Works

I bring the simplest pledge of love,
Friend of my earlier days;
Mine is the hand without the glove,
The heart-beat, not the phrase.

How few still breathe this mortal air...

This is your month, the month of "perfect days,"
Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze.
Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes,
Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes;...

"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet'ner of life and solder of society!
I owe thee much!"

Blair.


Dear Smith, the sleest, paukie thief,
That e'er attempted stealth or rief,...

On a blank leaf of "poems printed, not published.


Well thought! who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung
Than those which move the stranger's tongue,...

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.

But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,...

Our dearest joys forever flow
From fountains of the Long Ago,
That from the heights of pleasures past
Flood all the present valleys vast,
And with eternal glees provide
The future's endless ocean tide....

O lyrist of the lowly and the true,
The song I sought for you
Hides yet unsung. What hope for me to find,
Lost in the d'dal mind,
The living utterance with lovely tongue!
To say, as erst was sung...

The lark's in the sky, love,
The flowers on the lea,
The whitethorn's in bloom, love,
To please thee and me;
'Neath its shade we can rest, love,
And sit on the hill,
And as last we met, love,...

Two Poems, written on the Sinking of the Lusitania.
Appearing in the Chicago 'Herald', May 11, 1915.


I. Speak Now for Peace

Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen,...

Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake....

1.
The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane!
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.

2....

1.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up, - to thy wonted work! come, trace...

Two-faced Janus,[1] god of Time!
Be my Phoebus while I rhyme;
To oblige your crony Swift,
Bring our dame a new year's gift;
She has got but half a face;
Janus, since thou hast a brace,...

Simple you were, and good. No kindlier heart
Beat than the heart within your gentle breast.
Labour you had, and happiness, and rest,
And were the maid of nations. Now you start...

(Killed at Surrey C. H., October, 1866.)



. . . . .

Dear friend, forgive a wild lament
Insanely following thy flight.
I would not cumber thine ascent...

O jealousy, that art
The canker of the heart;
And mak'st all hell
Where thou do'st dwell;
For pity be
No fury, or no firebrand to me.

Far from me I'll remove...

When youth was high, and life was new
And days sped musical and fleet,
She stood amid the morning dew,
And sang her earliest measures sweet, -
Sang as the lark sings, speeding fair...

I cannot touch the harp again,
And sing another idle lay,
To cool a maddening, burning brain,
And drive the midnight fiend away.
Music, own sister to the soul.
Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale;...

Sence fair Jessica hez left us
Seems ez ef she hed bereft us,
When she went, o' half o' livin';
Fer we never knowed she'd driven
Into us so much content,
Till fair Jessica hed went....

Nourished by peaceful suns and gracious dew,
Your sweet youth budded and your sweet lives grew,
And all the world seemed rose-beset for you.

The rose of beauty was your mutual dower,...