LATER POEMS
953
IC-NRLF
MS 075
JOHN
BAN ISTER
LATER POEMS BY J. B. TABB
LATER POEMS BY JOHN B:f ABB
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY MCMX
r
To M. A. C.
to whom My Right Reverend Father in Christ
the late
Bishop Alfred A. Curtis, D.D. commended his son
M204788
THE CONTENTS
CHRIST and the V_>< Pagan page n
The Good Thief 13 Christ to Dumb
Creatures 14
AdBestias 15
Moments 16
Loneliness 1 7
Abashed 18
Christmas 1 9 The Babe to the
Gift-Bearer 2O
Speculum Amoris 21 The Breeze at
Bethlehem 22
Prisoner's Base 23
At the Manger 24
Epiphany 25 Christ and the
Winds 26
In Extremis 27
Holy Saturday 28 Brother Ass and
St Francis 29
Nature 31
Helplessness 32
The Vigil 33
My Portion 34
Beatitude 35
My Neighbour 36
O'ercome 37
Beauty 38
The Voyager 39
Deprecation 40
At the Ebb-tide 41
In Sternum 42 The Stroke of the
Hour 43
Loss 44
Initiated 45
The Lute Player 46
Departure 47
7
To the Wheatfield 59
The Forfeiture 60
Heredity 61
The Birthday 62
Sicut in Principio 63
Memory 64
Racers 65
Noche Triste 66
Consolation 67
Unigenitus 68
A Wind-call 69
70
71 72
73
74 75 76
77
THE CONTENTS Dejeftion page 48 Withdrawn Song 49 Wrinkles
Nomads 50 Death
Finis 5 1 In Autumn
QuoVadis? 52 The Breeze
Leaves 54 Fulfilled
Vidims 55 Love Immortal
F°g 56 Winter Rain
Nightfall 57 The Star to the
Cliffs 58 Watcher 78
Harbours 79
St Mary of Egypt 80 Life's Gulf Stream 82 The Life-Giver 83 Revisited 84
Inscriptions 85
The Grave-Digger 86 Our Secret 87
The Old Year's
Blessing 88
The Test 89
8
THE
Our Soul's Quest p
To an Amateur
Hidden
The Dawn Star
Neighbour
Tears
Two Easter Lilies
Animula Vaga
Influences
At the Last
The Dial
Breakers
|
CONTENTS |
||
|
.90 |
Her Pilot |
102 |
|
91 |
Survival |
103 |
|
92 |
Fiat Lux |
106 |
|
93 |
Going Blind |
107 |
|
94 |
Blind |
108 |
|
95 |
Mammy |
109 |
|
96 |
In Blindness |
no |
|
97 |
In Tenebris |
III |
|
98 |
Proximity |
112 |
|
99 |
Benighted |
H3 |
|
TOO |
Our Stars |
114 |
|
IOI |
The Smiter |
H5 |
LATER POEMS
CHRIST AND THE PAGAN
I HAD no God but these, The sacerdotal Trees, And they uplifted me. "I hung upon^a Tree"
The sun and moon I saw, And reverential awe Subdued me day and night. " / am the perfect Light"
Within a lifeless Stone — All other gods unknown — I sought Divinity. " The Corner-Stone am I."
II
For sacrificial feast I slaughtered man and beast, Red recompense to gain. " So /, a Lamby was slain.
" Tea', such My hungering Grace That wheresoever My face Is hidden , none may grope Beyond eternal Hope"
12
I
THE GOOD THIEF
F thou, like Zacheus, wouldst see Thy Lord and Master, climb the tree, And for His passing wait with me.
Here, nearer to its native skies, No. intervening darkness lies Between the soul and Paradise.
Was ever mortal penance brier As mine? A moment of belief — Turnkey of Heaven, beware — a thief!
CHRIST TO DUMB CREATURES
FOR man or for your fellows die, Ye bleeding victims, e'en as I The life they spare not freely give That in Me all again may live. The lamb, the fish, I fed upon With my Humanity are one.
AD BESTIAS
YE have the power to lift us higher. The Prodigal among the swine Refound the pearl cast forth in mire, The wisdom lost in wine.
And he, the outcast of the East — The lord of luxury, discrowned —
Again the dawn of reason found In darkness of the beast.
