Works

We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,
Of men who played the game and lost or won;
Of mad stampedes, of toil beyond all measure,
Of camp-fire comfort when the day was done....

The smoke upon your Altar dies,
The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
Has flown away.
What profit then to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?
...

Oh, awful Power whose works repel
The marvel of the earth's designs,--
I 'll hie me otherwhere to dwell,
Arcadia has trolley lines.

I'm the ghost of that poor gobbler
Who used to be so great,
They took my poor, neglected bones
And piled them on a plate.
Reader, shed a kindly tear
For my unhappy fate.
...

We've finished up the filthy war;
We've won what we were fighting for . . .
(Or have we? I don't know).
But anyway I have my wish:
I'm back upon the old Boul' Mich',
And how my heart's aglow!...

You who have lived in the Land,
You who have trusted the trail;
You who are strong to withstand,
You who are swift to assail;
Songs have I sung to beguile,
Vintage of desperate years...

As the birds come in the Spring,
We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
From depths of the air;

As the rain comes from the cloud,
And the brook from the ground;...

My new-cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare;
By my own work, before the night,
Great Overseer I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought,...

Now, gentle reader, is our journey ended,

Mute is our minstrel, silent is our song;
Sweet the bard's voice whose strains our course attended,

Pleasant the paths he guided us along....

Go, little booke, God send thee good passage,
And specially let this be thy prayere,
Unto them all that thee will read or hear,
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call,...

Low-flying breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in the gloaming;
Thro' the black-stemm'd pines only the far river shines.
Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes,...

Lesbia hath a beaming eye,
But no one knows for whom it beameth;
Right and left its arrows fly,
But what they aim at no one dreameth.
Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon
My Nora's lid that seldom rises;...

Chez Moi, Montparnasse,

April 1914. The same evening.
...

What has become of the children all?
How have the darlings vanished?
Fashion's pied piper, with magical air,
Has wooed them away, with their flaxen hair
And laughing eyes, we don't know where,...

Let Erin remember the days of old.
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her;
When Malachi wore the collar of gold,[1]
Which he won from her proud invader.
When her kings, with standard of green unfurled,...

(Minor Key)



I

Let me enjoy the earth no less
Because the all-enacting Might
That fashioned forth its loveliness
Had other aims than my delight.

II
...

Tune - "Duncan Gray."


I.

Let not woman e'er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e'er complain
Fickle man is apt to rove:
Look abroad through nature's range,...

Last week the Lord be praised for all His mercies
To His unworthy servant! I arrived
Safe at the Mission, via Westport; where
I tarried over night, to aid in forming
A Vigilance Committee, to send back,...

The clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly northward to you,
While north of them all, at the farthest ends, stands one bright-bosomed, aglance...

The dying words of Goethe.

"Light! more light! the shadows deepen,
And my life is ebbing low,
Throw the windows widely open:
Light! more light! before I go.

"Softly let the balmy sunshine...