Songs, Merry and Sad | Page 7

oblivion?Lend a new passion to thy life, far down?In the dim Stygian shadows wandering,?I will not know, but still will cherish there,?Where no change comes, thy love upon my lips.
Reminiscence
We sang old love-songs on the way?In sad and merry snatches,?Your fingers o'er the strings astray?Strumming the random catches.
And ever, as the skiff plied on?Among the trailing willows,?Trekking the darker deeps to shun?The gleaming sandy shallows,
It seemed that we had, ages gone,?In some far summer weather,?When this same faery moonlight shone,?Sung these same songs together.
And every grassy cape we passed,?And every reedy island,?Even the bank'd cloud in the west?That loomed a sombre highland;
And you, with dewmist on your hair,?Crowned with a wreath of lilies,?Laughing like Lalage the fair?And tender-eyed like Phyllis:
I know not if 't were here at home,?By some old wizard's orders,?Or long ago in Crete or Rome?Or fair Provencal borders,
But now, as when a faint flame breaks?From out its smouldering embers,?My heart stirs in its sleep, and wakes,?And yet but half-remembers
That you and I some other time?Moved through this dream of glory,?Like lovers in an ancient rhyme,?A long-forgotten story.
Sonnet
I would that love were subject unto law!?Upon his person I should lay distraint?And force him thus to answer my complaint,?Which I, in well-considered counts, should draw.?Not free to fly, he needs must seek some flaw?To mar my pleading, though his heart were faint;?Declare his counsel to me, and acquaint?Himself with maxim, precedent, and saw.
Ah, I could win him with authorities,?If suing thus in such a sober court;?Could read him many an ancient rhym'd report?Of such sad cases, tears would fill his eyes?And he confess a judgment, or resort?To some well-pleasing terms of compromise!
Lines
To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray?Above this page to-day,?Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,?Grows year by year more fair,
Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,?That haply passing time?May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay?When we have gone our way;
And, to strange men, weary of field and street,?Should this, my song, seem sweet,?Yours be the joy, for all that made it so?You know, dear heart, you know.
An Easter Hymn
The Sun has come again and fed?The lily's lamp with light,?And raised from dust a rose, rich red,?And a little star-flower, white;?He also guards the Pleiades?And holds his planets true:?But we -- we know not which of these?The easier task to do.
But, since from heaven he stoops to breathe?A flower to balmy air,?Surely our lives are not beneath?The kindness of his care;?And, as he guides the blade that gropes?Up from the barren sod,?So, from the ashes of our hopes,?Will beauty grow toward God.
Whate'er thy name, O Soul of Life, --?We know but that thou art, --?Thou seest, through all our waste of strife,?One groping human heart,?Weary of words and broken sight,?But moved with deep accord?To worship where thy lilies light?The altar of its Lord.
A Christmas Hymn
Near where the shepherds watched by night?And heard the angels o'er them,?The wise men saw the starry light?Stand still at last before them.?No armored castle there to ward?His precious life from danger,?But, wrapped in common cloth, our Lord?Lay in a lowly manger.?No booming bells proclaimed his birth,?No armies marshalled by,?No iron thunders shook the earth,?No rockets clomb the sky;?The temples builded in his name?Were shapeless granite then,?And all the choirs that sang his fame?Were later breeds of men.?But, while the world about him slept,?Nor cared that he was born,?One gentle face above him kept?Its mother watch till morn;?And, if his baby eyes could tell?What grace and glory were,?No roar of gun, no boom of bell?Were worth the look of her.?Now praise to God that ere his grace?Was scorned and he reviled?He looked into his mother's face,?A little helpless child;?And praise to God that ere men strove?About his tomb in war?One loved him with a mother's love,?Nor knew a creed therefor.
When I Go Home
When I go home, green, green will glow the grass,?Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pass;?Long lines of wood-ducks through the deepening gloam?Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass,?And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam,
When I go home.
When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash?The solemn woods above the bearded ash,?The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath clomb,?Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash,?And every orchard flaunt its polychrome,
When I go home.
When I go home and stroll about the farm,?The thicket and the barnyard will be warm.?Jess will be there, and Nigger Bill, and Tom --?On whom time's chisel works no hint of harm --?And, oh, 'twill be a day to rest and roam,
When I go home!
Odessa
A horror of great darkness over them,?No cloud of fire to guide and cover them,?Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread,?They crouch on alien soil among their dead.
"Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward,"?This was thine ancient covenant, O Lord,?Which, sealed with