ON A GREEK VASE DIVINELY shapen cup, thy lip Unto me seemeth thus to speak: "Behold in me the workmanship, The grace and cunning of a Greek! "Long ages since he mixed the clay, Whose sense of symmetry was such, The labor of a single day, Immortal grew beneath his touch. "For dreaming while his fingers went "Her loveliness to me he gave Who gave unto herself his heart, That love and beauty from the grave Might rise and live again in art." And hearing from thy lips this tale Of love and skill, of art and grace, Thou seem'st to me no more the frail Memento of an older race: But in thy form divinely wrought And figured o'er with fret and scroll, ON SOME BUTTERCUPS A LITTLE way below her chin, Caught in her bosom's snowy hem, Some buttercups are fastened in, - ΙΟ 15 20 25 They do not miss their meadow place, Her hair, and mild blue eyes. There, in the downy meshes pinned, MISS GUINEY was born at Boston. Most of her life has been spent in and near Boston, where she has been busily occupied in literary work. She is the author of several volumes of essays and poems. THE WILD RIDE I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, 16 Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle, Straight, grim, and abreast, go the weatherworn, galloping legion, With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him. The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses; There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: 20 What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding. I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate tramping and neighing. We spur to a land of no name, outracing the stormwind; 5 We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil. Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow. RICHARD HOVEY 1864-1900 FEW Poets of the younger generation gave such promise as Hovey, and at the time of his death the outlook seemed brightest. He was born at Normal, Indiana, and died in New York city. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and later studied theology, but finally turned to literature. He saw life on many sides in New York, as journalist, actor, dramatist, and lecturer on English literature. His best-known volume of poems is Songs from Vagabondia. THE CALL OF THE BUGLES BUGLES! And the Great Nation thrills and leaps to arms! Without misgiving and without debate, 10 Too calm, too strong for fury or alarms, The people blossoms armies and puts forth The splendid summer of its noiseless might; Mounts up in South and North, The thrill That tingled in our veins at Bunker Hill And brought to bloom July of 'Seventy-Six! With the sequoia of the giant West 15 20 Their ready banners and the hosts of war, They are the valiant vanguard of the rest! For the word That bids them bid the nations know us sons of Fate. Bugles ! 15 And in my heart a cry, -Like a dim echo far and mournfully Blown back to answer them from yesterday! November hillsides and the falling leaves Whose congregation glories as it grieves, The long hills sloping to the wave, And the lone bugler standing by the grave! Taps! The lonely call over the lonely woodlands Rising like the soaring of wings, Like the flight of an eagle 20 25 30 15 10 The bugles of the dead Blowing from spectral ranks an answering cry! The ghostly roll of immaterial drums, Beating reveille in the camps of dream, The irremeable stream. I hear the tread Of the great armies of the Past go by; Across the wide sea wash of years between, Concord and Valley Forge shout back from the unseen, And Vicksburg give a cheer. Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead! Ours to remember them with deeds like theirs! From sea to sea the insistent bugle blares, And as an eagle rears his crest, Defiant, from some tall pine of the North, The banners of America go forth Against the clarion sky. Veteran and volunteer, 5 |