MISS CONWAY 567

SONG, YOUTH, AND SORROW

LOFTY against our Western dawn uprises Achilles:

He among heroes alone singeth or toucheth the lyre.

Few and dimmed by grief, are the days that to him are appointed!

Love he shall know but to lose, life but to cast it away.

Dreaming of peace and a bride, he sees not the foes at the portal:

Paris, a traitor to love; Phœbus, accorder of song!

Freely he chose, do ye deem, and clave to the anguish and glory?

Rather the Fates at his birth chose, yet he gladly assents.

Is it a warning that death untimely and

bitterest sorrow,

Sorrow in love, and death, follow the children of song?

Yet will the young man's heart still cling to the choice of Achilles

Grief, an untimely doom, fame that eternal abides.

MY FATHERLAND

THE imperial boy had fallen in his pride
Before the gates of golden Babylon.
The host, who deemed that priceless
treasure won,

For many a day since then had wandered wide,

By famine thinned, by savage hordes defied. In a deep vale, beneath the setting

sun,

They saw at last a swift black river run, While shouting spearmen thronged the farther side.

Then eagerly, with startled, joyous eyes, Toward the desponding chief a soldier flew:

"I was a slave in Athens, never knew My native country; but I understand The meaning of yon wild barbarian cries, And I believe this is my fatherland !"

This glimpse have we, no more. Did parents fond,

Brothers, or kinsmen, hail his late return?

Or did he, doubly exiled, only yearn To greet the Euxine's waves at Trebizond, The blue Egean, and Pallas' towers beyond?

Mute is the record. We shall never learn.

But as once more the well-worn page I turn,

Forever by reluctant schoolboys conned,

A parable to me the tale appears,

Of blacker waters in a drearier vale.

Ah me! When on that brink we exiles stand,

As earthly lights and mortal accents fail, Shall voices long forgotten reach our ears, To tell us we have found our fatherland?

my fair strong youth,

Veiling mine eyes from the blessed light, and closing my heart to truth. Pity me, Lord, whose mercy passeth my wildest thought,

For I never dreamed of the bitter end of the work my hands had wrought!

In the sweet morn's flush and fragrance I wandered o'er dewy meadows,

Yet a son's tear this moment wrongs
My eager watching eyes,
Land of the lordliest deeds and songs
Since Greece was great and wise!

Thou hedgerow thing that queenest the
Earth,

What magic hast? - what art? A thousand years of work and worth Are clustered at thy heart:

The ghosts of those that made thee free

To throng thy hearth are wont; And as thy richest reliquary

Thou wearest thy Abbey's front!

Aye, ere my distance is complete
I see thy heroes come

And crowd yon shadowy mountain seat,
Still guardians of their home;
Thy Drake, thy Nelson, and thy Bruce
Glow out o'er dusky tides;
The rival Roses blend in truce,

And King with Roundhead rides.

And with these phantoms born to last,
A storm of music breaks;
And bards, pavilioned in the past,
Each from his tomb awakes!
The ring and glitter of thy swords,
Thy lovers' bloom and breath,
By them transmuted into words,

Redeem the world from death.

My path is West! My heart before
Bounds o'er the dancing wave;
Yet something's left I must deplore -
A magic wild and grave:
Though Honor live and Romance dwell
By mine own streams and woods,
Yet not in spire and keep so well
Are built such lofty moods.

England, perchance our love were more
If we were matched and met
In battle squadron on the shore,
Or here on ocean set:

How were all other banners furled
If that great duel rose !
For we alone in all the world
Are worthy to be foes.

If we should fail or you should fly, 'T were but a twinned disgrace, For both are bound to bear on high The laurels of one race:—

No fear new blooms shall bud above
Upon the ancient wreath,
For both can gentle be to Love,
And insolent to Death.

Land of the lion-hearted brood,
I breathe a last adieu;

To Her who reigns across the flood
My loyalty is true:

But with my service to her o'er,

Thou, England, ownest the rest, For I must worship and adore Whate'er is brave and best.

FROM THE "BOOK OF DAYDREAMS"

SOUL UNTO SOUL GLOOMS DARKLING

DISGUISE upon disguise, and then disguise,
Equivocations at the rose's heart,
Life's surest pay a poet's forgeries,
The gossamer gold coinage of our art.
Why hope for truth? Thy very being
slips,

Lost from thee, in thy crowd of masking moods.

Why hope for love? Between quick-kissing lips

Is room and stage for all hate's interludes. One with thy love thou art! — her eyes, her hair

Known to thy soul, a pure estate of bliss;
But some least motion, look, or changed air,
And nadir unto zenith nearer is:
Thou mayst control her limbs, but not begin
To know what planet rules the tides within.

DISENCHANTMENT

THE mighty soul that is ambition's mate,
Tied to the shiftings of a certain star,
Forgets the circle of its mortal state
And what its planetary aspects are,
Till, in conjunctive course and wandering,
Out of its trance and treasure-dream of
hope

It wakens, poor illusionary thing,
Wingless, without desire, or deed, or scope.
So have I with imaginations played
Till I have lost life's sure and single good,
Forgotten friendships, broken vows, and
made

My heart a highway for ingratitude,