Puslapio vaizdai
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And this small, hideous, brown thing was once
A living woman, in whose pulsing breast
The tender mother-love had warmed and thrilled,
And e'en of that decay had made a jest.
For in the pressureless and fleshless arms
Nestled the mummied babe of long ago,
As dead to love as love was dead to it,

The ghastly remnant of a joy and woe.
Where is the jewel that once shown within

And gave life's fairness to this lump of clay? Ah, where? It has departed as the flame

Into invisible and soundless Nay.

Our questionings do haunt the voiceless deep Like homeless, storm-tossed birds seeking for rest.

And still 'tis nature's cruelty that blows

Them quivering, too, upon their hopeless quest.

The bird of faith is but a weakling bird,

It can not soar mid sepulchers of doubt;

Its pinions falter in the charnel air,

The Nay of silence shadows it about.

Oh, man! how poor, how limited thy light!
Yet thou can 'st play with thy one bean of sight,
Can'st laugh and sing upon the wheel of fate,

Though whirled above a precipice of night.

'Tis well! The present owns some little warmth; So bask within the pleasure of the known. Circean Life with kisses offers thee

Her flaming draught and bids thee drink the boon.

Drink, deeply drink, Life will not tarry long.

Too soon thou'lt see the fair one vanishing,

And from the blackness of the great abyss

The Sphinx of Death will rise with soundless wing.

Relentless, cruel in its voicelessness,

'Twill bear thee, shrinking, on its loveless breast Into the Whither where no ripple stirs

To whisper us the manner of thy rest.

But Love hath flung the rainbow of its hope
Across the gulf, and, lo! a Phoenix bloom,

The flower of immortality's To Know
Star promises the sepulcher of doom.

Illusion of illusion it may be,

But still this fleeting life, Time's parasite,
Will weave around its prison house of flesh
The shining dream of an immortal sight.
'Tis by this glory that we walk upright
And see the glimmering of being's Yea.
Ah! can that light be false which makes for us
A guide, a comfort in our finite Nay?

Thou withered mummy of a once fair life,
'Tis not thy bleak negation we would wed,
And bind our souls to thy forgetfulness.

Nay! ours the light by which we're perfected,

That makes us something more than time's play

thing,

Not dew-drops lost in the eternal sea, But conscious parts of infinite To Know, The quenchless beams of immortality.

A REFRAIN.

DYING, dying, dying!

Hearken to the solemn measure, Piercing inward like a knife Through our spirit's inmost pleasure, Under-currrent of all life.

Hearken, hearken!

Oh, the achings
Darken, darken

On our wakings,

On our wakings, aye, and sleepings,
If they follow after weepings,
After thought's unsounded crying,
Or the soul's o'erflooded sighing,
Dying, dying, dying!

Dying, dying, dying!

Oh, the dark that lies behind it

When the dying ones are dead! Seeking light, we can not find it; Deeper dark is ours instead.

And we listen

For some echo

To out-glisten

On the Mecca

Of our hot desire's upbuilding,
For some shining whisper's gilding,
For a Yea to all denying;

But there's only that one sighing,
Dying, dying, dying!

Dying, dying, dying!

Is there not some truer measure
Underneath the hurt of this?
Seek, oh, soul, and find the treasure,
Seek and find the hidden bliss,

Heaven's blisses

Drifting soundward,
And love's kisses

Bending downward.

Sing, oh, soul, thy song immortal,
Send it out beyond life's portal.
Sing, and bury all denying,

Sing thy hope through all this dying,
Dying, dying, dying!

HA

HARRY CHARLES FAULKNER.

ARRY CHARLES FAULKNER was born in Boston, November 27, 1863. His mother was a daughter of Josiah Abbott, Esq., of Boston, and his paternal grandfather was Augustus Faulkner, of Walpole, N. H., at one time governor of New Hampshire. The blood of the Puritans is almost undiluted in his veins. For eight generations his ancestors have been New England people, direct descendants of the "Mayflower" pilgrims, and the earliest settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston and also in Andover. It is somewhat odd, in view of these facts, the direction his principal literary work has taken. Nothing could be farther removed from the firm, austere and solemn New Engiand manner than the gayety and lightness of his touch.

