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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anthology of Massachusetts Poets, by Various

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Title: Anthology of Massachusetts Poets

Author: Various

Editor: William Stanley Braithwaite

Posting Date: February 15, 2013 [EBook #2294] Release Date: August, 2000 First Posted: August 18, 2000

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS ***

Produced by Susan L. Farley

ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE, Editor

HOME-BOUND

  THE moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips,
  The water makes a quietness of sound;
  Night is an anchoring of many ships
  Home-bound.

  There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs
  Of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin
  The silence into nets, and tenanters
  Move softly in.

  I step on shadows riding through the grass,
  And feel the night lean cool against my face;
  And challenged by the sentinel of space,
  I pass.

JOSEPH AUSLANDE

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

  O BEAUTIFUL for spacious skies,
  For amber waves of grain,
  For purple mountain majesties
  Above the fruited plain!
  America! America!
  God shed His grace on thee
  And crown thy good with brotherhood
  From sea to shining sea!

  O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
  Those stern, impassioned stress
  A thoroughfare for freedom beat
  Across the wilderness!
  America! America!
  God mend thine every flaw,
  Confirm thy soul in self-control,
  Thy liberty in law!

  O beautiful for heroes proved
  In liberating strife
  Who more than self their country loved,
  And mercy more than life!
  America! America!

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  May God thy gold refine,
  Till all success be nobleness,
  And every gain divine.

  O beautiful for patriot dream
  That sees beyond the years
  Thine alabaster cities gleam

  Undimmed by human tears!
  America! America!
  God shed His grace on thee
  And crown thy good with brotherhood
  From sea to shining sea!

KATHERINE LEE BATES

YELLOW CLOVER

  MUST I, who walk alone,
  come on it still,
  This Puck of plants
  The wise would do away with,
  The sunshine slants
  To play with,
  Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,
  Which once in Parting for a time
  That then seemed long,
  Ere time for you was over,
  We sealed our own?
  Do you remember yet,
  O Soul beyond the stars,
  Beyond the uttermost dim bars
  Of space,
  Dear Soul, who found earth sweet,
  Remember by love's grace,
  In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song,
  How suddenly we halted in our climb,
  Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,
  Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,
  And gave them as a token
  Each to Each,
  In lieu of speech,
  In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,
  Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet
  With a strange dew of tears?

  So it began,
  This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover,
  To be our tenderest language. All the years
  It lent a new zest to the summer hours,
  As each of us went scheming to surprise
  The other with our homely, laureate flowers.
  Sonnets and odes
  Fringing our daily roads.
  Can amaranth and asphodel
  Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?
  Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes,
  Keep any wistful consciousness of earth,
  Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love,
  Simplicities of mirth,
  Must follow them above
  With touches of vague homesickness that pass
  Like shadows of swift birds across the grass.
  Beneath some foreign arch of sky,
  How many a time the rover
  You or I,
  For life oft sundered look from look,
  And voice from voice, the transient dearth
  Schooling my soul to brook
  This distance that no messages may span,
  Would chance
  Upon our wilding by a lonely well,
  Or drowsy watermill,
  Or swaying to the chime of convent bell,
  Or where the nightingales of old romance
  With tragical contraltos fill
  Dim solitudes of infinite desire;
  And once I joyed to meet
  Our peasant gadabout
  A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat,
  Twinkling a saucy eye
  As potentates paced by.

  Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame
  From friendship's altar fire!
  How proudly we would pluck and tame

  The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay!
  How swiftly they were sent
  Far, far away
  On journeys wide,
  By sea and continent,
  Green miles and blue leagues over,
  From each of us to each,
  That so our hearts might reach,
  And touch within the yellow clover,

Love's letter to be glad about
Like sunshine when it came!

  My sorrow asks no healing; it is love;
  Let love then make me brave
  To bear the keen hurts of
  This careless summertide,
  Ay, of our own poor flower,
  Changed with our fatal hour,
  For all its sunshine vanished when you died;
  Only white clover blossoms on your grave.

KATHERINE LEE BATES

THE RETURNING

  We long for her, we yearn for her—
  Yes, ardently we yearn
  For her return.
  Recalling those beloved days
  (Days intimate with ways
  Of friends so near to us
  And life so dear to us),
  We yearn unspeakably for her return.

  And come she must… Yet while we trust
  We soon may see the passing of this agony
  Which makes intrusive years still seem
  A fearsome dream,
  We know that when she comes
  She really comes not back again.

  She'll come in other guise
  And under fairer skies—
  And yet to bitter pain!
  That day she went away
  Our homes with laughing youth were filled.
  Where then was happiness
  Is now distress,
  The laughter stilled;
  For when she left
  Youth followed her—
  We stay bereft.

  So all our golden joy
  For what she brings
  Must carry gray alloy:
  The sorrow that she can not lay,
  The mysery that she can not stay—
  While all the gladsome songs she sings
  Must bear for undertones
  Old sighs and echoed moans.

  As they who go away
  In flush of youth
  May come quite worn and gray
  And bringing naught but ruth—
  So, when the strife shall cease,
  And when she comes at last,
  When all the armies vast
  Shall at her feet
  Kneel down to greet
  Thrice welcome Peace,
  This world will be so changed
  (So many dear ones dead,
  So many friends estranged,
  So many blessings fled,
  So many wonted ways forever barred,
  So many coming days forever marred)
  That then
  She truly comes not back again—
  She, the Peace we knew.