Aye, when a Babe He laid Him down Among the beasts in Bethlehem,
Of brutal power He gave to them To forge the Martyr's crown.
MOMENTS
E^E the manna, mute as snow, Swift the Moments come & go, Each sufficient for the needs Of the multitude it feeds; One to all, and all to one, Superfluity to none, Ever dying but to give Life whereon alone we live.
16
LONELINESS
1WALK beside a lonely lake Where, ere thy natal day, I loved for contemplation's sake At eventide to stray.
The mist, rewakened from the wave,
Enfolds me as before, But from thy solitary grave
Thou comest now no more.
17 B2
ABASHED
THE cock crows; & behold the hidden Day — The thrice-denied — appears, And Darkness, conscience-stricken, steals away His face bedewed with tears.
18
CHRISTMAS
THE world His cradle is; The stars His worshippers; His "place on earth," the mother's kiss On lips new pressed to hers.
For she alone to Him
In perfect light appears, The one horizon never dim
With penitential tears.
THE BABE TO THE GIFT-BEARER
1 CANNOT hold within My hands Thy gift, but here My mother stands
To take it as My own. It is thro' her I come to thee, And now our go-between is she Till I am older grown.
20
SPECULUM AMORIS
MY GOD the Baby is That rests upon my knee. Into those eyes of His
I gaze mine own to see. And He looks up to meet in mine Reflected all the love Divine.
A Maid my mother is:
AndlasirelessSon. No other deed like this
Has Love eternal done — To make her motherhood for Me The mirror of Divinity.
21
THE BREEZE AT BETHLEHEM
1THAT have lashed the sea And from the forest torn the rooted tree. Come now, my passion spent, A lowly penitent, Sweet Child, to Thee.
Alike Thy sovereign will The strong & weak, O slumbering Babe, fulfil. As I before Thee now Shall waves submissive bow, And storms be still.
22
T
PRISONER'S BASE
HO' Almighty, far from me, Little Babe, you cannot be; If perchance you get away, Back you come on Christmas-day, And we children hold you here In our hearts, a Prisoner.
AT THE MANGER
WHEN first her Christmas watch to keep Came down the silent angel, Sleep, With snowy sandals shod, Beholding what His mother's hands Had wrought, with softer swaddling-bands She swathed the Son of God.
Then skilled in mysteries of night, With tender visions of delight
She wreathed His resting place, Till wakened by a warmer glow Than heaven itself had yet to show,
He saw His mother's face.
24
EPIPHANY
REASON, have done! Ofthee I'll none While face to face I see the sun.
Be thine the ray To point the way In darkness: but, behold, 'tis day.
Should faith divine Forbear to shine, Again I'll place my hand in thine.
For in thy sight
To walk aright
Is prelude to the perfect light.
CHRIST AND THE WINDS
FROM Bethlehem to Calvary, By night and day, by land and sea, His closest followers were we.
We soothed Him on His mother's breast; We shared with John the place of rest; With Magdalen His feet we pressed.
We saw His twilight agony;
To us He breathed His latest sigh;
With us He sought again the sky.
And now of all to whom His tone, His face and gesture once were known, We, wanderers, remain alone.
26
L
IN EXTREMIS ORD, as from Thy body bleeding, Wave by wave is life receding
From these limbs of mine: As it drifts away from me
To the everlasting sea, Blend it, Lord, with Thine.
HOLY SATURDAY
O EARTH, who daily kissed His feet Like lowly Magdalen, — how sweet (As oft His mother used) to keep The silent watches of His sleep, Till love demands the Prisoner, And Death replies, "He is not here. He passed my portal, where, afraid, My footsteps faltered to invade The region that beyond me lies: Then, ere the dawn, I saw Him rise In glory that dispelled my gloom And made a Temple of the Tomb."
28
BROTHER ASS AND ST. FRANCIS T came to pass
I
That "Brother Ass" (As he his Body named,) Unto the Saint Thus made complaint: " I am unjustly blamed.
"Whate'erldo, Like Balaam you
Requite me with a blow, As for offence To recompense
An ignominious foe.
" God made us one, And I have done
No wickedness alone; Nor can I do Apart, as you,
An evil all my own.
