries that the eye discerns! + + On the horizon looms that point beside + The pathless main, a prison door to me; + For I would follow on that restless tide + To lands remote beyond a shoreless sea; + Through shimmering haze how like a magic wand + That dune ridged finger beckons me beyond! + + The rolling hills enclose me and the sky + Bends overhead, but these are different things; + Somehow they do not seem to press so nigh + As that wind fretted wall of sand that rings + My little world about, and intervenes + To shut my vision from enchanted scenes. + + And though in happier days I sailed those seas + Around the globe upon the buoyant trades + To Ceylon, Singapore and Celebes, + Beheld their fanes and trod their tropic glades + Those voyages leave me still unsatisfied + In this lone cottage where I now abide. + + Beyond the point what vistas of romance + Of golden kingdoms still their wealth unfold: + Though fettered by the bonds of circumstance + My failing vision and my limbs grown old + Among the embers of my memories + One lingering flame, adventure, never dies. + + + + + THE WINDS OF TIME + + + O the winds of time sweep the lonely years + Like withered leaves down the path of night, + And their notes, like a dirge, sound in our ears + As our eyes are strained for a glimpse of light. + And our sad heart utters a voiceless prayer - + Whence do ye come - ye bitter winds, + Where do ye go - O where? + + Through the swarming suns where the Zodiac’s blaze + Fades out in the awful deeps of space, + As you hurry us on your unknown ways, + Shall our feet leave never a trace? + Rushed from the light to the silent dark, + Tell us, tell us, O mocking winds + Is there a voice - O hark! + + And the wondrous things we planned to do + In those far off days when our hearts were young. + But the task was long and the hours were few + And the songs we dreamed of are still unsung. + Will our hopes fade out when the light is gone? + Whisper, whisper, O pitiless winds, + Is there another dawn? + + Where are the friends that we used to know? + Like the fallen leaves gone one by one. + And the scenes that we loved in the long ago + Faint shadows still in the setting sun. + They have gone - we go - for the wild winds rave - + “The path that ye tread in silent dread + Leads on to an open grave!” + + But those voices hushed, they linger yet + Like the haunting chords of a lost refrain. + And those scenes we can see with a sweet regret + Though their outlines are blurred they still remain + Shall they live - those things - in our groping brain, + Like the ocean’s surge in an empty shell + Nor live elsewhere again? + + + + + TO AN AGED WILLOW + + + Ancient willow, drooping low + Gnarled old trunk and withered bough. + Though they say you’re dying now + I can never have it so. + + Massive limbs against the sky + Wrestling with the winds of heaven, + E’en the thunder crashing levin + Like old Ajax you defy. + + Where your mournful branches bend + Countless birds their nests have made + Woodland songsters unafraid. + You, old willow, were their friend. + + And you sheltered me as well, + Often in the summer’s heat + Idly musing at your feet + I have felt your soothing spell. + + Rustling softly through the leaves + Pendulous to every air, + Peace and solace everywhere + Dripped like raindrops from the eaves. + + And the white clouds floating by + Bore me to the shores of dreams - + Blissful yet the memory seems - + Loved companion, must you die? + + No cathedral’s gloomy nave + Or cold monument for me, + Rather let me have a tree + As a marker for my grave. + + And the Land of Yet-to-Be + Where sun risen glories play, + May it see you clothed some day + In immortal greenery. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + THE OLD WOODS ROAD + + + It blunders off through ways obscure + The old woods road I used to tread, + Until its columned walls immure + The sunbeams dripping overhead. + + Through scented gloom it seems to wind + O’er fallen branches mossy green, + And leaving all the world behind + Gropes blindly toward a world unseen. + + The ancient wheel ruts disappear + With pine and scrub oak overgrown, + No creaking wain for many a year + Has trailed its coverts wild and lone. + + “I wonder where that old road goes?” + I hear some blithe young voices say + And I might tell them if I chose + “Back to the land of yesterday.” + + + + + THE POVERTY WEED + + + O the poverty weed is so shabby and poor + That she seems to disfigure the land, + The russet clad waif of the desolate moor + She buries her face in the sand. + + Her threadbare old mantle all faded and frayed + What beauty can ever adorn? + As she cowers in the background this shy desert maid + So lowly, despised and forlorn. + + But over that moorland in splashes