  Yet how we long for her!
  How ardently we yearn
  For her return!

SYLVESTER BAXTER

TWO MOODS FROM THE HILL

I. YOUTH

  I LOVE to watch the world from here, for all
  The numberless living portraits that are drawn
  Upon the mind. Far over is the sea,
  Fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes,
  A salt marsh stumbling after, rank and green,
  With brackish gullies wandering in between,
  All this from the hill.
  And more: a clump of dwarfed and twisted cedars,
  Sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sun
  A field of daises wandering in the wind
  As though a hidden serpent glided through,
  A broken wall, a new-plowed field, and then
  The dusty road and the abodes of men
  Surrounding the hill.
  How small the enclosure is wherein there lives
  Each phase and passion of life, the distant sail
  Dips in the limpid bosom of the sea,
  From that far place to where in state the turf
  Raises a throne for me upon the hill,
  Each little love and lust of a living thing
  Can thus be compassed in a rainbow ring
  And seen from the hill.

II. AGE

Why did I build my cottage on a hill Facing the sea?

  Why did I plan each terraced lawn to slope
  Down to the deep blue billowy breast of hope,
  Surging and sweeping,
  laughing and leaping,
  Tumbling its garments of foam upon the shore,
  Rustling the sands that know my step no more,
  I should have found a valley, deep and still,
  To

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shelter me.

  There flows the river, and it seems asleep
  So far away,
  Yet I remember whip of wave and roar
  Of wind that rose and smote against the oar,
  Smote and retreated,
  Proud but defeated,
  While I rejoiced and rowed into the brine,
  Drawing on wet and heavy-straining line
  The great cod quivering from the deep
  As counterplay.

  What is the solace of these hills and vales
  That rise and fall?
  What is there glorious in the greenwood glen,
  Or twittering thrush or wing of darting wren?
  Give me the gusty,
  Raucous and rusty
  Call of the sea gull in the echoing sky,
  The wild shriek of the winds that cannot die,
  Give me the life that follows the bending sails,
  Or none at all!

ERNEST BENSHIMOL

A BANQUET ONE MEMORY FROM SOCRATES

  AFTER the song the love, and after the love the play,
  Flute girl and pretty boy blowing
  Bubbles of sparkling
  Wine into darkling
  Beards of a former austerity, stern even now, but
  Fast growing
  Foolish, with less of a stately
  Reserve that held them sedately.
  Oh Zeus, what a sight! With the wine dripping off it,
  The grin of an ass on a bald-pated prophet.

  After the feast the night, and after the night the day,
  Fool and philosopher stirring
  With the day dawning,
  Stretching and yawning,
  While in each wine-throbbing, desolated brain is the
  Wheeling and whirring
  Of thousands of bats, that the slaking
  Of throats will not hinder from aching,
  No wine for the brow that is beating to bursting,
  But water at morning is quench for the thirsting!

ERNEST BENSHIMOL

SONG

  OUT of one heart the birds and I together,
  Earth hushed in twilight,
  Low through the live-oaks hung heavy with silver,
  Gemmed with the sky-light,
  Under the great wet star
  Shaking with light, we jar
  Lute-voiced the silence with intervaled music.

  While under the margined world the slow sun lingers,
  Flaming earth's portal,
  Over the lilac dusk spreads his great fingers—
  Earth is immortal!
  While the frail beauty dies.
  Dream in the dreamer's eyes,
  All the good gladness turns praise for the singers.

  Hark, 'tis the breath of life! Hush! and I need it;
  Northern, gigantic,—
  Questing the silences, herding the sudden foam
  Down the Atlantic;
  Leaves from the autumn's store
  Shrill at my desert door,
  They and I out of one heart that is grieving.

GEORGE CABOT LODGE

THE WORLDS

  I SAW an idler on a summer day
  Piping with Iris by a dancing brook;
  And all his world was rife with Pleasures gay,
  And languid Follies smiled from every nook.

  I saw an artist in a world of dreams,
  His rainbow rising from his radiant task,
  To throw its magic prism beams
  O'er Fancy's changeful masque and counter-masque.

  I saw Toil—stooping underneath a world
  Whereon his foster-brothers lighter tread,
  His skyward pinions ever closer furled
  Before the grim necessity of bread!

  I saw a sinner working hard to be
  Worthy his death-wage from the mint of time;
  I saw a sailor, unto whom the sea
  Was hearth and hope and love and wedding-chime.

  I saw a mother living in her child—
  I saw a saint among his fellow men—
  Brave soldiery before my eyes defiled
  And solemn-hearted scholars—Sudden then

  I cried: "The stars are no less neighborly
  In their ethereal remoteness swung,
  Than these near human orbits wherein we
  Live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue!

  "Love seek through all—less there be one
  Least soul unlit within the night—
  And over all, the selfsame sun
  Give each creation light!"

MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI

THE RIOT

  YOU may think my life is quiet.
  I find it full of change,
  An ever-varied diet,
  As piquant as 'tis strange.

  Wild thoughts are always flying,
  Like sparks across my brain,
  Now flashing out, now dying,
  To kindle soon again.

  Fine fancies set me thrilling,
  And subtle monsters creep
  Before my sight unwilling:
  They even haunt my sleep.

  One broad, perpetual riot
  Enfolds me night and day.
  You think my life is quiet?
  You don't know what you say.