29
"If Passion stir, 'Tis you that spur
My frenzy to the goal: Then be the blame Where sits the shame,
Upon the goading soul.
" Should one or both Be blind or loth
Our brotherhood to see, Remember this, You needs must miss
Or enter heaven through me"
To this complaint
The lowly saint In tears replied, "Alas,
If so it be,
God punish me And bless thee, Brother Ass."
NATURE
IT is His garment; and to them Who touch in faith its utmost hem He, turning, says again, " I see That virtue hath gone out of me."
HELPLESSNESS
IN patience as in labour must thou be A follower of Me,
Whose hands & feet, when most I wrought for thee, Were nailed unto a tree.
THE VIGIL
for me here " — Ah, well doth Love obey Thy mandate: for the stars have burnt away The web of darkness, & disrobe the day In twilight chill.
"Stay for me here" — I cannot choose but wait. The day is spent: & at the ponderous gate Of sunset, still I linger desolate. — Was this thy will?
" Stay for me here " — An echo in the gloom Of midnight warns me of approaching doom. As at the temple, so before the tomb, I wait thee still.
33
MY PORTION
1KNOW not what a day may bring; For now 'tis Sorrow that I sing,
And now 'tis Joy. In both a Father's hand I see; For one renews the Man in me, And one the Boy.
34
BEATITUDE
AND is it well with thee? Ay, past all dreaming, well !
For here we dwell
Where none may weep, And Paradise is ours again to keep — The tree of knowledge in the midst thereof.
Time-ripened love — The leaves no more for healing, but for food
Of lite renewed, Fresh with the dew, from vanished faith distilled,
Of hope fulfilled.
All round us angels be
To guard the gateways, not with sword of flame, But fragrant breathings of the holy Name, That never more an after thought of sin
May enter in.
35
MY NEIGHBOUR
MY neighbour as myself to love, Thou hast commanded me, And in obedience I prove That Thou Thyself art he.
I
O'ERCOME
PAUSE for tears. But thou, my lute, Why art thou, like thy master, mute? Hath harmony within thee bred The hope thou hast interpreted?
Nay; if thou falter, Love may deem Our passion but an idle dream. Speak then, my lute, that all may hear How silence holds me prisoner.
37
BEAUTY
!HE sleeps — her hiding-place unknown To other worshippers, Till Art, her lover, comes alone To press his lips to hers.
THE VOYAGER
FAR inland, where the sea, Throughout the day, Lives but in memory —
From twilight gray As foamless tides of sleep Their heights attain — Back to the distant deep I drift again;
And, as of old, a boy
Seem I to be, With Innocence and Joy
Afloat with me, Till, all too soon, the star
Of Morn appears, And on the slumber-bar
We part in tears.
39
DEPRECATION
LOW, I listen in my grave For the silence soon to be When a slow-receding wave, Hushed, is memory.
Now the falling of a tear
Or the breathing half-suppressed Of a sigh, re-echoed here,
Holds me from my rest.
O, ye breakers of the past
From the never-resting deep,
On the coast of slumber cast, Cease, and let me sleep.
40
AT THE EBB-TIDE
O MARSHES that remain In anguish dumb Till over you again The waters come !
So must thy life abide
In silent pain, Till Love, the truant tide,
Come back again.
IN STERNUM
IF Life and Death be things that seem, If Death be sleep, and Life a dream, May not the everlasting sleep The dream of life eternal keep ?
42
THE STROKE OF THE HOUR
IF I were dead, and yonder chime Retold the fairy-tale of Time, At distance I perchance might hear, And half in pity, half in fear, Perceive the future life to be But an immortal Memory.
43
LOSS
FOR one extinguished light Of Love, all heaven is night; For one frail flower the less, The world a wilderness.
44
T
INITIATED
HOU hast put on the livery, And learned the shibboleth, And pledged for all eternity The brotherhood of Death.
Yet to thy wonder-wakened eyes The light, however clear,
But solves the deeper mysteries That lay about thee here.
45
THE LUTE-PLAYER
HE touched the strings; & lo, the strain- As waters dimple to the rain — Spontaneous rose and fell again.
In swaddling clothes or silence bound,
His genius a soul hadTound, And wakened it to light and sound.