of gold + Like sunbeams enriching the gloom, + What visions of loveliness seem to unfold + When the poverty weed is in bloom! + + Aglow are those hillsides once barren and lone + And golden those patches of green, + When this poor floral outcast comes into her own + And the blossoms all bow to their queen. + + + + + THE SWEEP OF THE TIDES + + + Out of the fathomless ocean + Shaking the earth with their strides, + Chaos resurgent in motion, + Battle the foam bearded tides. + Titans stupendous, upheaving, + Flouting the roaring Monsoon, + Hoarse with the joy of achieving + Freedom to reach for the moon. + + Titans whose dungeons are riven + Sped on their turbulent path, + Not by Poseidon driven + Nor by grim Eolus’ wrath, + Clamorous, never delaying, + Scouring the outermost dune, + Sullen but ever obeying + That mocking enchantress - the moon. + + Fundy is choked with their foaming, + Fiercely they snarl ’round the Horn, + Glinting like steel in the gloaming, + Patined with gold at morn; + White with the ice of the Behring, + Green with sargassum strewn + Wolves of the deep, never nearing, + But ever pursuing the moon. + + Round and around and forever + Dizzily circling the globe; + Torn by impassioned endeavor + Clutching, to touch but her robe; + Wraithlike that robe, but enduring, + Trailing her silvery lune, + Woven of moonbeams alluring, + Tracing the path to the moon. + + Formless, uncouth, terrifying, + Goading the indolent seas; + Breathing out clouds with their sighing, + Draining the deep of its lees, + Mountainous troughing and cresting, + Then calm as a coral lagoon, + Limitless yearning and questing + Madness bewitched by the moon. + + Monstrous caress of the ocean + Fondling the obdurate land, + Urged by abyssmal emotion + Granite may hardly withstand, + Beats of a world olden measure + Savage but roughly in tune, + Floodtime and ebb at the pleasure + Of that horned enchantress - the moon. + + Alternate plunge and upheaval + Strong as earth giants who strove + Grandly in aeons primeval + Braving omnipotent Jove; + Forces terrific, whose rages + Drown out the shrieking Typhoon + Storming through infinite ages + After a phantom - the moon! + + + + + LOST BILLINGSGATE + + + From Billingsgate the beacons’s flash + No longer stabs the quivering dark, + But fang like breakers foam and gnash + Above its sand bars ribbed and stark. + Where whispering grasses used to grow + And nesting terns their shelter made, + Now snarls the rasping undertow + And breezes mutter - half afraid! + + For it has gone like Lyonnesse + Of Arthur’s reign - enchanted realm + Of dreamy eyed forgetfulness + That saw the ocean overwhelm + Her shores, till e’en the towers were drowned + Where Merlin spun his evil spells, + And fishers startle - when the sound + Wells upward as from sunken bells! + + Yes, Billingsgate is lost to view + Beneath the all engulfing sea, + The lonely Isle the Pilgrims knew - + But still it lives in memory. + And sometimes in the dead of night + We hear the shoal bemoan its fate + Clothed in a shroud of breakers white - + The ghost of vanished Billingsgate! + + + + + TRANSFORMED + + + A battered thing it seems + That salt encrusted drift wood, but the skies + Showed never rainbow with more gorgeous dyes + Than gild that firelight’s beams. + + The cloud banks dull and grey + Far in the west, are but a canvas spread + For supernatural scenes in gold and red + When ends the dying day. + + The icy Frost King lays + His finger on the leaves and lo, the fires + Of fairy land on autumn’s funeral pyres + Seem everywhere ablaze. + + And so each inner trace + Of life’s deep grief and cankered bitterness + Is graven in those lines of kindliness + Upon an aged face. + + + + + HAUNTING ECHOES + + + The music dies upon the strings + But lingers on + Like other sweetly treasured things + Here once - and gone. + + The breeze that blurs the mirror pool + Cannot erase + The outline of the forest cool + Upon its face. + + The haunting fragrance of the flowers + Of yesterday + Not all the intervening hours + Can steal away. + + And loving friends we used to know + Nor e’er forget + Although they left us long ago + Seem with us yet. + + + + + LOST AT SEA + + + Through bushes half obscured, a marble slab + Peers out like a pale face. Inscribed upon + Its weathered surface that the lichen growth + And winter’s storms have blurred, a few brief words + The curious eye may spell with labored care. + To “H” and “M” - perhaps - and the terse phrase + So haunting in its stark simplicity + And pathos, - “Lost at sea.” The changeless gulfs + Of ocean knew the dead man mentioned here + Where bushes riot o’er an empty grave, + But what old friend remembers him today? + Ofttimes, no doubt, upon the wet sea sand + He traced his name in