Songs, Merry and Sad Part 7

Wet winds have swayed the birch and oak, And caught and swirled away the smoke, But, all day long, the wooden clock Went on, Nic-noc, nic-noc.

When deep at night I wake with fear, And shudder in the dark to hear The roaring storm's unguided strength, Peace steals into my heart at length, When, calm amid the shout and shock, I hear, Nic-noc, nic-noc.

And all the winter long 't is I Who bless its sheer monotony-- Its scorn of days, which cares no whit For time, except to measure it: The prosy, dozy, cosy clock, Nic-noc, nic-noc, nic-noc!

Tear Stains

Tear-marks stain from page to page This book my fathers left to me,-- So dull that nothing but its age Were worth its freight across the sea.

But tear stains! When, by whom, and why?

Thus takes my fancy to its wings; For grief is old, and one may cry About so many things!

A Prayer

If many years should dim my inward sight, Till, stirred with no emotion, I might stand gazing at the fall of night Across the gloaming ocean;

Till storm, and sun, and night, vast with her stars, Would seem an oft-told story, And the old sorrow of heroic wars Be faded of its glory;

Till, hearing, while June's roses blew their musk, The noise of field and city, The human struggle, sinking tired at dusk, I felt no thrill of pity;

Till dawn should come without her old desire, And day brood o'er her stages,-- O let me die, too frail for nature's hire, And rest a million ages.

She Being Young

The home of love is her blue eyes, Wherein all joy, all beauty lies, More sweet than hopes of paradise, She being young.

Speak of her with a miser's praise; She craves no golden speech; her ways Wind through charmed nights and magic days, She being young.

She is so far from pain and death, So warm her cheek, so sweet her breath Glad words are all the words she saith, She being young.

Seeing her face, it seems not far To Troy's heroic field of war, To Troy and all great things that are, She being young.

Paul Jones

A century of silent suns Have set since he was laid on sleep, And now they bear with booming guns And streaming banners o'er the deep A withered skin and clammy hair Upon a frame of human bones: Whose corse? We neither know nor care, Content to name it John Paul Jones.

His dust were as another's dust; His bones--what boots it where they lie?

What matter where his sword is rust, Or where, now dark, his eagle eye?

No foe need fear his arm again, Nor love, nor praise can make him whole; But o'er the farthest sons of men Will brood the glory of his soul.

Careless though cenotaph or tomb Shall tower his country's monument, Let banners float and cannon boom, A million-throated shout be spent, Until his widowed sea shall laugh With sunlight in her mantling foam, While, to his tomb or cenotaph, We bid our hero welcome home.

Twice exiled, let his ashes rest At home, afar, or in the wave, But keep his great heart with us, lest Our nation's greatness find its grave; And, while the vast deep listens by, When armored wrong makes terms to right, Keep on our lips his proud reply, "Sir, I have but begun to fight!"

The Drudge

Repose upon her soulless face, Dig the grave and leave her; But breathe a prayer that, in his grace, He who so loved this toiling race To endless rest receive her.

Oh, can it be the gates ajar Wait not her humble quest, Whose life was but a patient war Against the death that stalked from far With neither haste nor rest;

To whom were sun and moon and cloud, The streamlet's pebbly coil, The transient, May-bound, feathered crowd, The storm's frank fury, thunder-browed, But witness of her toil;

Whose weary feet knew not the bliss Of dance by jocund reed; Who never dallied at a kiss!

If heaven refuses her, life is A tragedy indeed!

The Wife

They locked him in a prison cell, Murky and mean.

She kissed him there a wife's farewell The bars between.

And when she turned to go, the crowd, Thinking to see her shamed and bowed, Saw her pa.s.s out as calm and proud As any queen.

She pa.s.sed a kinsman on the street, To whose sad eyes She made reply with smile as sweet As April skies.

To one who loved her once and knew The sorrow of her life, she threw A gay word, ere his tale was due Of sympathies.

She met a playmate, whose red rose Had never a thorn, Whom fortune guided when she chose Her marriage morn, And, smiling, looked her in the eye; But, seeing the tears of sympathy, Her smile died, and she pa.s.sed on by In quiet scorn.

They could not know how, when by night The city slept, A sleepless woman, still and white, The watches kept; How her wife-loyal heart had borne The keen pain of a flowerless thorn, How hot the tears that smiles and scorn Had held unwept.