GAMALIEL BRADFORD

HUNGER

  I'VE been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a saint,
  Their bend of weary knees and their contortions long and faint,
  And the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred thousand pins,
  A real perpetual penance for imaginary sins.

  I love to wander widely, but I understand a cell,
  Where you tell and tell your beads because you've nothing else to tell,
  Where the crimson joy of flesh, with all its wild fantastic tricks,
  Is forgotten in the blinding glory of the crucifix.

  I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is torn
  With a battle of desires making all my life forlorn.
  There are moments when I would untread the paths that I have trod.
  I'm a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God.

GAMALIEL BRADFORD

EXIT GOD

  Of old our father's God was real,
  Something they almost saw,
  Which kept them to a stern ideal
  And scourged them into awe.

  They walked the narrow path of right
  Most vigilantly well,
  Because they feared eternal night
  And boiling depths of Hell.

  Now Hell has wholly boiled away
  And God become a shade.
  There is no place for him to stay
  In all the world He made.

  The followers of William James
  Still let the Lord exist,
  And call Him by imposing names,
  A venerable list.
  But nerve and muscle only count,
  Gray matter of the brain,
  And an astonishing amount
  Of inconvenient pain.

  I sometimes wish that God were back
  In this dark world and wide;
  For though sonic virtues He might lack,
  He had his pleasant side.

GAMALIEL BRADFORD

ROUSSEAU

  THAT odd, fantastic ass, Rousseau,
  Declared himself unique.
  How men persist in doing so,
  Puzzles me more than Greek.

  The sins that tarnish whore and thief
  Beset me every day.
  My most ethereal belief
  Inhabits common clay.

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id="id00180"> GAMALIEL BRADFORD

JOHN MASEFIELD

I

MASEFIELD (HIMSELF)

  GOD said, and frowned, as He looked on Shropshire clay:
  "Alone, 'twont do; composite, would I make
  This man-child rare; 'twere well, methinks, to take
  A handful from the Stratford tomb, and weigh
  A few of Shelley's ashes; Bunyan may
  Contribute, too, and, for my sweet Son's sake,
  I'll visit Avalon; then, let me slake
  The whole with Wyclif-water from the Bay.

  A sailor, he! Too godly, though, I fear;
  Offset it with tobacco! Next, I'll find
  Hedge-roses, star-dust, and a vagrant's mind;
  His mother's heart now let me breathe upon;
  When west winds blow, I'll whisper in her ear:
  "Apocalypse awaits him; call him John!"

II

HIS PORTRAIT

  A Man of Sorrows! with such haunted eyes,
  I trow, the Master looked across the lake,—
  Looked from the Judas-heart, so soon to make
  Of Him the world's historic sacrifice;
  Moreover, as I gaze, do more arise;
  Great souls, great pallid ghosts of pain, who wake
  And wander yet; all, weary men who brake
  Their hearts; all hemlock-drunk, with growing wise:
  Hudson adrift; Defoe; the Wandering Jew;
  Tannhauser; Faust; Andrea; phantoms, all,
  In Masefield's eyes you lodge; and to the wall
  I turn you,—hand a-tremble,—lest you make
  Of mine own stricken eyes a mirror, too.
  Wherein the sad world's sadder for your sake.

III

HIS "DAUBER"

  O Masefield's "Dauber!" You, who being dead,
  Yet speak: heroic, dauntless, flaming soul,
  Too suddenly snuffed out! Here take fresh toll
  Of cognizance, and, in your ocean bed,
  Serenely rest, assured that who has read
  What you would fain have pictured of the Pole
  Would gladly match your part against the whole
  Of many a modern artist, Paris-bred.

  And more than this: if you, indeed, are his,
  Then, by a dual truth, he, too, is yours;
  For, marked and credited by what endures,
  Were it the only thing, which bears his name,
  (O deathless Soul, I speak you true in this!)
  "The Dauber" has brought Masefield to his fame.

IV

HIS "GALLIPOLI"

  "Small wonder," speaks my pensive self, "that he
  Whose passion 'tis to sing of men who fail,—
  (Belabored, broken by The Unseen Flail)
  Small wonder that be makes Gallipoli

  His fervent text, for could there be
  A costlier failure in Earth's shuddering tale?
  Think of heroic Sulva's bloody swale;
  Of Anzac's tortured thirst and agony!"
  But as I read, protesting voices cry: "Not we,
  Not we, who fell among the daffodils,
  Who conquered Death among those blistered hills,
  And found our glory after mortal pain;
  Not we, who failed and lost Gallipoli;
  The sad, strange failure theirs who mourn in vain!"

V

HIS MEAD

  So, Masefield, have your royal words once more
  Called forth the praise of men, where praise is due;
  Your great elegiac, tragically true,
  Must leave all Britain prouder than before;
  And, in spite of all that breaking hearts deplore,
  And all that anguished consciences must rue,
  One arrowed gladness surely pierces through
  From London's centre to Canadian shore:

  When England, sobbing, mourns Gallipoli,
  When warm tears flow for Rupert Brooke
  And all the splendid Youth her error took
  As hostage from the fields of daffodils,
  Let this a present, living solace be:
  You are not sleeping in those cruel hills!

