Poems From The Breakfast Table | Page 9

left or
right,
In aimless, wayward curves it ran,
But always kept the door
in sight.
The gabled porch, with woodbine green,--
The broken millstone at
the sill,--
Though many a rood might stretch between,
The truant
child could see them still.

No rocks across the pathway lie,--
No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown,--

And yet it winds, we know not why,
And turns as if for tree or
stone.
Perhaps some lover trod the way
With shaking knees and leaping
heart,--
And so it often runs astray
With sinuous sweep or sudden
start.
Or one, perchance, with clouded brain
From some unholy banquet
reeled,--
And since, our devious steps maintain
His track across the
trodden field.
Nay, deem not thus,--no earthborn will
Could ever trace a faultless
line;
Our truest steps are human still,--
To walk unswerving were
divine!
Truants from love, we dream of wrath;
Oh, rather let us trust the more!

Through all the wanderings of the path,
We still can see our
Father's door!
IRIS, HER BOOK
I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee,
By thine own sister's
spirit I implore thee,
Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee!
For Iris had no mother to infold her,
Nor ever leaned upon a sister's
shoulder,
Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her.
She had not learned the mystery of awaking
Those chorded keys that
soothe a sorrow's aching,
Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were
breaking.
Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token
Why should her
fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken,
Like daffodils that die with
sheaths unbroken?

She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies,--
Walked simply clad,
a queen of high romances,
And talked strange tongues with angels in
her trances.
Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing:
Sometimes a
flashing falcon in her daring,
Then a poor mateless dove that droops
despairing.
Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her?
What were these
torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her?
Scornful as spirit fallen, its
own tormentor.
And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven,
Sweet Saints, and
Thou by mortal sorrows riven,
Save me! Oh, save me! Shall I die
forgiven?
And then--Ah, God! But nay, it little matters:
Look at the wasted
seeds that autumn scatters,
The myriad germs that Nature shapes and
shatters!
If she had--Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore.
Had the world
nothing she might live to care for?
No second self to say her evening
prayer for?
She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming,
Yet with her
shoulders bare and tresses streaming
Showed not unlovely to her
simple seeming.
Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher.
What if a lonely and
unsistered creature
Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature,
Saying, unsaddened,--This shall soon be faded,
And double-hued the
shining tresses braided,
And all the sunlight of the morning shaded?
This her poor book is full of saddest follies,
Of tearful smiles and
laughing melancholies,
With summer roses twined and wintry hollies.

In the strange crossing of uncertain chances,
Somewhere, beneath
some maiden's tear-dimmed glances
May fall her little book of
dreams and fancies.
Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee,
Trembling for fear her
open heart may shame thee,
Speaks from this vision-haunted page to
claim thee.
Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping,
Peace with her! she has
had her hour of weeping.
No more! She leaves her memory in thy
keeping.
ROBINSON OF LEYDEN
HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer
His wandering flock had gone
before,
But he, the shepherd, might not share
Their sorrows on the
wintry shore.
Before the Speedwell's anchor swung,
Ere yet the Mayflower's sail
was spread,
While round his feet the Pilgrims clung,
The pastor
spake, and thus he said:--
"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear!
God calls you hence from over
sea;
Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer,
Nor yet along the
Zuyder-Zee.
"Ye go to bear the saving word
To tribes unnamed and shores untrod;

Heed well the lessons ye have heard
From those old teachers
taught of God.
"Yet think not unto them was lent
All light for all the coming days,

And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent
In making straight the ancient
ways;
"The living fountain overflows
For every flock, for every lamb,
Nor
heeds, though angry creeds oppose
With Luther's dike or Calvin's

dam."
He spake; with lingering, long embrace,
With tears of love and
partings fond,
They floated down the creeping Maas,
Along the isle
of Ysselmond.
They passed the frowning towers of Briel,
The "Hook of Holland's"
shelf of sand,
And grated soon with lifting keel
The sullen shores of
Fatherland.
No home for these!--too well they knew
The mitred king behind the
throne;--
The sails were set, the pennons flew,
And westward ho!
for worlds unknown.
And these were they who gave us birth,
The Pilgrims of the sunset
wave,
Who won for us this virgin earth,
And freedom with the soil
they gave.
The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,--
In alien earth the exiles lie,--

Their nameless graves our holiest shrine,
His words our noblest
battle-cry!
Still cry them, and the world shall hear,
Ye dwellers by the
storm-swept sea!
Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer,
Nor on the
land-locked Zuyder-Zee!
ST.