But your sons and your daughters, unconquered by strife, Shall rise on my pinions and bathe in my life, While the fierce glowing splendors of suns cease to burn, And bright constellations to vapor return, And new ones shall rise from the graves of the old, Shine, fade and dissolve like a tale that is told. THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE.. SWING inward, O, gates of the future! Swing outward, ye doors of the past! For the soul of the people is moving And rising from slumber at last. The black forms of night are retreating, The white peaks have signaled the day, And freedom her long roll is beating, And calling her sons to the fray. And woe to the rule that has plundered And trod down the wounded and slain, While the wars of the Old Time have thundered, And men poured their life-tide in vain. The day of its triumph is ending, The evening draws near with its doom, And the star of its strength is descending, To sleep in dishonor and gloom. Though the tall trees are crowned on the highlands With the first gold of rainbow and sun, While far in the distance below them The rivers in dark shadows run, They must fall, and the workmen shall burn them Where the lands and the low waters meet, And the steeds of the New Time shall spurn them With the soles of their swift-flying feet. Swing inward, O, gates! till the morning The soil tells the same fruitful story, Must the Sea plead in vain that the River And woe to the robbers who gather In fields where they never have sown, And the throne of their god shall be crumbled, For the Lord of the harvest hath said it, Swing inward, O, gates of the future! A giant is waking from slumber And rending his fetters at last. From the dust where his proud tyrants found him, Unhonored, and scorned, and betrayed, He shall rise with the sunlight around him, And rule in the realm he has made. THE MOUNTAINS OF LIFE. THERE's a land far away, 'mid the stars, we are told, Where they know not the sorrows of time, Where the pure waters wander through valleys of gold, And life is a treasure sublime; 'Tis the land of our God, 'tis the home of the soul, Where ages of splendor eternally roll; ISAAC R. BAXLEY. 271 Where the way-weary traveler reaches his goal And our souls by the gale of its gardens are fanned And we sometimes have longed for its holy repose, When our spirits were torn with temptations and woes, And we've drank from the tide of the river that flows From the evergreen Mountains of Life. Oh, the stars never tread the blue heavens at night, To a kingdom where pleasures unceasingly bloom, And our guide is the glory that shines through the tomb From the evergreen Mountains of Life. MARION MOORE. GONE art thou, Marion, Marion Moore, Gone like the bird in the autumn that singeth, Gone like the flower by the wayside that springeth, Gone like the leaf of the ivy that clingeth Round the lone rock on a storm-beaten shore. Dear wast thou Marion, Marion Moore, Dear as the tide in my broken heart throbbing, Dear as the soul o'er thy memory sobbing; Sorrow my life of its roses is robbing, Wasting is all the glad beauty of yore. I shall remember thee, Marion Moore, I shall remember, alas! to regret thee; Gone art thou, Marion, Marion Moore, Peace to thee, Marion, Marion Moore, Peace which the queens of the earth can not borrow, Peace from a kingdom that crowned thee with sorrow; O, to be happy with thee on the morrow, Who would not fly from this desolate shore? ISAAC R. BAXLEY. SAAC R. BAXLEY, a true poet in aspiration and in execution, was born in Baltimore, Md., in 1850. He was educated at the Catholic College of St. Ignatius de Layola (although he is not a Catholic himself), and passed the bar before, the age of twenty-one. Mr. Baxley says this was his first legal crime-but the age question was not | asked of him. He practiced little at the law, and abandoned it because he wished to write, and only write poetry. He commenced to write very early, and no amount of interference could, at any time, have prevented him from pursuing an action over which he had no abiding control. His opinion of poetry is that the old issues, customs and manners therein will soon resign themselves to the new movements and aspirations discerned in all spiritual things, and that the Genius of Poetry is ever the furthest sighted in all human eyes; and that her lips are already beginning to open, singing the things she sees. There is no death to Poetry-but those who can not as yet see whither she is moving have said so-but she does not listen to what they say; they, in time, will listen to her again and again. Mr. Baxley has traveled a great deal, having been in Europe twice, and has lived permanently in California since 1878. His home is in Santa Barbara. Mr. Baxley has published two books of poems, "The Temple of Alanthur, with Other Poems," 1886; and "The Prophet, and Other Poems," 1888. He has in press a very remarkable book of his, to be entitled "Songs of the Spirit." C. W. M. ABSENCE. ONE stands upon the wayward sands, An answer-unpitying passes by: Upon his cap a scarlet plume Brushes the clinging dew; Upon his cheeks the blood-red bloom Back from his shoulders, folded wide, And further into Tethan's shade * And crosses brook, and travels glade, Sir Raymond sees the sweet wild-rose, "O wild, wild-rose, a moment yet The hot wind drinks your dew-drop dry, "O listen not, wild-rose, to me, The ring-dove sits on yonder tree, O sad, wild-rose, not die." II. Maid Evelyn sitteth with the sun She mindeth not the window-stone She leans her white arms on the gray She looketh into Tethan Glen, Sir Raymond's dapple gray To-day she watcheth wearily, Thou, Lady Ellen, quiet keep, When thou shalt wake then I shall weep. "O soft, O softly summer rain A breeze that rises from the rose "I sit and listen to my heart, It singeth sad and low; O well I see the blood-red dart "The wound is wide, and none but he Can backward draw the dart I see him come across the lea, Stand still, my bleeding heart! Stand still! stand still! my very blood III. The livelong day the ring-dove kept And all the day the wild-rose wept The livelong day Lord Raymond stayed Throughout the day the porter old And well he watched lest Hugh the Bold, Might find the dapple in his stall, And Raymond's lord within his wall. True love not heedeth bolt nor bar, But sad 'tis ever so; True love and fate do constant war, And ne'er together go; To the long days between the while. |