AMY BRIDGEMAN

1620-1920

  BEFORE him rolls the dark, relentless ocean;
  Behind him stretch the cold and barren sands;
  Wrapt in the mantle of his deep devotion
  The Pilgrim kneels, and clasps his lifted hands;

  "God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us
  Through seas and sorrows, famine, fire, and sword;
  Who, in Thy mercies manifold hast taught us
  To trust in Thee, our leader and our Lord;

  "God, who hast send Thy truth to shine before us,
  A fiery pillar, beaconing on the sea;
  God, who hast spread thy wings of mercy o'er us;
  God, who hast set our children's children free,

  "Freedom Thy new-born nation here shall cherish;
  Grant us Thy covenant, changing, sure:
  Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
  Freedom and Truth, immortal shall endure."

  Face to the Indian arrows.
  Face to the Prussian guns,
  From then till now the Pilgrim's vow
  Has held the Pilgrim's sons.

  He braved the red man's ambush,
  He loosed the black man's chain;
  His spirit broke King George's yoke
  And the battleships of Spain.

  He crossed the seething ocean;
  He dared the death-strewn track;
  He charged in the hell of Saint Mihiel
  And hurled the tyrant back.

  For the voice of the lonely Pilgrim
  Who knelt upon the strand
  A people hears three hundred years
  In the conscience of the land.

  Daughter of Truth and mother of Courage,
  Conscience, all hail!
  Heart of New England, strength of the Pilgrims,
  Thou shalt prevail.
  Look how the empires rise and fall!
  Athens robed in her learning and beauty,
  Rome in her royal lust for power—
  Each has flourished for her little hour,
  Risen and fallen and ceased to be.
  What of her by the Western Sea,
  Born and bred as the child of Duty,
  Sternest of them all?
  She it is and she alone
  Who built on faith as her corner stone;
  Of all the nations none but she
  Knew that the truth shall make us free.
  Daughter of Courage, mother of heros,
  Freedom divine.
  Light of New England, Star of the Pilgrim,
  Still shalt thou shine.
  Yet even as we in our pride rejoice,
  Hark to the prophet's warning voice:
  "The Pilgrim's thrift is vanished
  And the Pilgrim's faith is dead,
  And the Pilgrim's God is banished,
  And Mammon reigns in his stead;
  And work is damned as an evil,
  And men and women cry,
  In their restless haste, 'Let us spend and waste,
  And live; for to-morrow we die.'

  "And law is trampled under;
  And the nations stand aghast,
  As they hear the distant thunder
  Of the storm that marches fast;
  And we,—whose ocean borders
  Shut off the sound and the sight,
  We will wait for marching orders;
  The world has seen us fight;
  We have earned our days of revel;
  'On with the dance'! we cry.
  It is pain to think; we will eat and drink!
  And live; for to-morrow we die."

"We have laughed in the eyes of danger;
We have given our bravest and

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best;
  We have succored the starving stranger;
  Others shall heed the rest.'
  And the revel never ceases;
  And the nations hold their breath;
  And our laughter peals, and the mad world reels,
  To a carnival of death.

  "Slaves of sloth and the senses,
  Clippers of Freedom's wings,
  Come back to the Pilgrim's Army
  And fight for the King of Kings;
  Come back to the Pilgrim's conscience;
  Be born in the nation's birth;
  And strive again as simple men
  For the freedom of the earth.
  Freedom a free-born nation still shall cherish,
  Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure:
  Earth shall decay; the firmament shall perish;
  Freedom and Truth immortal shall endure."

  Land of our fathers, when the tempest rages,
  When the wide earth is racked with war and crime,
  Founded forever on the Rock of Ages,
  Beaten in vain by surging seas of time,

  Even as the shallop on the breakers riding,
  Even as the Pilgrim kneeling on the shore,
  Firm in thy faith and fortitude abiding,
  Hold thou thy children free forever more.

  And when we sail as Pilgrims' sons and daughters
  The spirit's Mayflower into seas unknown,
  Driving across the waste of wintry waters
  The voyage every soul shall make alone,

  The Pilgrim's faith, the Pilgrim's courage grant us;
  Still shines the truth that for the Pilgrim shone.
  We are his seed; nor life nor death shall daunt us.
  The port is Freedom! Pilgrim heart, sail on!

LE BARON RUSSELL BRIGGS

THE CROSS-CURRENT

  THROUGH twelve stout generations
  New England blood I boast;
  The stubborn pastures bred them,
  The grim, uncordial coast,

  Sedate and proud old cities,—
  Loved well enough by me,
  Then how should I be yearning
  To scour the earth and sea.

  Each of my Yankee forbears
  Wed a New England mate:
  They dwelt and did and died here,
  Nor glimpsed a rosier fate.

  My clan endured their kindred;
  But foreigners they loathed,
  And wandering folk, and minstrels,
  And gypsies motley-clothed.

  Then why do patches please me,
  Fantastic, wild array?
  Why have I vagrant fancies
  For lads from far away.

  My folk were godly Churchmen,—
  Or paced in Elders' weeds;
  But all were grave and pious
  And hated heathen creeds.

  Then why are Thor and Wotan
  To dread forces still?
  Why does my heart go questing
  For Pan beyond the hill?

  My people clutched at freedom.—
  Though others' wills they chained,—
  But made the Law and kept it,—
  And Beauty, they restrained.

  Then why am I a rebel
  To laws of rule and square?
  Why would I dream and dally,
  Or, reckless, do and dare?

  O righteous, solemn Grandsires,
  O dames, correct and mild,
  Who bred me of your virtues!
  Whence comes this changing child?—

  The thirteenth generation,—
  Unlucky number this!—
  My grandma loved a Pirate,
  And all my faults are his!