childhood, while the waves + Erased the halting script. Another hand + Has etched that name in form more durable; + But year by year, the ceaseless ebb and flow + Of time’s remorseless tides obliterate + The letters shrunken to initials faint, + And that last solemn statement - “Lost at sea”. + Much has been written on the vanity + Of human life, but never penned more tense + With meaning than this lonely epitaph + Set in a thicket on a crumbling stone. + + + + + THE ASPEN + + + Lonely aspen rising high + Straight and true you greet the eye. + Bent by every passing breeze + Weakest, slenderest of trees; + Yet what grace, what stateliness + Every leaf and twig express! + + Brittle limbs of little worth, + How from out thy meager girth + May we fashion wood for use? + What may be the frail excuse + For thy lovely shaft of green + On the verge of my ravine? + + But the aspen, wise and shy + Never deigned to make reply. + Swayed to every wandering air + Shed its beauty everywhere, + Till its friendly dignity + Made its message clear to me. + + God designed thee, aspen slim + Who am I to question Him? + In the mighty scheme of things + You and I play minor strings + Yet your part has been well done + Mine is only half begun! + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + THE SONG OF THE SEA GULLS + + + Hark how the sea gulls are screaming with glee + Piercing as Pipes of Pan! + Keening their songs to the beach and the sea + Sung since the world began; + O’er breakers combing in jubilant strife, + Flecked with their foaming and throbbing with life, + Here they come homing - O shrill as a fife + List to their wild elan! + + They are the spirits exultant and free, + Up in the clouds they belong. + Ever aspiring in skyland to be, + Theirs is the verve of the strong. + Here they go steering through canyons of air, + Onward careering, and eager to dare, + Scornful of fearing with never a care + List to the lilt of their song! + + + + + BROKEN FRAGMENTS + + + Only a bit of broken glass + Half concealed in the tangled grass, + But the sunbeam found a pathway through + On its arrow flight from the vault of blue + And straight through the weed grown thicket came + To touch that glass with its kindling flame. + + Only a sunbeam’s glinting gold + On a splintered bit that we now behold + Rich with crimson and purple sheen + Autumn yellow and vernal green + Until, transfigured, it glows arrayed + In the rainbow aura the sunbeam made. + + Only an old man bent and gray + Gazing into the far-away. + Human wreckage forlorn and lone + But his face with a sudden glory shone. + Was it the sunbeam’s magic wand + Or hidden splendors he glimpsed beyond? + + Only a bit of shattered glass, + And a poor old man that we idly pass, + But the shard like a diamond, glittered bright + And the time worn face suffused with light, + When the gates in the jasper walls swung wide + And those broken fragments were glorified. + + + + + WORKERS OF MAGIC + + + Immured in the downy cocoon + A marvelous artisan spins + With threads like the beams of the moon + So gossamer fine. Have the Djinns + Who dream in the mulberry trees, + O weaver beyond compare, + Bewitched with the shimmer of orient seas + Your fabric so lustrous and fair? + Toiler imprisoned who weaves and weaves + A silken glory from naught but leaves. + + To the mollusc, tormented, which holds + The irritant sand in his shell, + What radiant vision unfolds + Invoked by the mermaiden’s spell? + As he fashions that shape, and imbues + It with colors he never has seen, + With opalescent and rainbow hues, + A pearl with the fairylike sheen + Of the sea. O artist whom fate condemns + To gild with beauty this queen of gems. + + In his desolate attic alone + In the gloom of the midnight hour, + The poet, despondent, unknown + Is thrilled by that wizardly power + That the silk worm and pearl oyster feel + The urge to create! And his brain + Like the anvil resounding to steel + In a minstrelsy vibrant with pain, + Sends sparkles blazing through singing lines + As the verse with his burning thought combines. + + + + + MY GOLDEN FLEECE + + + When but a child my eyes would oft forsake + The blurring page, and through the window seek + Like an escaping bird, the wonderland + Of dreams, till my instructor, grave, enquired + “Wool gathering again?” So mid the halls + Of classic learning out into the world + Of bruise and bitterness but softening all + As summer haze dissolves the jagged peaks + And makes the deserts bloom - my fancy blithe, + Drinking the waters of eternal youth, + Has ventured many a lordly enterprise + Wool gathering down the years. + Now older grown + Calm in the tranqil gloaming of my life + I dwell apart, the while my mellow lamp + With tapestry of shadow drapes the wall + And e’en