In the silent west
Many sails at rest,
Their anchors fast;
Thither I pilot thee,-
Land, ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!
HELEN HUNT JACKSON (1831-1885)
Poppies in the Wheat
Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air, with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore. The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,
But I, I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.
My body, eh? Friend Death, how now?
Why all this tedious pomp of writ?
Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow
For half a century, bit by bit.
In faith thou knowest more to-day
Than I do, where it can be found!
This shriveled lump of suffering clay,
To which I now am chained and bound,
Has not of kith or kin a trace
To the good body once I bore;
Look at this shrunken, ghastly face:
Didst ever see that face before?
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art; Thy only fault thy lagging gait,
Mistaken pity in thy heart
For timorous ones that bid thee wait.
Do quickly all thou hast to do,
Nor I nor mine will hindrance make; I shall be free when thou art through;
I grudge thee naught that thou must take!
Stay! I have lied: I grudge thee one,
Yes, two I grudge thee at this last,-
Two members which have faithful done
My will and bidding in the past.
I grudge thee this right hand of mine;
I grudge thee this quick-beating heart;
They never gave me coward sign,
Nor played me once a traitor's part.
I see now why in olden days
Men in barbaric love or hate
Nailed enemies' hands at wild crossways,
Shrined leaders' hearts in costly state:
The symbol, sign, and instrument
Of each soul's purpose, passion, strife, Of fires in which are poured and spent Their all of love, their all of life.
O feeble, mighty human hand!
O fragile, dauntless human heart!
The universe holds nothing planned
With such sublime, transcendent art!
Yes, Death, I own I grudge thee mine
Poor little hand, so feeble now;
Its wrinkled palm, its altered line,
Its veins so pallid and so slow-
Ah, well, friend Death, good friend thou art:
I shall be free when thou art through.
Take all there is-take hand and heart:
There must be somewhere work to do.
[Her last poem: 7 August, 1885.]
PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE (1831-1886) Between the Sunken Sun and the New Moon Between the sunken sun and the new moon, I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran
With scarce perceptible motion, not a span
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune
Of sunset breezes: "O delicious boon,"
I cried, "of quiet! wise is Nature's plan,
Who, in her realm, as in the soul of man,
Alternates storm with calm, and the loud noon
With dewy evening's soft and sacred lull:
Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power;
Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful,
A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind."
A Little While I Fain Would Linger Yet
A little while (my life is almost set!)
I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray,
While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet:
A little hour I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger yet,
All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire; Though fervid youth be dead, with youth's desire, And hope has faded to a vague regret,
A little while I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger here:
Behold! who knows what strange, mysterious bars "Twixt souls that love may rise in other stars?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair:
A little while I still would linger here.
A little while I yearn to hold thee fast,
Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart; (O pitying Christ! those woeful words, "We part!") So ere the darkness fall, the light be past, A little while I fain would hold thee fast.
A little while, when light and twilight meet,-
Behind, our broken years; before, the deep
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep,-
A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet,
A little while, when night and twilight meet.
A little while I fain would linger here;
Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars
Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair:
A little while I still would linger here.
ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN (1832-1911)
This realm is sacred to the silent past;
Within its drowsy shades are treasures rare
Of dust and dreams; the years are long since last
A stranger's footfall pressed the creaking stair.
This room no housewife's tidy hand disturbs;
And here, like some strange presence, ever clings
A homesick smell of dry forgotten herbs,-
A musty odor as of mouldering things.
Here stores of withered roots and leaves repose,
For fancied virtues prized in days of yore,
Gathered with thoughtful care, mayhap by those
Whose earthly ills are healed forever more.
Here shy Arachne winds her endless thread,
And weaves her silken tapestry unseen,
Veiling the rough-hewn timbers overhead,
And looping gossamer festoons between.
Along the low joists of the sloping roof,
Moth-eaten garments hang, a gloomy row,
Like tall fantastic ghosts, which stand aloof,
Holding grim converse with the long ago.
Here lie remembrancers of childish joys,-
Old fairy-volumes, conned and conned again,
A cradle, and a heap of battered toys,
Once loved by babes who now are bearded men.
Here, in the summer, at a broken pane,
The yellow wasps come in, and buzz and build
Among the rafters; wind and snow and rain
All enter, as the seasons are fulfilled.
This mildewed chest, behind the chimney, holds
Old letters, stained and nibbled; faintly show
The faded phrases on the tattered folds
Once kissed, perhaps, or tear-wet-who may know.
I turn a page like one who plans a crime,
And lo! love's prophecies and sweet regrets,
A tress of chestnut hair, a love-lorn rhyme,
And fragrant dust that once was violets.
I wonder if the small sleek mouse, that shaped
His winter nest between these time-stained beams,
Was happier that his bed was lined and draped
With the bright warp and woof of youthful dreams?
Here where the gray incessant spiders spin,
Shrouding from view the sunny world outside,
A golden bumblebee has blundered in
And lost the way to liberty, and died.
So the lost present drops into the past;
So the warm living heart, that loves the light,
Faints in the unresponsive darkness vast
Which hides time's buried mysteries from sight.
Why rob these shadows of their sacred trust?
Let the thick cobwebs hide the day once more;
Leave the dead years to silence and to dust,
And close again the long unopened door.
MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND (1832-1901)
Down the Bayou
The cypress swamp around me wraps its spell,
With hushing sounds in moss-hung branches there,
Like congregations rustling down to prayer,
While Solitude, like some unsounded bell,
Hangs full of secrets that it cannot tell,
And leafy litanies on the humid air
Intone themselves, and on the tree-trunks bare
The scarlet lichen writes her rubrics well.
The cypress-knees take on them marvellous shapes
Of pigmy nuns, gnomes, goblins, witches, fays,
The vigorous vine the withered gum-tree drapes,
Across the oozy ground the rabbit plays,
The moccasin to jungle depths escapes,
And through the gloom the wild deer shyly gaze.
JOHN ALBEE (1833-1915)
Come, Walter Savage Landor, come this way;
Step through the lintel low, with prose or verse,
Tallest of latter men; the early star
And latest setting sun of great compeers;
Through youth, through manhood, and extremest age, Strong at the root, and at the top, blossoms
Perennial. When culled the fields around
|