Poems of Sentiment | Page 9

the hills and
hedges
It flutters away on the summer's track.
The shy little sumacs, in lonely places,
Bowed all summer with dust and heat,
Like clean-clad children with
rain-washed faces,
Are dressed in scarlet from head to feet.
And never a flower had the
boastful summer,
In all the blossoms that decked her sod,
So royal hued as that later
comer

The purple chum of the goldenrod.
Some chill grey dawn you note with grieving
That the King of Autumn is on his way.
You see, with a sorrowful,
slow believing,
How the wanton woods have gone astray.
They wear the stain of bold
caresses,
Of riotous revels with old King Frost;
They dazzle all eyes with their
gorgeous dresses,
Nor care that their green young leaves are lost.
A wet wind blows from the East one morning,
The wood's gay garments looked draggled out.
You hear a sound, and
your heart takes warning -
The birds are planning their winter route.
They wheel and settle and
scold and wrangle,
Their tempers are ruffled, their voices loud;
Then whirr--and away in
a feathered tangle,
To fade in the south like a passing cloud.
Envoi
A songless wood stripped bare of glory -
A sodden moor that is black and brown;
The year has finished its last
love-story:
Oh! let us away to the gay bright town.
SUN SHADOWS

There never was success so nobly gained,
Or victory so free from selfish dross,
But in the winning some one
had been pained
Or some one suffered loss.
There never was so nobly planned a fete,
Or festal throng with hearts on pleasure bent,
But some neglected one
outside the gate
Wept tears of discontent.
There never was a bridal morning fair
With hope's blue skies and love's unclouded sun
For two fond hearts,
that did not bring despair
To some sad other one.
"HE THAT LOOKETH"
Yea, she and I have broken God's command,
And in His sight are branded with our shame.
And yet I do not even
know her name,
Nor ever in my life have touched her hand
Or
brushed her garments. But I chanced to stand
Beside her in the throng! A sweet, swift flame
Shot from her flesh to
mine--and hers the blame
Of willing looks that fed it; aye, that fanned

The glow within me to a hungry fire.
There was an invitation in her eyes.
Had she met mine with coldness
or surprise,
I had not plunged on headlong in the mire
Of amorous
thought. The flame leaped high and higher;

Her breath and mine pulsated into sighs,
And soft glance melted into
glance kiss-wise,
And in God's sight both yielded to desire.
AN ERRING WOMAN'S LOVE
PART I
She was a light and wanton maid:
Not one whom fickle Love
betrayed,
For indolence was her undoer.
Fair, frivolous, and very
poor,
She scorned the thought of toil, in youth,
And chose the path
that leads from truth.
More women fall from want of gold
Than love leads wrong, if truth
were told;
More women sin for gay attire
Than sin through
passion's blinding fire.
Her god was gold: and gold she saw
Prove
mightier than the sternest law
With judge and jury, priest and king;

So, made herself an offering
At Mammon's shrine; and lived for
power,
And ease, and pleasures of the hour.
Who looks beneath life's outer crust
Is satisfied that God is just;

Who looks not under, but about,
Finds much to make him sad with
doubt.
For Virtue walks with feet worn bare,
While Sin rides by
with coach and pair:
Men praise the modest heart and chaste,
And
yet they let it go to waste,
And follow, fierce to have and hold,

Some creature, wanton, selfish, bold.
She saw but this, life's outer side,
No higher faith was hers to guide;

She worshipped gold, and hated toil,
And hence her youth with all
its soil,
With all its sins too dark to name,
Of secret crimes and
public shame,
With all its trail of broken lives,
Of ruined homes,
neglected wives,
And weeping mothers. Proud and gay
She went
her devastating way
With untouched brow and fadeless grace.
Not time, but feeling, marks the face.
Sin on the outer being tells

Not till the startled soul rebels:
And she felt nothing but content.



She was too light and indolent
To worry over days to come.
This
little earth held all life's sum,
She thought, and to be young and fair,

Well clothed, well fed, was all her care.
With pitying eyes and
lifted head
She gazed on those who toiled for bread,
And laughed to
scorn the talk she heard
Of punishment for those who erred,
And
virtue's certain recompense.
She seemed devoid of moral sense,
An
ignorant thing whose appetites
Bound her horizon of delights.
Men were her puppets to control;
Unconscious of a heart or soul

She lived, and gloried in the ease
She purchased by her power to
please
The eye and senses. Life's one woe
Which caused her pitying
tears to flow
Was poverty. Though hearts might break
And homes
be ruined for her sake,
She showed no mercy. But when need
Of
gold she saw, her heart would bleed.
The lack of clothing, fire, and
food
Was earth's one