II.

Black eyes are truer still, I ween, Than any other: Dark were the eyes of Eden’s Queen, And Mary Mother.

The holy ones of sacred lore All dark are painted, Inspired prophetess of yore And maiden sainted.

Blue eyes are cold as polished steel, For all their splendor; While thine a lambent flame reveal, So warm and tender.

Dearer thine olive hue, and eyes Of raven blackness, Than all the azure of the skies, And lily’s whiteness.

Thine eyebrows are a Moorish grove, Whence issuing fleetly Two wingèd archers lightly rove, Wounding so sweetly.

But when their victims bleeding lie Faintly appealing, Two tender blackamoors draw nigh With balm of healing.

COMPLAINT TO THE VIRGIN.

FROM A CUBAN POETESS.

Mother ineffable, whose radiant brow The stars have crowned, O’er all earth’s daughters chosen, thou The sinless found;

Of Adam’s fallen race, the first and last Untouched by strife, Whose beauteous feet unstained and pure have passed The snares of life.

The angelic heralds at those spotless feet Once bent the knee, And now adore at the effulgent seat Eternally.

A gift too pure and bright for earthly bloom, Flower of the sky; The odors of whose matchless grace perfume The courts on high.

Look down in pity from thy lofty throne, Through realms of light, To where thy sorrowing sister walks alone In deepest night.

Oh, see the endless waves of anguish fierce That o’er me roll! Hast thou not bled? did not the sword once pierce Thy tender soul?

Beating the breakers on the outer bar My vessel lies; For me there beams no friendly guiding-star, No beacons rise.

Blest beacon seen in my despairing dreams, Burst forth on me, And light my stormy pathway with thy beams, Star of the sea.

O baleful night, when some malignant blast, Mocking and wild, Into an orphan’s cradle rudely cast A sleeping child!

Of careless childhood’s flowers and smiles and tears, The tears were mine. Alas! I gather in maturer years No fruit or wine.

All night I bruise my failing wings in vain, Seeking for rest— A bird unmated on an arid plain Without a nest.

I roam a timid stranger on the earth— A foreign land— Bewildered by the light, the joy and mirth On every hand.

A vine-clad mountain to the beaming skies That lifts its crest, While an abyss of untold horror lies Beneath its breast.

Some loving souls at birth are consecrated To pain and grief; Through gloomy vales they stray, unknown, unmated, Without relief.

I seek no longer these sad mysteries To penetrate; I must not murmur at the high decrees That fix my fate.

They say that God regards with pitying eye The poor and weak, Smiting the haughty head, and passing by The low and meek.

No daring oak, whose branches, heaven defying, Pierce the blue sky; A blighted leaf before the tempest flying, A reed am I.

A poor blind pilgrim through the wilderness Groping my way, Striving with agonizing tears to press From night to day.

A heart whence all illusions long have perished Seeks not for bliss. I ask not human love, O Mother cherished, I ask but this:

A lowly shelter far from tongues maligning And bitter sneers; There let me pray and quench all fierce repining With grateful tears.

And some glad morning through my cloister swelling, A golden portal May burst, and flood with rosy light my dwelling, And joys immortal.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

OLD FRENCH SONNET.

While Jesus suffered for the human race Upon the tree, death came and found him there. Transfixed with shame, at first he did not dare To look upon his sovereign’s awful face.

But Jesus, full of majesty and grace, Meekly bowed down his head, august and fair, Veiling the glory that it used to wear, And waves of darkness fell upon the place.

Then shuddering Death his shameful task fulfilled; Earth to her centre rocked as though the day Of doom were come; the veil was rent away— All Nature moaned and quivered, horror-filled.

The very stones were softened, thou alone, Vile scoffing sinner, took a heart of stone.

FROM THE SPANISH.

Unhappy he who buys The toys that Cupid offers; For each delight he proffers Some dear illusion dies. Sell not thy dearest treasures For his too fleeting pleasures.

THE BOOK OF LIFE.

LAMARTINE.

Each soul the Book of Life must read and prove— Fate turns the leaves whether we will or no. We cannot linger o’er the lines we love, Or hasten o’er the dreary lines of woe. We have not read the page of Love aright When, lo! the page of Death appalls our sight.

MEMORIAL DAY, AND OTHER POEMS.

DEDICATED TO THE G. A. R.