the crickets shrilling greets my ear + Like pipes of Arcady. There friends long gone + Cluster about with gladsomeness, and scenes + From recollection gleaned or fancy limned + Expand my chamber to horizons vast + Till pensively I muse “Wool gathering still?” + + Bless all kind fairies of fond Memory’s brood, + Or those which grace Imaginations court, + For treasures such as these. Jason of old, + Who led his argonauts through seas of blood + Seeking the golden fleece, has set the course + For dreamers through all ages yet to come. + + O Hero legended, thine be the goal + My yearning eyes would glimpse. What cloudland slopes + Feed those immortal sheep whose fleeces bright + Are woven into dreams are ever hid + Beyond my ken. But the great quest is mine + To glorify the drabness of the years + Life’s sterile day by day. + One need not gain + The fabled hoard that marks the rainbow’s end + To feel, beholding that resplendent arch + A link with faery land. Wool gathering - yes + But rather say the guerdon wisdom brings, + The magic touch that gilds the commonplace + With beauty and delight, the lustrous threads + In life’s rough fabric drawn from fleece of gold. + + + + + THE LONE LILAC + + + Only a cellar broken + Down to a dimpled mound, + Of the olden time a token + In the brier entangled ground. + + And a lonely lilac vagrant + As a sunbeam lost in gloom, + Close by like a garland fragrant + At the door of a crumbling tomb. + + Full many a tree appearing + Has ploughed through the sodden loam + Where once was a fertile clearing + Protecting a friendly home. + + And sweet as the perfume welling + From the lilac over the way, + Was life in that quaint old dwelling + In that long forgotten day. + + Under the eaves, enfolded + It mothered its little brood; + But the sills long since have molded + To dust in that solitude. + + Now through the locusts treading + (A grove from a single one) + Like the virile banyan spreading + Neath the burning Indian sun. + + We can vision those fields in culture; + And the beds once bright with flowers, + Where a crow now sits like a vulture, + And broods through the sunlit hours. + + While stark through the verdure risen + Like the tides in the distant bay, + Through a cleft in its leafy prison + Peers the lilac over the way. + + Anon as the breezes bluster, + Then die and are strangely mute, + The echoing memories cluster + Like strains from a far off lute. + + We can almost hear the fingers + Strumming an elfin lay - + For the soul of that home still lingers + In the lilac over the way. + + + + + FRIENDLY LIGHTS + + + Welcome greetings through the dark + From the lamp light burning clear + In some lonely home, a spark + Radiating warmth and cheer. + + Lighthouse darting from the lea + Flaming lances o’er the foam, + Wandering mariners at sea + You are guiding safely home. + + Glow worm on a summer night + Torch within an elfin hand, + Marking by your zig zag flight + Ways obscure to fairy land. + + Starry twinkle in the blue + To illumine worlds on high + Far off orb we share with you + Friendliness of earth and sky. + + + + + TO MY CHERRY BLOSSOM + + + From old Japan beyond the sea + A fairy vision beckons me, + A vale where cool the shadows rest + From Fujiyama’s towering crest, + A ruined temple’s crumbling wall + Lulled by a drowsy waterfall, + A shrine in whose corroding bell + Faint murmurs, long forgotten, dwell, + And Buddha, brooding day by day + Dreams the slow centuries away + In old Japan. + + There might the careworn find release + In calm Nirvana’s perfect peace. + There might the traveler inhale + The haunting sweetness of that vale, + An incense from the flowery gloom + Where clustering cherry blossoms bloom + In petaled purity that glows + Like Fujiyama’s drifting snows; + The fragrance of a far off clime + From some remote, forgotten time + In old Japan. + + There might I roam in fancy free + That Orient vale beyond the sea, + By Nippon’s shores an Eden seek + Neath Fujiyama’s storied peak. + But here, - where happier far, I’d be + A CHERRY BLOSSOM blooms for me. + I glimpse within her starry eyes + A nearer view of Paradise, + My Shrine and Eden is our home, + Nor need my wandering fancy roam + To old Japan. + + + + + GRAINS OF SAND + + + Fine gleanings of the ledges, golden grains + That ponderous glaciers reaped long, long ago + From battlemented crags and furrowed plains + Grinding and crushing with resistless flow, + To mingle with the melting seas, and heap + Their flinty harvestings in windrows; strew + The granite kernels for the thunderous deep + To winnow endlessly and grind anew. + + Where are those lordly peaks that once defied + The fury of the gales, nor deigned to bow + To heaven’s own lightning? How the scornful tide + Washes about and putters