  A gallant, ruffled rover,
  With beauty-loving eye,
  He swept Colonial waters
  Of coarser, bloodier fry.

  He waved his hat to danger,
  At Law he shook his fist.
  Ah, merrily he plundered,
  He sang and fought and kissed!

  Though none have found his treasure,
  And none his part would take,—
  I bless that thirteenth lady
  Who chose him for my sake!

ABBIE FARWELL BROWN

CANDLEMAS

  O HEARKEN, all ye little weeds
  That lie beneath the snow,
  (So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!)
  The sun hath risen for royal deeds,
  A valiant wind the vanguard leads;
  Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds
  Before ye rise and blow.

  O furry living things, adream
  On winter's drowsy breast,
  (How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!)
  Arise and follow where a gleam
  Of wizard gold unbinds the stream,
  And all the woodland windings seem
  With sweet expectance blest.

  My birds, come back! the hollow sky
  Is weary for your note.
  (Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!)
  Ere May's soft minions hereward fly,
  Shame on ye, Laggards, to deny
  The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye,
  The tawny, shining coat!

ALICE BROWN

SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN

  O SWIFT forerunners, rosy with the race!
  Spirits of dawn, divinely manifest
  Behind your blushing banners in the sky,
  Daring invaders of Night's tenting-ground,
  How do ye strain on forward-bending foot,
  Each to be first in heralding of joy!

  With silence sandalled, so they weave their way,
  And so they stand, with silence panoplied,
  Chanting, through mystic symbollings of flame,
  Their solemn invocation to the light.

  O changeless guardians! O ye wizard first!
  What strenuous philter feeds your potency.
  That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness,
  Ready to learn of all and utter naught?
  What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite
  To odorous hot lendings of the heart?
  What wind-but all the winds are yet afar,
  And e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites,
  That fleet before them, like their elfin locks,
  Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet
  To pluck the robe of patient majesty.

  Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep,
  So range the firs, the constant, fearless ones.
  Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait,
  Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm.
  And yet expectant, as who knows the dawn,

And all night thrills with memory and desire,
Searching in what has been for what shall be:

  The marvel of the ne'er familiar day,
  Sacred investiture of life renewed,
  The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame.
  Low in the valley lies the conquered rout
  Of man's poor, trivial turmoil, lost and drowned
  Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled,
  Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main.
  And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch,
  One great good limpid world—so still, so still!
  For no sound echoes from its crystal curve
  Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird
  Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn,
  And has no heart to finish, for the awe
  And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn.

  Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars!
  Light, the revealer of dread beauty's face!
  Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad!
  Mighty libation to the Unknown

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God!
  Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst
  And little leaves drink sweet delirium!
  Being and breath and potion! living soul
  And all-informing heart of all that lives!
  How can we magnify thine awful name
  Save by its chanting: Light! and Light! and Light!
  An exhalation from far sky retreats,
  It grows in silence, as 'twere self-create,
  Suffusing all the dusky web of night.
  But one lone corner it invades not yet,
  Where low above a black and rimy crag
  Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield,
  The holy, useless shield of long-past wars,
  Dinted and frosty, on the crystal dark.
  But lo! the east,—let none forget the east,
  Pathway ordained of old where He should tread.
  Through some sweet magic common in the skies,
  The rosy banners are with saffron tinct;
  The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire,
  And led by silence more majestical
  Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes!
  He holds His spear benignant, sceptrewise,
  And strikes out flame from the adoring hills.

ALICE BROWN

BURNT ARE THE PETALS OF LIFE

  BURNT are the petals of life as a rose fallen and crumbled to dust.
  Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must
  Forever be sifted, more precious than sunbeams that
    open the budding to-morrow.
  Once was a passion completed,-too perfect, the
    Gods have not broken to borrow—
  Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must
  Forever be sifted. O, loving to-morrow
  The rose of the past is, Life-Eternity's dust.

ELSIE PUMPELLY CABOT

FOUR FOUNTAINS AFTER RESPIGHI

  FRESH mists of Roman dawn;
  For water search the cattle;
  Faintly on damp air sounds the shepherd's horn
  Above fountain Giulia's prattle.

  Triton, joyous and loud
  Of Naiads summons troops;
  A frenziedly leaping and mingling crowd,
  Dancing, pursuing groups.

  At high noon the trumpets peal,
  Neptune's chariot passes by;
  Trains of sirens, tritons, Trevi's jets heal
  Then trumpets' echoes sigh.

  Tolling bell and sunset,
  Twittering birds and calm;
  Medici's fountain, shimmering net,
  Into the night brings balm.

JESSICA CARR

IN THE TROLLEY CAR

  THE swart Italian in the trolley car,
  Hoarded his children in his arms and breast;
  The mother, all unheeding, sat afar,
  Her splendid eyes were vague, her lips compressed.

  One Raphael-boy slipped from his father's knee,
  Climbed to her side, and gently stroked her cheek,
  She turned away, and would not hear his plea,
  She turned away, and would not even speak.

  With trembling lips the child crept back again
  To the warm shelter of his father's breast;
  We looked indignant pity, for till then
  We thought that mother-love bore every test.

  We rose to go, the father-mother said,
  In deep, low tones, "Don't t'inka hard you bet
  The younges' was too-seeck, and he is dead,
  She will be alla right, when she forget."

  When she forgets! "Great-Heart," hold closer yet
  Thy precious brood and let it feel no lack!
  Until her soul shall wake, but not forget,
  When the warm tides of love come surging back.

