A priest, a prince, a lord, a maid, A high-born lady and a jade, Two lines of ghosts in masquerade, She sings, she weeps, she smiles, she sighs, The features of her fathers rise As if it were the wind that swayed Upon her face they masquerade FREDERICK K. PETERSON. RECONTRE. TOILING across the Mer de Glace, My foe, undreamed of, at my side For those who love, the world is wide, THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. CURRENT POEMS. THE SONNET. FOURTEEN Small, baleful berries on the hem old, Craved of the Fiend to water Life's dry stem. The dark, deep emerald that Rossetti wrought -London Academy. TIME AND ETERNITY. "O, MIGHTY weariness of yellow sands! O, surging ocean of Eternity! I bow abjectly at the thought of thee. My tiny span is naught. My aged hands Quiver, impatient of divine commands And of this petty hour-glass misery. Unwearied one! Thine æons yet to be! O, scythe of pain! Alas! the low marsh lands!" So spake poor Father Time, and bowed his head, Spurning in bitterness the race of men; A solemn figure on that solemn shore, Gathering sand, scorning Earth's quick and dead; A bad mistake! For these beyond his ken Shall wed him to the cons evermore. CAROLINE D. SWAN. -The Traveler's Record, January, 1890. THE SUN CUP. THE earth is the cup of the sun, That he filleth at morning with wine, With the strong warm wine of his might, From the vintage of gold and of light, Fills it and makes it divine. And at night, when his journey is done, At the gate of his radiant hall He setteth his lips to the brim, With a long last look of his eye, And tilts it, and draineth it dry, Drains till he leaveth it all Hollow, and empty, and dim. And then, as he passes to sleep, Still full of the feats that he did Long ago in Olympian wars, He closes it down with the sweep Of its slow-turning luminous lid, Its cover of darkness and stars, Wrought once by Hephaestus of old With violet, and vastness, and gold. ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN. -Harper's Magazine, February, 1890. THE FUNERAL IN VENICE. (Sestina.) GONE forth to join the mighty silent throng! His spirit fleeting from that sunny land Whence took long since from earth her heavenward flight His "Lyric-love, half angel and half bird," When the mere mortal sheath struck down by Death Silenced the song on lips held half divine. And they of Italy, to them of truth, divine But Time, who fells the mortal in his flight, The Poet sleeps in the cool shade of Death, The song is broken of our English bird! Name well and wisely. Is not Truth divine? And wanders dreaming through a gracious land, OH! that in thy career would come an hour When he beheld the Austrian columns reel; IDA A. AHLBORN. -The Cottage Hearth, February, 1890. TIME AND THEE. TIME heals all wounds-but far more greater thou FLAVEL SCOTT MINES. -The American, January 25, 1890. THE SHADOW-BIRD AND HIS SHADOW. THROUGH The Dark Land's reeds and rushes, Comes the Shadow-bird. And he leads his Shadow! Dimly Fair his Shadow is. Each feather With unearthly grace. One night when the Sphinx was staring And the black man's stars were flaring Then the Shadow-bird grew merry! "My sweet Shadow," whispered he, "You are looking lovely, very, Will you dance with me?" "No," she said, "you hear me, do you? "No," she said and off she started, There was not another word, (She prefers another fellow, If the truth must be confessed, And the Shadow-bird now muses, MRS. S. M. B. PIATT. -St. Nicholas, February, 1890. NON SINE LACRYMIS. It was that hour when vernal earth And stormy March prepare To greet the day of April's tearful birth, That I, o'ercome with care, Rose with the twilight from a fireless hearth To take the fresh first air And smile of morning's mirth. Tired with old grief's self-pitying moan, A mile I had not strayed Ere my dim path grew dark with double zone Of men full fair arrayed, While, blent with sound of battle-trumpets blown, Came, as through light comes shade, Cries like an undertone. Plumed with torn cloud, March led the way, With spear point keen for thrust, And eager eyes and harnessed form swathed gray With drifts of wind-blown dust. Round his bruised buckler in bright letters lay This scroll which toilers trust: Non sine pulvere. Wet as from weltering showers and seas, He held a cup with saddest imageries Worn with woe's lip, I spelt out words like these, Non sine lacrymis. These passed like regal spirits crowned, And then a sphere-made music slow unwound And soft as exhalations from the ground, Or spring flowers here and there, To all who rise as wrestlers in life's coil O, Toil in vain without surcease! O, Grief no hand can stay! Think on these words when work or woes increase: Man, made of tears and clay, Grows to full stature and God's perfect peace, Non sine pulvere, Non sine lacrymis. HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. -Harper's Magazine, January, 1890. LIFE'S GALLEY SLAVE. If thou couldst die to-night, And put the world and all its griefs away, Or joy or woe, or solace for our fears? Are veiled, lest some dread shape from out the darkness rise. |