with them now; + Yes, even my weak fingers have the power + To fashion as I will or idly thrust + Into a glass to mark the fleeting hour, + These grains of sand - some crumbled mountain’s dust + + + + + THE FUNERAL WREATH + + + There is a cottage trim and neat, + Who dwelt within I cannot say, + It seemed so homey a retreat, + My steps have often led that way. + But now a wreath is hung before + Its silent door. + + A funeral wreath of sombre tone + Where Death has shed a ray of gloom; + And someone mourns for someone gone + Within a vacant darkened room. + So eloquent of human grief + Is every leaf! + + Such is the laurel crown that waits + Our journey’s end through toil and tears; + The emblem grim that decorates + Your door and mine, e’er many years + So that some idle passer by + May wonder why! + + + + + MEMORY + + + She crouches in the caves of thought + Enchantress, brooding o’er the fire, + And those her mystic charms have sought + Shall sometime gain their heart’s desire. + With mumblings and averted gaze + She weaves her spells, while to and fro + Like shadows from the mounting blaze, + Upon the walls there come and go + The scenes of far off happier days + Faint visions of the long ago. + + The eastern tyrant steals in dead of night + Down rock hewn stairs and through an iron door; + And feasts his eyes by flaring torch’s light + Upon the wealth heaped on his treasury floor; + On bursting sacks of coin, caskets of gems + Scepters of ruby, diamond diadems, + A kingdom’s plunder. We, like him, have stored + Our hidden wealth, and memory keeps the key, + No jewels lustreless, are in our hoard + But trophies of a richer dynasty, + The sweet experiences that time endears + Sifted and winnowed gleanings of the years. + + With halting steps and labored breath we climb + The attic stairs and rummage sadly through + The toys and trifling things our childhood knew, + Until our brooding thoughts are lost to time, + And like the dust motes dancing in the beams + Come thronging memories through a mist of dreams. + + Forth from an aged tome there falls a flower + Faded and crumbling, yet its petals glow, + Once more in the sweet memory of that hour + When loving fingers gave it long ago. + + As through the spectral city of the dead + With downcast eyes and reverential tread + We note the broken columns and the urns + In marble draped, and e’er our gaze returns + To our own name graved on the granite bare + The death date blank - yet it will soon be there! + + Then Memory leads us with a sad, sweet smile + Among those grass grown mounds. On many a stone + Are names of those we loved - A little while + And we shall be with them among our own. + We seem to hear their welcoming voices ring; + A whisper comes - “O death where is thy sting?” + + Alone we came into this world - alone + We venture forth. And recollections fond + Are all that we may bear to the beyond + To lay, some day, before a great white throne! + + Our life has been a path forlorn that winds + Forever on through gnarled and twisted years + Of forest gloom. A path that memory finds + And helps us trace it backward through our tears. + + Upon a beechen trunk, deep in the bark + Two carven hearts by single arrow cleft: + How many years since youth, with ardent hand + Inscribed them there. Two hearts and one bereft! + + In the long autumn afternoons we go + By russet moors and watch the slanting rays + Bathe all the landscape with a golden haze + That melts its harsher outlines. Thus the flow + Of years has smoothed away each grief and pain + Of childhood and life’s later bitterness, + While Memory, with a witching tenderness, + Has glorified the things that still remain. + + In pensive revery our fancy turns + Out to the west where the red sunset burns, + Fain would we ponder when our sun may set + And yield to the sad sweetness of regret, + But Memory thrills with wild ecstasies + Before that miracle of blazing skies. + + In awe we gaze as lengthening shadows loom + And night peers forth. But Memory hovers near + We clutch her fingers in the deepening gloom + And trembling hang upon her words of cheer, + Till with a hopeful glance she points afar + Where, like a gem on velvet, gleams a star! + + We stand aghast beneath the vaulted dome + Aglitter with creation’s rhapsodies + The countless stars. And let our fancy roam + Through space unfathomed, past the Pleiades + Out to the deeps beyond. Until the veil + That shuts us from the past seems strangely stirred + And recollections vague - beyond the pale - + Flit through our brain, half thoughts confused and blurred. + A former life upon some sunnier sphere! + Things long forgot and dimly sensed again + Far off, for one rapt moment hover near. + We strive to clutch them, but we strive in vain. + Does Memory