TWENTY YEARS AGO.

WRITTEN FOR MEMORIAL DAY IN 1885.

For twenty years the snowy wings of Peace Over the land have brooded; flocks increase Upon the fields, now blessed by smiling stars, Where drave the reeking chariot-wheels of Mars. How like a falcon’s flight the years have flown, Since Appomattox rang the curtain down; And listening to my voice are tall young men, And women fair who were but children then. Our young Republic, freed from all his chains, For peaceful conquest girds his lusty reins. The smiling Mississippi to the sea Rolls as in days of old, unvexed and free, And East and West in one grand commonweal Are bound by triple bands of shining steel. The apple tree historic rots away; Our gunboats all have crumbled to decay; The rifle-pits that scarred the Southern plains Are washed away by twenty winters’ rains; The impetuous onset of the bayonet line Tramples no more the growing corn and vine, And nesting birds pour forth their raptures where The thunder-bolts of battle rent the air. But still remain in many hearts we know The ghastly scars of twenty years ago. How many a comrade’s widow treads alone A narrow path by cruel thorns o’ergrown! ’Tis long since song of mating bird has thrilled That lonely heart, with tender memories filled,— Memories still speeding backward to the time When, brave and beautiful in manhood’s prime, Her bridegroom more than twenty years ago Sprang at the bugle call to meet the foe. Strong men for other women dig the gold, Tread out the wine, and weave the silken fold; Her wine of Life in forests dark and dank The thirsty soil of Mississippi drank; Her daily lot for more than twenty years Has been the widow’s toil, and widow’s tears.

Comrades, we’re growing old; upon our hairs Gather the frosts of more than twenty years, Since in the trench at Petersburg we lay, Or, gayly holding our triumphal way, Unto the sea we swept with Sherman’s pennon, Or heard the roar of Stonewall Jackson’s cannon, Waking the echoes of the Rapidan, Or through the valley whirled with Sheridan. Still surges up as though of yesterday The memory of those that passed away; Still floating down the vista of the years, We hear their voices, see their smiles and tears. In each successive strife how fast they fell— The tried companions that we knew so well. Some, fleeing from the ghastly prison pen, By bloodhounds tracked were slain in swamp and fen; Some ashes mingle with the sounding tide, And some enrich the rugged mountain side, Where the tall pines of frowning Kenesaw Quivered like reeds before the blast of war; Now looming up in shadowy ranks they stand Like guardian phantoms brooding o’er the land. No higher impulse thrilled the knights of old Who to the crusades like a torrent rolled, To pour for the dear cross their blood like wine Upon the plains of Holy Palestine, And feed on desert sands in the far East The jackals ravening for their glorious feast.

They reck not where their scattered ashes rest Who speed to the reunion of the blest; As eaglets soaring to the gates of light Spurn the dull shells that long confined their flight. For you the amaranthine wreath we twine, Raise the high song, and pour the ruddy wine; For you the rhythmic beat of martial feet, As the long lines go swaying down the street; For you the plaintive reed’s subduing moan Commingles with the hautboy’s rapturous tone, The rolling drum, the thrilling trumpet blare, And silken banners float upon the air Like bright ethereal drapery trailing there. The noblest sons of Earth, of every clime, Welcome you to their galaxy sublime; And flowers, by maidens fairer still than they, Are offered to your sacred shades to-day; Roses and dittany—and lilies fair, Mingle their breath upon the vernal air; But sweeter than the fleeting gifts we bring Your memory perennial shall spring, And loving tears each spring-time shall bedew The flowers that loving hands shall here renew; And younger bards, with truer touch than mine, Will pour for you the flood of song divine, While millions yet unborn, with quickening breath, Will hear the tale heroic of your death.

O host of gallant comrades sweeping by, Up the red track of glory to the sky— Reynolds, McPherson, Dahlgren, Garesché, And all the unknown names as brave as they,— Great hearts and souls as those of song and story, Whose only guerdon was a deathbed gory; As youthful as of yore we see you now, The flush of victory on each radiant brow, And youthful in our withering hearts shall glow Your generous valor in the Long Ago.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Song, legend, history, I scan in vain; Outside of Holy Writ, no shape appears So godlike as thy homely form; the spheres Darken and die, thy glory shall not wane. Monarchs have sat self-crowned upon the Seine And on the Tiber; nations sick with fears Have builded altars to them, drenched with tears And smoking with a hecatomb of slain.