His parents moved to New York City when he was about four years old, and the metropolis has been his home ever since. His education began at five in the public schools, and at fourteen he entered the College of the City of New York, graduating in the year 1882, the youngest Bachelor of Arts ever sent out from its halls. After graduation he was associated with Colonel C. L. Norton, for some time editor of The Continent, and in 1884 he became managing editor of the Domestic Monthly, which position he still occupies.

It is difficult to say when his literary work began. All through the college periodicals are scattered his verses. Since 1883 his poems have been frequently seen in the leading journals. In 1884 he published a valuable little book, "Dictionary of Synonyms," upon an entirely new plan. In 1885 a "Classical and Mythological Dictionary" edited by him was issued, and at present he is busy with an important work for which he is particularly well equipped.

His range of work has not been great, but within his limits the result is brilliant. Vers de Société is his field, and he stands in the front rank of the few Americans who have followed successfully where Herrick and Prior, Praed and Thackeray, Dobson and Lang have led.

Mr. Faulkner is nearly six feet in height, slender, but muscular, and in his college days excelled in athletic sports such as running, foot-ball, etc. He still retains the elastic step and quickness of the athlete, but a slight droop in his shoulders is the penalty of his devotion to his desk. His eyes are blue, his nose large and prominent, and his hair curls away from his forehead, and is brushed back without a parting. He is unmarried. His health has not been good for several years, and trips

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And murmuringly goes

To the very hindmost rows,

To pirouette and pose
With the "crows."

III.

When life frayed and faded grows,

Like her bows,

She in garret sits and sews

Furbelows

Till her weary eyelids close
In the peace of death's repose:
Is she reaping what she sows?
Heaven knows.

ST. ELISE.

HER faith makes worthy things of worthless, With all its promised powers.

Her hope makes joyous hearts of mirthless, With all the peace it showers.

Her love can waken love now birthless

Would such a love were ours!

If you had lived in olden days,

When men were too devout to praise
An earthly beauty,

They would have canonized you saint
And fasted for your sake in quaint
Excess of duty.

They would have called you good, divine,
And raised for you a sculptured shrine
In ancient fashion;

A cross, a font―above, your face
O'erflowing with symbolic grace
And with compassion.

There pious men of holy creeds
Would whisper aves to their beads,
Both monk and friar,

And all would kneel before your face,
The beggar, yeoman, lord in lace,
The knight and squire.

To-day our faith is much the same;
Perhaps it is far more a name

To live than die for

Than in those days of cross and blade,
Those days of torture and crusade,
We mourn and sigh for.

But virtue keeps its sacredness,

Our better selves have changed far less
Than have our manners;

We reverence innocence and truth,
To the divinity of youth

We pledge our banners.

We have not changed; the shrines of old
Are in our hearts, and there we hold
An image of you,

Dear Saint Elise! ah, yes, as such
We worship you to-day as much
And more-we love you.

BALLADE OF TEASING.

HER letters come and I am glad,
The heavens seem a brighter blue;
They fail to come and I am sad,

The skies are dull and tearful too.
I sing her songs, as poets do,
She reads them, do they fail to please?
She loves me-no, she hates me-pooh!
Clorinda is a charming tease.

I call her "angel," and I add
Some sentences, ah, far less true,
And she-it really is too bad-
Neglects to write a post or two.
And when alarmed I sadly sue
Forgiveness on my bended knees,
She laughs and says, ""Twas only you."
Clorinda is a charming tease.

One day I am Sir Galahad,

Devoted, gallant, tender, true,
The next she finds she has to add
That I am Don Quixote too.
She vows to read my letters through
To every other maid she sees.

Of course she may, but still a few-
Clorinda is a charming tease.

ENVOY.

Fates, did I rule your snake-haired crew,
I would not alter your decrees,

I would not have her made anew,
Clorinda is a charming tease.

AD CHLOEN, ÆTAT. XLV.

CHLOE, Time's breath is harsh and rough,
And you are surely old enough
To be my mother.

That wrinkle certainly I see,
Half hidden 'neath the "poudre de riz,"

Or something other.

You once, perhaps, were true and fair,
As sweet and pure as mountain air
That breathes of heaven;
But now you're growing stout and gray;
And what is worse, I heard you say,

"I'm twenty-seven."

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