mock us, or in fear perchance + + Shield us from some grim Terror’s Gorgon glance + That glares unseen, from out the dark! Farflung + A wisp of cloud darts like a dragon’s tongue + And laps Orion’s belt. At glowing dawn + The constellations fade - the veil is drawn! + + The blood stained trail of history winds away + Through ruined cities and past crumbling walls + Half buried, where the tottering columns sway + To winds that blunder through the vacant halls. + Beyond lie relics of remoter time + Dolmens and cromlechs, monoliths of stone + Inscriptions weird and uncouth monsters carved + On cavern walls, and bits of splintered bone + Traced when the hairy mammoth ranged among + Wild fens and woodlands when the world was young. + + For all the runes inscribed on History’s page + As Time’s slow finger etched them age by age + For our dim eyes to see, + Are but the priceless, deathless heritage + Of Memory. + + The traveler venturing into deserts grim + That shimmer on the hot horizon’s rim, + Does battle with the demons of the heat + While sands like burning fingers, claw his feet + But other wayfarers have braved the wrath + Of scorching wastes - their bones still mark the path! + + Our counsellor and guide, calm Memory holds + The golden balances whose scale unfolds + The wisdom of the tried - experience true. + The balance trembles, what ought we to do? + It dips, it falls, the standard points the way + Today’s decisions rest on yesterday. + + Upon the shores of Time’s vast sea we stand + And peer into the gathering mists that rise + Dark and portentious before our eyes, + While through our fingers slip the grains of sand. + We know the waves advancing, will not stay + But wash our stumbling footprints all away. + + Into that sea have sailed the winged hours + Like argosies by youthful fancy sent + On joyous quest to some far Orient + Created in our dreams, pagoda’d towers + To bold adventure beckoning gaily on, + While tropic skies lent their romantic lure. + But those exotic hours, alas, have gone + And broken memories alone endure. + + O time may rob us of our dearest friends. + But not our memories! The present blends + Into the vanished vistas of the past. + Riches have taken wings but at the last + A pittance left us. Old, we yet may drink + From youth’s eternal fount. A golden link + Still binds us with the loved we see no more. + The lamp lit circle on our chamber floor + Our little kingdom bounds. Within its space + Our eyes, through Memory’s magic, see a face + That shed, long years ago, a reliance there, + A form adorned that graced a vacant chair. + How rich and full was life, how barren now! + Forsaken in our poverty we bow + To Fate’s decree. But in despairing mood + Kind Memory, pitying, shares our solitude. + + Are memories but the vain desire + For happier hours that once were mine? + The embers of a dying fire. + The dwindled lees of life’s rich wine? + Or echoes from a seraph’s lyre + But lightly touched by hands divine? + + + + + THE STOKER + + + _While a student at college, I voyaged to Naples in the steerage + of an Italian liner. That was long before the days of the modern + oil burner and the engine room was a fair reproduction of Dante’s + Inferno. One afternoon a young stoker, begrimed and perspiring, + crept up the iron ladder from the stoke hold and sat for a few + minutes gazing out of an open port. His wistful face remains a + vivid memory and occasioned the following lines._ + + + Framed in the iron port there looms a face + That Rembrandt’s stilus or the sombre muse + Of Dante might have etched. Pale cheeks and eyes + That gaze unseeing, out - a forehead damp + With sweat and smeared with grime - a haunting face + Through which there peers in wistful apathy + A parched and withered soul. Some stoker crept, + Gasping for air up from that hell below, + Of lurid fires and gloom, where engines groan + Like blinded Titans, and with giant strength + Shoulder the huge hulk forward through the brine. + + What thoughts beguile the furrows of that brow + Does he perchance, recall the sunlit days + Of childhood in some cottage gay with flowers + Where Italy, enthroned among her rocks + Broods o’er her vanished grandeur? Does the spell + Of romance conjure up the golden past + When his proud forbears bore the pomp of Rome + To seas remote, when Roman legions ruled + The servile world? Did he in flaunting crest, + And burnished armour tread the galley deck? + Or did a scourging destiny condemn + His pain wracked shoulders to the oaken oar? + + To his dulled ears float strains of music sweet + From gilded cabins where the zest of life + Enthralls the voyagers, while his the hand + That drives the moving palace on her course + Through seas of shimmering light. A gnome begrimed, + Breathing