DEPARTURE
O now thy way, but whereso'er thou art,
If sick again for home, Know that the place forsaken in my heart Is vacant till thou come.1
G
47
T
DEJECTION
HE sun is gone; & the forsaken sea —
Her glance a tear Wherein all depths of tenderness appear —
Looks back at me, Where I upon the strand, The centre of the lone horizon, stand
Forlorn as she, To know that when her darkness drifts away
Mine own must stay.
SONG
FADE not yet, O summer day, For my love hath answered yea. Keep us from the coming night, Lest our blossom suffer blight.
Fear thou not: if love be true, Closer will it cleave to you; 'Tis the darkened hours that prove Faith or faithlessness in Love.
49 02
NOMADS
E are but pilgrims; and the skin That covers us, the tent wherein, Awake or sleeping, we abide Till death a dwelling-house provide.
W
FINIS
OTO be with thee sinking to thy rest, Thy journey done; The world thou leavest blessing thee and blest,
O setting sun; The clouds, that ne'er the morning joys forget,
Again aglow,
And leaf and flower with tears of twilight wet To see thee go.
QUO VADIS ?
THE sedge was sere; the water still, As waiting for the wintry chill; When, shadow-like along the hill, She moved alone.
The owl, upon a blasted limb, From sepulchres of silence dim Made charnel echoes mock for him Their dying moan.
Upon the forehead of the night The moon, foreboding in affright — A film of solitary light — Above her shone.
What meant the omen of the bird? The moon with blinding vapours blurred? What in her heart of anguish stirred The stifled groan ?
A plunge, a ripple, and a sigh Of waters; — fleeting soul, reply, Was it for death of Love to die, Or to atone?
53
LEAVES
ALL your sylvan prophecies But a phantom sigh ! " Yea, we listened to the breeze
Tempting us to fly Like the summer birds and bees
From the branches high: Now beneath our naked trees
Shadowless we lie, In the autumn mysteries
Doomed, alas, to die."
54
VICTIMS
BEHOLD, throughout the land, On many a smoking pyre The maple-martyrs stand Ablaze in autumn fire.
The winds are hushed in prayer, Till, falling one by one,
Dumbfounded leaves declare The sacrifice is done.
55
FOG
THE ghost am I Of winds that die Alike on land or sea, In silence deep To shroud and keep
Their mournful memory
A spirit white I stalk the night,
Or, shadowing the skies, Forbid the sun To look upon
My noonday mysteries.
NIGHTFALL
NOW, weary, one by one we lay Aside the panoply of day; And, like to little children, creep Defenceless, to the arms of sleep.
Our heads upon her bosom, soon Forgotten are the cares of noon, That, shorn of shadows, helpless lie As Samson in captivity.
57
CLIFFS
FOR ever face to face, As towered of old Within the Holy Place The wings of gold.
One heralding the day With kindled crest;
One reddened with the ray That fires the west.
The bosom-vale between
Alike their own; To each a heaven unseen,
A world unknown.
TO THE WHEATFIELD
GIVE us this day our daily bread. " Oh wheat," the wind, in passing, said, " 'Tis you that answer everywhere This call of Life's incessant prayer; Bow, then, in reverence your head, For 'tis the Master's gift you bear."
59
W
THE FORFEITURE
HO first beneath the mistletoe On Christmas night is found, Must pay a forfeiture, we know,
To them that stand around. Approach, ye angel choirs, and then Make way for happier sons of men.
60
HEREDITY
I DIED at sea; and homeward bound, I journey half the world around To rest where native dust is found.
'Tis strange, if dust be dust, that I E'en now to dust returning, sigh As dust with kindred dust to lie.
But haply, as from sire to son, From son to sire emotions run That make the lineal current one.
61
THE BIRTHDAY
ANOTHER blossom blooms for thee Upon the never-failing Tree Of Life — the same in breath and hue As was the first that drank the dew, When God within His garden stood Alone, and found it "very good."
So be it, when — thy garden done, And all thy labours one by one Recorded — thro* the twilight dim He comes to bid thee walk with Him Into a vaster solitude, Thou too behold it very good!
62
SICUT IN PRINCIPIO
\ PENTECOSTAL breath— /ILThe wind that baffles Death — Moves: and from sterile sand The sea brings forth the Land, Out of whose wounded side All life is satisfied.