O Christ of Freedom, no high altars fume For thee, but freely flow the tears and blood, The pure sweet blood of thy own martyrdom, And tears of mingled grief and gratitude From the dark millions by thy pen set free, Led from their long Gethsemane by thee.

THE PRISONER’S DREAM.

On the last sad day of the dying year, As I lay in my prison racked with pain, I heard the voices of children clear Swelling out on the night in a peaceful strain. They sang a farewell to the dying year, And the far faint tones of an organ fell With a soothing cadence upon my ear, And I slept at last in my loathsome cell. My body slept with its clanking chain, But the prison walls fled far away, And my spirit, glad and free again, Went forth as upon its bridal day. I never had thought again to sing, But a song welled forth from my joyous heart, As waters gush from a long-sealed spring When the chains of winter are rent apart. “I’m coming, I’m coming, my dove, my dear; In the heaven of thy arms, my own sweet wife, I’ll usher the birth of the glad new year; I’m coming, I’m coming, my love, my life!”

* * * * *

Hark! the clang of the changing sentry’s steel; Awaken, O fool, from thy blissful bed; On the stony floor of thy dungeon kneel, And hug thy chain, for the dream is fled.

HOW OFT A SENTRY SAD AND LONE.

How oft, a sentry sad and lone, The starry midnight host I’ve counted, As up the eastern horizon Into the sky they slowly mounted.

Two still seemed missing from their place, The brightest of the heavenly number; But now I find them in thy face, Nightly they beam upon my slumber.

FROM COPLAS OF AN ANDALUSIAN SOLDIER.

If daring deeds might win thy vows, At nothing would I falter; I’d dare thy father’s beetling brows, Or those of grim Gibraltar.

I’ll seek the thickest of the strife, And lofty deeds of glory; My girl shall be a General’s wife, Or mourn a lover gory.

Light batteries on the fatal field, Their countless victims strewing, Are the bright eyes to which I yield For quarter meekly suing.

Thy lips are silken banners, and Beneath their crimson lustre, In gleaming lines the soldiers stand, Two ranks prepared for muster.

The girl that jilts a veteran bold To marry a clodhopper, Would throw away the finest gold To pick up worthless copper.

FROM THE SAME.

The conscripts march, O cruel theft, While those that are rejected, The crooked and the lame, are left To comfort maids dejected.

If swift promotion you would gain, Yet shrink from war and slaughter, The path is old and very plain— Marry the General’s daughter.

THE GLORY OF A SPANISH DRAGOON.

FROM THE SAME.

My little Pepita Will be jealous I know, For I promised to meet her, But how can I go? I come off of guard, And go on police; My sergeant’s a hard One, and gives me no peace. There’s the devil to pay At fatigue duty too; Every hour of the day There is something to do. A soldier at work, What a pitiful sight! I’d desert to the Turk In the very next fight, But his way of baptizing You all will agree, Is quite too surprising, It would never suit me. But my sergeant is worse Than a Turk or a Jew, He finds something to curse At, whatever I do. At every roll-call, If I’m not upon time, Drill, stables, and all, He counts it a crime; He laughs at my story, In the guard-house I’m thrown,— And this is the glory Of a Spanish dragoon.

WRITTEN FOR A REUNION OF VETERANS IN THE YEAR 1915.

Comrades, once more to-night we gather here, A dwindling band of graybeards; autumn sere Pales into winter, Indian summer’s glow Fades from the hills, reluctant still to go; And Earth itself fades from our sight away, Like rosy clouds that flit at close of day; In our hearts too the flame burns low at last,— An arctic winter closes round us fast.

While the remaining grains, how few, alas! Of golden sand, pour through the hour-glass, Fill up, dear friends, your goblets once again, And warm the pulses in each shrunken vein With sunshine garnered on some Gallic plain, Or stolen from the vine-clad hills of Spain. Here’s to the living absent, comrades they So gay in camp, so dauntless in the fray, The lingering remnant of the mighty host That swept from far Atlanta to the coast. Since then their prows through every sea have foamed, And o’er five continents their feet have roamed, And plucked the brightest bays in fields afar, Who glittered brightest in the van of war. But fast and faster from our sight they fail, A few belated stragglers feebly hail Along the banks of Styx the boatman pale. Where’er they are, once more we pledge them all, Ere from the thinning ranks we too shall fall.