RUTH BALDWIN CHENERY

IN IRISH RAIN

  THE great world stretched its arms to me and held me to its breast,
  They say I've song-birds in my throat, and give me of their best;
  But sure, not all their gold can buy, can take me back again
  To little Mag o' Monagan's a-singing in the rain.

  The silver-slanting Irish rain, all warm and sweet that fills
  The little brackened lowland pools, and drifts across the hills;
  That turns the hill-grass cool and wet to dusty childish feet,
  And hangs above the valley-roofs, filmed blue with burning peat.

  And oh the kindly neighbor-folk that called the young ones in,
  Down fragrant yellow-tapered paths that thread the prickly whin;
  The hot, sweet smell of oaten-cake, the kettle purring soft,
  The dear-remembered Irish speech—they call to me how oft!

  They mind me just a slip o' girl in tattered kirtle blue,
  But oh they loved me for myself, and not for what I do!
  And never one but had a joy to pass the time of day
  With little Mag o' Monagan's a-laughing down the way.

  There's fifty roofs to shelter me where one was set before,
  But make me free to that again—I'll not be wanting more,
  But sure I know not tears nor gold can turn the years again
  To little Mag o' Monagan's a-singing in the rain.

MARTHA HASKELL CLARK

CRETONNE TROPICS

  THE cretonne in your willow chair
  Shows through a zone of rosy air,
  A tree of parrots, agate-eyed,
  With blue-green crests and plumes of pride
  And beaks most formidably curved.
  I hear the river, silver-nerved,
  To their shrill protests make reply,
  And the palm forest stir and sigh.

  Curious, the spell that colors cast,
  Binding the fancy coweb-fast,
  And you would smile if you could know
  I like your cretonne parrots so!
  But I have seen them sail toward night
  Superbly homeward, the last light
  Lifting them like a purple sea
  Scorned and made use of arrogantly;
  And I have heard them cry aloud
  From out a tall palm's emerald cloud;
  And I brought home a brilliant feather,
  Lost like a flake of sunset weather.

  Here in the north the sea is white
  And mother-of-pearl in morning light,
  Quite lovely, but there is a glare
  That daunts me.
  Now the willow chair
  Suggests a more perplexing sea,
  Till my heart aches with memory
  And parrots dye the air around,
  And I forget the pallid Sound.
  GRACE HAZARD

TO HILDA OF HER ROSES

  ENOUGH has been said about roses
  To fill thirty thick volumes;
  There are as many songs about roses
  As there are roses in the world
  That includes Mexico … the Azores … Oregon…

  It is a pity your roses
  Are too late for Omar…
  It is a pity Keats has gone…

  Yet there must be something left to say
  Of flowers like these!
  Adventurers,
  They pushed their way
  Through dewy tunnels of the June night
  Now they confer….
  A little tremulous….
  Dazzled by the yellow sea-beach of morning

  If Herrick would tiptoe back…
  If Blake were to look this way
  Ledwidge, even!

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

DANDELION

LITTLE soldier with the golden helmet,

Page 7

  O What are you guarding on my lawn?
  You with your green gun
  And your yellow beard,
  Why do you stand so stiff?
  There is only the grass to fight!

HILDA CONKLING

RED ROOSTER

  RED ROOSTER in your gray coop,
  O stately creature with tail-feathers red and blue,
  Yellow and black,
  You have a comb gay as a parade
  On your head:
  You have pearl trinkets
  On your feet:
  The short feathers smooth along your back
  Are the dark color of wet rocks,
  Or the rippled green of ships
  When I look at their sides through water.
  I don't know how you happened to be made
  So proud, so foolish,
  Wearing your coat of many colors,
  Shouting all day long your crooked words,
  Loud… sharp… not beautiful!

HILDA CONKLING

VELVETS (BY A BED OF PANSIES)

  THIS pansy has a thinking face
  Like the yellow moon.
  This one has a face with white blots;
  I call him the clown.
  Here goes one down the grass
  With a pretty look of plumpness;
  She is a little girl going to school
  With her hands in the pockets of her pinafore.
  Her name is Sue.
  I like this one, in a bonnet,
  Waiting,
  Her eyes are so deep!
  But these on the other side,
  These that wear purple and blue,
  They are the Velvets,
  The king with his cloak,
  The queen with her gown,
  The prince with his feather.
  These are dark and quiet
  And stay alone.
  I know you, Velvets,
  Color of Dark,
  Like the pine-tree on the hill
  When stars shine!

HILDA CONKLING

THE MOODS

  THE Moods have laid their hands across my hair:
  The Moods have drawn their fingers through my heart;
  My hair shall never more lie smooth and bright,
  But stir like tide-worn sea-weed, and my heart
  Shall never more be glad of small sweet things,—
  A wild rose, or a crescent moon,-a book
  Of little verses, or a dancing child.
  My heart turns crying from the rose and book,
  My heart turns crying from the thin bright moon,
  And weeps with useless sorrow for the child.
  The Moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair,
  And made my heart too wise, that was a child.

  Now I shall blow like smitten candle-flame:
  I shall desire all things that may not be:
  The years, the stars, the souls of ancient men,
  All tears that must, and smiles that may not be,—
  Yes, glimmering lights across a windy ford,
  And vagrant voices on a darkened plain,
  And holy things, and outcast things, and things,
  Far too remote, frail-bodied to be plain.