MEMORY
I GO not to the grave to weep, But to my heart, wherein I keep A hidden manna that hath fed Alike the living and the dead.
We gathered it as, day by day, It fell from heaven upon our way, To be, if haply one were gone, The bread for both to feed upon.
64
RACERS
THE winds from many a cloudy mane Shake off the sweat of gathering rain
And whicker with delight; No slope of pasture-lands they need, Whereon to rest, or drink, or feed, Their life the rapture of the speed, The frenzy of the flight.
65 E2
T
NOCHETRISTE
HE night that bore me to my dead, Along the dreary way The meadow-frogs in chorus said,
"We sing the vanished day; Think not that life is all with you: Her night hath stars and voices too."
66
H
CONSOLATION
ENCEFORTH alone to bear The cross thou canst not share
Is sweet to me; For 'twas the heavier part That lay upon thy heart Which nowlis free.
UNIGENITUS
FTER the man-child morn, Of night no babe is born : After a GOD, no room For man in Mary's womb.
A
68
A WIND-CALL
DUST thou art, and unto dust, Playfellow, return thou must; Lingering death it is to stay In the prison-house of clay — Bricks of Egypt, year by year, Walling up a sepulchre.
Better far the soul to free From its cold captivity, And with us, thy comrades, go Wheresoe'er we list to blow. Come, for soon again to dust Playfellow, return thou must.
WITHDRAWN
I MISS thee everywhere. The places dear to thee, Familiar shadows wear Henceforth for memory.
And where thou hast not been, Thou seemest to repose
As near — tho' never seen — As fragrance to the rose.
70
WRINKLES
HIS, biting Frost — this, branding Sun — This, Wind or drenching Rain hath done:
Each perfecting the Sculptor's plan
Upon the godlike image, Man.
T
71
DEATH
I PASSED him daily, but his eyes, On others musing, missed me, Till suddenly, with pale surprise,
He caught, & clasped, & kissed me. Since then his long-averted glance Is fixed upon my countenance.
IN AUTUMN
NOW that the birds are gone That sang the summer through, And now that, one by one,
The leaves are going too, Is all their beauty but a show To fade for ever when they go?
Nay; what is heard and seen,
In time must pass away; But Beauty, born within, —
The blossom of a day — Unto its hiding place again Returns for ever to remain.
73
T
THE BREEZE
HRO' thee the ocean knows The fragrance of the rose; And inlands, far away, The blossom of the spray.
Thro' thee, to every wave A whisper of the grave; And to each grave a sigh Of Life that cannot die.
74
FULFILLED
'^TTWYAS August: and a Gypsy Breeze
A Came wandering thro' the wood. " Our fortunes ! " cried the lover Trees That first before her stood.
"Sir Hickory the king shall be Of all this wide demesne; And you," she added tenderly, "Fair Maple, shall be queen."
They listened, smiling as she spoke,
Nor heeded what she told, Till came the morning when they woke
Arrayed in red and gold.
75
LOVE IMMORTAL
HE soul that sees no hell below,
No heaven above, All other mysteries may know, But never Love.
T
If from the prison-walls of Time
No life may fly, Then Love and Innocence and Crime
Alike must die.
WINTER RAIN
RAIN on the roof and rain On the burial-place of grain; To one a voice in vain; To one, o'er hill and plain The pledge of life again.
Rain on the sterile sea, That hath no need of thee, Nor keeps thy memory — 'Tis thou that teachest me The range of charity.
77
THE STAR TO THE WATCHER
FAREWELL ! I may not meet thee till the day Hath passed away;
But in the bosom of the noontide sea, I '11 dream of thee.
Alike are we the votaries of Night;
A voice hath said, Let there for other worshippers be light,
For lovers, shade.
HARBOURS
FULL many a noonday nook I know Where memory is fain to go And wait in silence till the shade Of sleep the solitude invade.
For these the resting-places are Of dreams that, journeying afar, Pause in their migratory flight This side the continent of night.
79
ST MARY OF EGYPT
STRONG to suffer, strong to sin, Loving much, and much forgiven, In the desert realm a queen,
Penance-crowned, to cope with Heaven, Solitude alone could be Room enough for GOD and thee.