foul dust and blistered by the heat + In caverns far below. A galley slave + Heaving and straining at a deadlier oar - + An iron bar that burns the calloused palm. + + Whene’er the furnace gapes its dragon jaws + And blasts him with its breath, with reckless hand + He flings his youth into that Moloch’s maw! + And his reward? O bargain infamous + A mess of pottage for a birth right riven + Like Esau’s ancient sin. Repulsive fare + A stinking hole to kennel like a cur + Battling with vermin, foul and desperate + Too bitter punishment for branded crime. + + Chained by the manacles of circumstance + To Vulcan’s smoking forge, a fate more dire + Than once befell Prometheus wracked upon + His cross of crags on grizzled Caucausus; + With every shovel speed the winged hours + His hopes, his dreams, his life but sordid lumps + Of coal to feed those flames insatiate. + Then Death, the pitiful, brings welcome rest. + His body, warped and shrivelled, slides adown + The tilted hatchway, weighted at the feet + A burned out clinker cast into the sea! + + + + + IMAGINATION + + + Blest Being from some happier sphere + O bend thy luminous footsteps near + Were Heaven’s gates ajar, + When down a moonlit path you came + With dazzling smile and wings of flame + Fair as the morning star? + + Imagination, radiant sprite + With crescent crown and stars bedight, + And seraph’s eyes; + O guide us up that filmy stair + By ladders raised on buoyant air + To vaulting skies! + + Imagination is the singing rhyme + In life’s dull prose. + She blooms among the cruel thorns of time + A beauteous rose. + No Circe’s spell is hers, the poppy’s lure + From present pain + In drug engendered dreams; but calm and pure + Is her sweet reign. + Her finger traces in the storm cloud gray + The rainbow’s arc; + She sees within the gnarled volcanic clay + The diamond’s spark; + Forecasts the harvests in the sodded rows + The plough shares fling; + When all the world is buried neath the snows + She dreams of spring. + The cave man followed up the savage road + The torch she bore, + She marks within life’s rock encumbered lode + The glinting ore. + Imagination melts in purple mist + The jagged peaks; + And petty things yield to this alchemist + The gold she seeks. + No priestess of illusions, vague, unreal + And not of earth, + She rather helps us know and see and feel + A thing’s true worth. + + Along the wistful trail of yesterdays + Backward sad Memory directs her gaze + And points her withered hand. + “Tomorrow” is the magic word that cheers + Imagination onward through the years + Where lies her promised land. + + Imagination only can explain + Those jewelled etchings on our window pane + By fairies of the frost; + From icy peaks and breaker fretted seas + To elven glens beneath snow laden trees + So cunningly embossed. + + Calm reason tells us there is nothing there + But mists congealing in the frosted air; + ’Tis false, calm reason lies. + For in that witching square the eye beholds + A glittering world of wonder that unfolds + Its luminious mysteries. + + Imagination plumbs the deeps of space + To roam among the stars, + She gilds the workshop, lights the market place, + And sunders prison bars. + Her inspiration made Da Vinci thrill + And o’er his canvas shone, + And Michelangelo’s god like visions still + Endure in living stone. + + Beyond the sunset’s molten lava flood + Lie mysteries yet untold - + Imagination sails those seas of blood + And mounts those walls of gold. + Her finger laid on blind old Milton’s eyes + Kindled no earthly glow - + And deaf Beethoven thrilled to melodies + No mortal ear may know. + + Imagination decks the naked tree + With candles burning clear, + Until transfigured by her witchery + It blooms with Christmas cheer. + Life’s pathway leads us to the yawning tomb + And there it seems to end - + Imagination peering through the gloom + Sees visions that transcend. + + Imagination marked the goal + That fired Columbus’ burning soul, + Till like a vision through the haze + A new world burst upon his gaze + That voyage of destiny. + + And ancient chroniclers relate + Magellan, groping through the strait, + Beyond the blue horizon’s rim + Saw far off islands beckon him + Out to an unknown sea! + + “Imagination rules the world” so said + The great Napoleon, and at the head + Of conquering armies drove his ruthless way + Made Afric sands and Russian snows obey + His iron decrees. Upon an Alpine height + Poised like an eagle, terrible as night, + He swooped on Italy. His boundless reign + Was the creation of his lonely brain. + + On upstart thrones he set his underlings. + Like puppets played with kingdoms and with kings - + His fingers marked their bounds, his will their power + Earth’s dictator, in that tremendous hour + He dreamed