Lift high the cup, a generous current pour, Libations to the chosen friends of yore, Who wander on the dim Plutonian shore. A mist arises from the wine-stained ground, And lo, what phantom faces gather round! Like storm-blown wreaths they flit—e’en so must we Soon pass like vapors blown across the sea.

Now draw together, fling apart the doors Of wit and fancy, open up the stores Of feeling that have been repressed so long; Waken the voice of melody and song, These fleeting moments sweetly to prolong, And kindling up once more the altar fire, Let the last embers all in flame expire.

TWENTY-FIVE SONNETS

TO ⸺.

Dear lady, doth the singer’s voice in thee Awake an answering chord? if not so, be Barren the song and all devoid of worth, Save to awaken idle scorn and mirth; Thy soul, self-poised in cold tranquillity, Will smile to think how foolish some may be. But if thy bosom swell with tender sighs, If the deep fountains of thy soul are stirred, Meeting some dear but unexpected word; If, answering mine, responsive pulses rise, And thy lips tremble to the happy eyes Suffused with pleasure at the glad surprise Of verses all too cold for thy completeness, Know thy own heart hath lent them all their sweetness.

POESY.

Before the human hand a stylus held, Ere papyrus’ or parchment’s mute appeal, Sweet songs were sung whose echoes charm us still; From dying lips undying music welled. Wedded to strains from chosen souls that swelled, Were rescued from oblivion’s clammy seal, Fantastic legend, laws of commonweal, Heroic deeds in days of hoary eld.

Muse of the lyre and harp, till latest day Thy voice shall bear along the shores of Time, While kingdoms crumble, and while tongues decay, The numbers of the ancient bards sublime. Still thy anointed favorites hold their sway, ’Mid falling stars, and gods that pass away.

THE ROSE.

The flushing wave bloomed into wondrous flower, And rosy light burst forth unknown till then, When Aphrodite dawned on gods and men. Thy birth, O Rose, was in that mystic hour. Transcendent Rose, pride of the Paphian bower, And sweet consoler of the thorny glen, What virgin charms thy blush illumines when Upon the virgin heart Love seals his power.

Fair as the lily was the Rose’s breast; But when the generous vine upon it bled, Swift blushes o’er its swelling beauties spread Till every leaf the tender flame confessed, While from thy wakened heart, O queenly Rose, Ambrosial incense on the air arose.

TO A FAIR SANTA BARBARAN.

Why blooms the fairest flower ’neath rosy skies, Where all is bloom and fragrance? why unfold There, where the nectar that its petals hold Among the orange groves neglected lies, And all its perfume all unheeded dies! And thou, dear maid, with wealth of love untold, More precious far than mines of gems and gold, Why linger ’mid these cloyed and listless eyes?

O with thy voice, and smile ineffable, And eyes so meet for sympathetic tears, Seek some sad land oppressed by grief and fears, A bright consoling angel there to dwell; Fly, ere thy robes are wet with honey dew, And thy own sweetness cloys thee through and through.

LA DIVA.

A sea of faces ripple round her where, As on a sunny isle, the Diva glows Behind the footlights like a full-blown rose; A hush expectant fills the brooding air.

But hist, O hist! what dying cygnet there? How bubbling from her alabaster throat Pours forth the wave of every passion’s note— Hope, fear, love’s ecstasy, and blank despair?

A moment’s silence ere the plaudits rise, Till like a storm they beat the trembling walls, And white hands plash like wave-crests to the skies. Alas! ’tis o’er, the jealous curtain falls; And as the tumult of our rapture dies, A misty curtain veils our happy eyes.

TO A HAPPY LOVER.

Flaunt not before the world thy happy love, Like the poor fatuous one whose pleasure lies Not in Love’s glance, but in the envious eyes Of other fools; deep in the myrtle grove Seek some untrodden way, shadowed above; There, if Love will, his unknown harmonies, His inmost heart and core, his tears and sighs, And unimagined mysteries thou mayest prove.

But if thou find his choicest fruits and flowers, Guard them from eyes profane with jealous care; Love, proud but tender, brooks no sign-board there, Pointing the pathway to his sacred bowers; Himself the entrance, hidden and o’ergrown, Unto his chosen favorites will make known.

METEMPSYCHOSIS.