Long the vigil, stern the fast;
Morn, with night's anointing, chill; Noon with passion overcast;
Night with phantoms fouler still; Prayer and penitential tears Battling with the lust of years.
Low upon the parching sand, Shrivelled in the blight of day,
As beneath a throbbing brand Prone thy ghastly shadow lay,
Till the manacles of hell
From thy fevered spirit fell.
80
Then, O Queen of Solitude!
Silence led thee as a bride, Clothed anew in maidenhood,
To an altar purified, Lit with holy fires, to prove Self the sacrifice of Love.
8l F2
LIFE'S GULF STREAM
STARS, that in the darkness bloom Wither in the light; Dreams, begotten of the gloom, Take their morning flight.
And, the gleam of fancy gone, From the current of the dawn Tidal memories are drawn To the coast of Night.
82
THE LIFE-GIVER
HE earth to us her bread
Of life doth give; And we to her, our dead, That they may live.
T
In vain the vision blest Of Heaven were found,
Did Faith no ladder rest Upon the ground.
REVISITED
A LONELY road I tread again, As once with Love's companion, Pain, Who faltered, "Love is fled."
To-day, a shadow not mine own Along a lonelier path is thrown, That tells me « Pain is dead."
84
INSCRIPTIONS
THE epitaph of Night The Sunbeams write; The epitaph of Day, The Shadows gray; One requiem of Wind & Wave Above each grave.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER
HERE underneath the sod, Where night till now hath been, With every lifted clod I let the sunshine in.
How dark soe'er the gloom
Of Death's approaching shade,
The first within the tomb Is light, that cannot fade.
And from the deepest grave
I banish it in vain; For, like a tidal wave,
Anon 'twill come again.
T
OUR SECRET
HE interval We both recall, To each was all.
A moment's space, That time nor place Can e'er efface.
'Tis all our own, A secret known To us alone.
My life to thee As thine to me Eternity.
THE OLD YEAR'S BLESSING
LIKE Simeon of old, The new-born Babe I hold Upon my heart: According to thy word, Let now thy servant, LORD, In peace depart.
88
T
THE TEST
HE dead th ere are, who live; The living, who are dead: The poor, who still can give;
The rich, who lack for bread; To Love it is and Love alone That Life or Luxury is known.
THE SOUL'S QUEST
I LAID my vesture by Upon this spot, And here returning, I
Behold it not.
Dost thou, O earth, resume The relics of the tomb ?
Whereto the Earth replies:
" Be not afraid ; Safe in my keeping lies
What here was laid: A thousand forms refine What shall again be thine."
90
TO AN AMATEUR
LOVE thy violin: Let thy soul therein Learn the unity Of the mystic three, When the string and bow- Parted lovers — meet, And in music know Life in Love complete.
91
T
HIDDEN
HE sweetest warblers — one in light,
O 7
And one in darkness, screened from sight- By voice alone prevail;
So let the Poet sing his song,
As far secluded from the throng As Lark or Nightingale
92
THE DAWN STAR
FEED me, O morning, till the ray That love hath kindled in the shade, Lost in the satisfying day Of Light's perfedlion, fade.
93
NEIGHBOUR
FULL many a heedless fellow-man Had passed him on the way, But Night, the Good Samaritan,
Beholding where he lay, Upbore him to the Inn of Sleep,
And there I heard him say, Whate'er the charges of his keep, O Landlord, I '11 repay.
94
TEARS
UT of the deep are we, Out of that inland sea Whereof the briny wave Beats to the yawning grave.
O
95
TWO EASTER LILIES
BEHOLD the reed of scorn, Like Aaron's rod, Hath blossomed to adorn The risen GOD.
And she, the broken bloom That balmed His feet,
Is first before His tomb, Her LORD to greet.
ANIMULA VAGA
DO quickly what thou hast to do; For, till to dust again, O coffin-worm, the temple fall, A fledgling I remain.
Nay; till the utmost particle Another form hath found,
Tho' plumed for the empyrean, I flutter near the ground.
97
INFLUENCES
EACH separate life is fed From many a fountain-head: Tides that we never know Into our being flow, And rays of the remotest star Converge to make us what we are.