like Lucifer, as grandly wove + His dreams into realty, then strove + For Godlike heights, and from those heights was hurled + And in his meteor fall amazed the world! + + The naked truth itself is never true. + Stern facts are but the skeleton that binds + Our living fancies. If we seek to view + Truth absolute, her grisly horror blinds + Our eyes, for her’s is but the mocking skull, + Stark, hideous, the poor grain’s withered hull + After the kernel dies. The glance, the smile, + Expression, character, the soul beguile + When, taking form o’er Truth’s repellent base + Imagination beams with radiant face. + + Imagination is the martial strain + That fires disheartened soldiers for the fray; + Her pitying fingers smooth the brow of pain, + She whispers low, - “This too, shall pass away.” + Her’s is the vision, the all seeing eye + That pierces where truth’s nuggets lie concealed. + Illusions crumble at her query, “Why?” + The Sphinx’s ancient wisdom is revealed + To her clear sight. She holds the golden key + That can unlock the guarded door of fate. + She is the lodestar of our destiny, + Her’s is the Godlike impulse to create. + The treasure that Prometheus once stole + From Heaven’s high altar is her sacred fire; + To the insensate clod she is the soul, + The Phoenix risen from the funeral pyre! + + The atoms spin, the elements adhere + Till matter forms like mold: and vaunted life + A fungus growth upon a dying sphere + Whirls on into the dark. “The futile strife + “Of some vast mechanism’s grinding gears.” - + Grim science tells us - but the vision comes + Of life immortal ranging down the years + Through endless vistas of milleniums! + + + + + IN WELLFLEET BY THE SEA + + + “Why do you dwell in Wellfleet by the sea?” + Inquires some wondering friend, + “Is this quaint village in the dunes the end + To life’s bright trail, the world that you have known + Shut out behind you? From a weed draped stone + “A barnacle might thus survey the sky, + “As the grand pageant of mankind sweeps by.” + + To this I answer, “Not this quiet place + But vaster regions are his home as well + Who humbly seeks where the immortals dwell, + Those kingly souls of every clime and race. + The seven branching candlestick ablaze + With wisdom’s radiant light + Brightens his studious library at night + And sheds its all illuminating rays + Across the lengthening years, + Till loving presences sages and seers, + Are his true friends. Must he alone abide + With Socrates or Shakespeare as his guide? + + Art’s priceless treasures stored in Greece or Rome + The mighty masters limned + By the slow lapse of centuries undimmed. + Fade into nothingness beneath the dome + Whereon a mightier Artist graves His lines + And blocks His bold designs; + For He can etch with lightnings, and His dyes + Are wrung from clouds that drip with red and gold, + While silent watchers, awestruck, may behold + His wonders blazoned on the midnight skies. + + One need not dwell alone beside the sea, + There are no bars + To sunder Him who walked on Galilee + Or blur the vision of the loftiest stars + No solitary being, set apart, + Is he who feels the soul sustaining calm + Steal o’er his spirit like a healing balm + From Mother Nature’s all embracing heart. + + His dreams are lulled by the resounding sea, + The rhythm of the waves that never tire, + While sweeter than the strains of Orpheus’ lyre + The dying wind’s melodious minstrelsy, + Ranging this narrow bourne of surf and sand, + Seems echoing from the horns of fairyland. + + And when he strolls in solitude, the breeze + That breathes upon his face, + Was never curbed by this confining space, + For once it roamed the lonely Hebrides. + The murmuring tide + That swells the shallows of this pleasant bay, + Washed coral islands half a world away + And coursed through boundless oceans far and wide. + + Rather he looks with sympathetic eye + As with their faces tense and shut from heaven + By scorpion whips of fear and envy driven + The jostling multitudes of men rush by; + Spurning the bounties kindly Nature gave + As though in haste for an untimely grave. + + No shadows cast by avarice or pride + Darken this countryside; + That tyrant trinity, fame, wealth, and power + Have somehow lost their spell. Each passing hour + Bears costlier freight than theirs, the gifts divine - + Health, gratitude, content. Those gifts are mine + So why should reckless wastrels pity me + With all my wealth, in Wellfleet by the sea? + + + + + PRINTED BY THE CAPE CODDER PRINTERY + ORLEANS, MASSACHUSETTS + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + + Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected. + + Unusual punctuation has been retained as printed. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76602 *** |