  My pity and my joy are grown alike.
  I cannot sweep the strangeness from my heart.
  The Moods have laid swift hands across my hair:
  The Moods have drawn swift fingers through my heart.

FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS

HILL-FANTASY

  SITTETH by the red cairn a brown One, a hoofed One,
  High upon the mountain, where the grasses fail.
  Where the ash-trees flourish far their blazing bunches to the sun,
  A brown One, a hoofed One, pipes against the gale.
  Up scrambled I then, furry fingers helping me.

  I was on the mountain, wandering, wandering;
  No one but the pine trees and the white birch knew.
  Over rocks I scrambled, looked up and saw that Strange Thing,
  Peaked ears and sharp horns, pricked against the blue.

  Oh, and, how he piped there! piped upon the high reeds
  Till the blue air crackled like a frost-film on a pool!
  Oh, and how he spread himself, like a child whom no one heeds,
  Tumbled chuckling in the brook, all sleek and kind and cool!

  He had berries 'twixt his horns, crimson-red as cochineal.,
  Bobbing, wagging wantonly they tickled him, and oh,
  How his deft lips puckered round the reed, seemed to chase and steal
  Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music low!

  I said "Good-day, Thou!" He said, "Good-day, Thou!"
  Wiped his reed against the spotted doe-skin on his back,
  He said, "Come up here, and I will teach thee piping now.
  While the earth is singing so, for tunes we shall not lack."

  Up scrambled I then, furry fingers helping me.
  Up scrambled I. So we sat beside the cairn.
  Broad into my face laughed that horned Thing so naughtily.
  Oh, it was a rascal of a woodland Satyr's bairn!

  'So blow, and so, Thou! Move thy fingers faster, look!
  Move them like the little leaves and whirling midges. So!
  Soon `twill twist like tendrils and out-twinkle like the lost brook.
  Move thy fingers merrily, and blow! Blow! Blow!"

  Brown One! Hoofed One! Beat time to keep me straight.
  Kick it on the red stone, whistle in my ear.
  Brush thy crimson berries in my face, then hold thy breath, for—wait!
  Joy comes bubbling to me lips. I pipe, oh, hear!

  Blue sky, art glad of us? Green wood, art glad of us?
  Old hard-heart mountain, dost thou hear me, how I blow?
  Far away the sea-isles swim in sun-haze luminous.
  Each one has a color like the seven-splendor bow.

  Wind, wind, wind, dost thou mind me how I pipe, Now?
  Chipmunk chatt'ring in the beech, rabbit in the brake?
  Furry arm around my neck: "Oh, Thou art a brave one, Thou!"
  Satyr, little satyr-friend, my heart with joy doth ache!

  Sky-music, earth-music, tree-music tremulous,
  Water over steaming rocks, water in the shade,
  Storm-tune and sun-tune, how they flock up unto us,
  Sitting by the red cairn, gay and unafraid!

  Brown One, Hoofed One, give me nimble hoofs, Thou!
  Give me furry fingers and a secret furry tail!
  Pleasant are thy smooth horns: if their like were on my brow
  Might I not abide here, till the strong sun fail?

  Oh, the sorry brown eyes! Oh, the soft kind hand-touch,
  Sudden brush of velvet ears across my wind-cool cheek!
  "Play-mate, Pipe-mate, thou askest one good boon too much.
  I could never find thee horns, though day-long I seek.

  "Yet, keep the pipe, Thou: I will cut another one.
  Keep the pipe and play on it for all the world to hear.
  Ah, but it was good once to sit together in the sun!
  Though I have but half a soul, it finds thee very dear!

  "Wise Thing, Mortal Thing, yet my half-soul fears thee!
  Take the pipe and go thy ways,—quick now, for the sun
  Reels across the hot west and stumbles dazzled to the sea.
  Take the pipe, and oh-one kiss! then run, run, run! run!"

  Silence on the mountain. Lonely stands the high cairn,
  All the leaves a-shivering, all the stones dead-gray.
  O thou cold small pipe, which way is fled that Satyr's bairn?
  I am lost and all alone, and down drops the day.

I was on the mountain, wandering,

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wandering
  There I got this Pipe o' dreams. Strange, when I blow,
  Something deep as human love starts a-crying, troubling.
  Is it only sky-music, earth-music low?

FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS

THE MIRAGE

  ACROSS the Bay are low-lying cliffs,
  Where stand fishermen's cottages:
  I can barely distinguish them with the naked eye.
  But to-day the cliffs are lifted, escarpt,
  Perpendicular, mysterious, inaccessible,
  And those sordid dwellings have become
  The magnificent fortified castles of Sea-kings.

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE

THE ROAD BEYOND THE TOWN

  A ROAD goes up a pleasant hill,
  And a little house looks down:
  Ah! but I see the roadway still
  And the day I left the town.

  The day I left my father's home,
  It's many a year ago,
  And a heart and hope were brave to roam
  the long, long road I know.

The long, long road by hill and plain,
It's tired the heart might be:

But hope stayed bright in sun or rain,
And a Voice that called to me.

  A Voice that called me over the hill
  And out of the little town:
  Ah! but I see the roadway still.
  And the good house looking down.

  The house that spake me never a No!
  As I started brave away,
  But said with a blessing, Go!
  And followed me every day.

  It followed me down the road of years,
  For a father's heart is true,
  And joy is sweet in a mother's tears
  For the deeds her child may do.