AT THE LAST
EFTLE squirrel in the tree, Faithless other friends to me, Therefore to the birds and thee Have I come.
Men have reason; ye have love — Gift all other gifts above — Proving what, alas, to prove They are dumb.
99
THE DIAL
/t DREAMER in the dark, I grow ./""^Prophetic in the morning glow; Thereon a slender shade I throw — A sign in Babylon to say "Thou'rt in the balance weighed, O Day, Found wanting, and shalt waste away." And now in Night's pavilion, all The stars are writing on the wall, "Behold, thy kingdom too must fall."
100
T
BREAKERS
IS well the dimples sweet To kiss away — Fhe marks of little feet That love the spray;
For, once the children gone,
'Twere mockery The vestiges upon The sand to see.
101
D
HER PILOT
EATH seemed afraid to wake her; For, traversing the deep, When home he came to take her, He kept her fast asleep.
And, haply, from her dreaming
Of many a risk to run She woke, with rapture beaming,
To find her voyage done.
102
T
SURVIVAL
HE tempest past —
A home in ruin laid; Butlo! where last
The little children played At hide-and-seek, A footprint small Pleads silently, As if afraid to speak. " Behold in me A memory, The least & last of all!"
103
\
THE HAUNTED MOON
STILL closer doth she cowl with night Her visage white, To hide her from the spectre grey
Of yesterday —
Deep buried in his sepulchre
To all but her.
104
ON HIS BLINDNESS
FIAT LUX
"/^ IVE us this day our daily bread," and light. VjFor more to me, O LORD, than food is sight :
And I at noon have been In twilight, where my fellow-men were seen
"As trees" that walked before me. E'en to-day From time to time there falls upon my way
A feather of the darkness. But again It passes; and amid the falling rain
Of tears, I lift, O LORD, mine eyes to Thee, For, lo ! I see!
106
GOING BLIND
BACK to the primal gloom Where life began, As to my mother's womb Must I a man
Return: Not to be born again,
But to remain: And in the School of Darkness learn
What mean "The things unseen."
107
A
BLIND
GAIN as in the desert way, Behold my guides — a cloud by day,
A flame by night:
For darkness wakens with the morn, But dreams, of midnight slumber born, Bring back the light.
108
MAMMY*
1 LOVED her countenance whereon, Despite the longest day, The tenderness of visions gone
In shadow seemed to stay. And now, when faithless sight is fled
Beyond my waking gaze, Of darkness I am not afraid, — It is my Mammy's face.
* This is the American Southern child's name for the negro
IN BLINDNESS
FOR me her life to consecrate, My Lady Light
Within her shadowy convent gate Is lost to sight.
I may not greet her; but a grace —
A gleam divine — The rapture of her hidden face
Suffuses mine.
no
IN TENEBRIS
HE dawn to ours is dusk to other eyes;
And, light away, Our stars returning to their native skies Forget the day.
T
If then, some life be brighter for the shade
That darkens mine, To both, O LORD, more manifest be made
The light divine.
in
PROXIMITY
HE day is nearer to the night Than to another day: If closer to the living Light, In darkness let me stay.
T
I 12
BENIGHTED
HER mistress would not have her stay; And so the fair hand-maiden, Day — My Hagar — banished from my sight, Has left me to her rival, Night.
But still she lingers in the glow Of life above us and below : The stars my Sarah's progeny; My Hagar 's, sands beside the sea.
113 H2
OUR STARS
MY twilight is before the dark, And thine before the day; O'er both alike a beacon-spark
To keep us in the way. The darkness can but brighten mine; Let not the noon extinguish thine.
114
THE SMITER
THEY bound Thine eyes, & questioned, "Tell us now Who smote Thee." Thou wast silent. When to-day Mine eyes are holden, and again they say, "Who smote Thee? " LORD, I tell them it is Thou.
Permission has been kindly granted to reprint such of the poems in the present volume as were originally published in the following maga zines: "The Atlantic Monthly," "Cosmoplitan Magazine," "Har per's Magazine," and "Youth's Companion."
LETCHWORTH I AT THE ARDEN PRESS.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
Fine schedule: 25 cents on first day overdue
50 cents on fourth day overdue One dollar tjn seventri day overdue.
REC'D LD
APR 1 0 1958
M204798
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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