The poor little deeds, all powerless
For the Kingdom of God would be,

Save in His mercy will He bless
The road that goes with me:

  The road that left a pleasant hill,
  Where a little house looks down:
  Ah! but I bless the roadway still,
  And the land beyond the town.

MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.

THE LILAC

  THE scent of lilac in the air
  Hath made him drag his steps and pause
  Whence comes this scent within the Square,
  Where endless dusty traffic roars?
  A push-cart stands beside the curb,
  With fragrant blossoms laden high;
  Speak low, nor stare, lest we disturb
  His sudden reverie!

  He sees us not, nor heeds the din
  Of clanging car and scuffling throng;
  His eyes see fairer sights within,
  And memory hears the robin's song
  As once it trilled against the day,
  And shook his slumber in a room
  Where drifted with the breath of May
  The lilac's sweet perfume.

  The heart of boyhood in him stirs;
  The wonder of the morning skies,
  Of sunset gold behind the firs,
  Is kindled in his dreaming eyes:
  How far off is this sordid place,
  As turning from our sight away
  He crushes to his hungry face
  A purple lilac spray.

ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS

CONTENTS

HOME BOUND JOSEPH AUSLANDER

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL KATHERINE LEE BATES

YELLOW CLOVER KATHERINE LEE BATES

THE RETURNING SYLVESTER BAXTER

TWO MOODS FROM THE HILL ERNEST BENSHIMOL

A BANQUET ERNEST BENSHIMOL

SONG GEORGE CABOT LODGE

THE WORLDS MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI

THE RIOT GAMALIEL BRADFORD

HUNGER GAMALIEL BRADFORD

EXIT GOD GAMALIEL BRADFORD

ROUSSEAU GAMALIEL BRADFORD

JOHN MASEFIELD AMY BRIDGMAN

THE CROSS-CURRENT ABBIE FARWELL BROWN

CANDLEMAS ALICE BROWN

SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN ALICE BROWN

BURNT ARE THE PETALS OF LIFE ELSIE PUMPELLY CABOT

FOUR FOUNTAINS. AFTER RESPIGHI JESSICA CARR

IN THE TROLLEY CAR RUTH BALDWIN CHENERY

IN IRISH RAIN MARTHA HASKELL CLARK

CRETONNE TROPICS GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

TO HILDA OF HER ROSES GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

DANDELION HILDA CONKLING

RED ROOSTER HILDA CONKLING

VELVETS HILDA CONKLING

THE MOODS FANNY STEARNS DAVIS

HILL-FANTASY FANNY STEARNS DAVIS

THE MIRAGE NATHAN HASKELL DOLE

THE ROAD BEYOND THE TOWN MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.

THE LILAC WALTER PRICHARD EATON

GOD, THROUGH HIS OFFSPRING NATURE, GAVE ME LOVE CHARLES GIBSON

TO MUSIC MAUDE GORDON-ROBY

THE VOICE IN THE SONG MARY GERTRUDE HAMILTON

HYMNS AND ANTHEMS SUNG AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE CAROLINE HAZARD

REUBEN ROY HAROLD CRAWFORD STEARNS

COUNTRY ROAD MARIE LOUISE HERSEY

WREATHS CAROLYN HILLMAN

MEMPHIS GORDON MALHERBE HILLMAN

SAINT COLUMBKILLE E.J.V. HUIGINN

MISS DOANE WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON

FALLEN FENCES WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON

CROSS-CURRENTS WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON

THE FAREWELL WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON

SONG OLIVER JENKINS

LOVE AUTUMNAL OLIVER JENKINS

ECHOES RUTH LAMBERT JONES

WAR PICTURES RUTH LAMBERT JONES

AN OLD SONG ARTHUR KETCHUM

ROADSIDE REST ARTHUR KETCHUM

OLD LIZETTE ON SLEEP AGNES LEE

MOTHERHOOD AGNES LEE

ESSEX GEORGE CABOT LODGE

THE SONG OF THE WAVE GEORGE CABOT LODGE

FRIMAIRE AMY LOWELL

PATTERNS AMY LOWELL

A BATHER AMY LOWELL

LEPRECHAUNS AND CLURICAUNS DENNIS A. MCCARTHY

L'ENVOI DOROTHEA LAWRENCE MANN

TO IMAGINATION DOROTHEA LAWRENCE MANN

DRAGON JEANETTE MARKS

GREEN GOLDEN DOOR JEANETTE MARKS

SLEEPY HOLLOW, CONCORD JOHN CLAIR MINOT

THE SWORD OF ARTHUR JOHN CLAIR MINOT

THE DIVINE FOREST CHARLES R. MURPHY

MAGIC EDWARD J. O'BRIEN

MICHAEL PAT EDWARD J. O'BRIAN

SONG EDWARD J. O'BRIAN

IN MEMORIAM: FRANCIS LEDWIDGE NORREYS JEPHSON O'CONNOR

EVENSONG NORREYS JEPHSON O'CONNOR

THE PROPHET JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

HARVEST-MOON: 1914 JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

HORSEMAN SPRINGING FROM THE DARK: A DREAM LILLA CABOT PERRY

THREE QUATRAINS LILLA CABOT PERRY

A VALENTINE UNSENT MARGARET PERRY

SHIPBUILDERS ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

UNFADING PICTURES LOUELLA C. POOLE

WITH WAVES AND WINGS CHARLOTTE PORTER

BLUEBERRIES FRANK PRENTICE RAND