THE POEMS
OF
HENRY VAN DYKE
A NEW AND REVISED EDITION
WITH MANY HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED
LONDON
ARTHUR F. BIRD
MCMXXV
[from an edition:]
Printed by The Scribner Press,
New York, U.S.A.
Dedicated in Friendship to
KATRINA TRASK
AND
JOHN HUSTON FINLEY
CONTENTS
SONGS OUT OF DOORS
EARLY VERSES
The After-Echo 3 Dulciora 4 Three Alpine Sonnets 6 Matins 9 The Parting and the Coming Guest 10 If All the Skies 12 Wings of a Dove 13 The Fall of the Leaves 14 A Snow-Song 16 Roslin and Hawthornden 17 SONGS OUT OF DOORS
LATER POEMS
When Tulips Bloom 21 The Whip-Poor-Will 24 The Lily of Yorrow 27 The Veery 29 The Song-Sparrow 31 The Maryland Yellow-Throat 33 A November Daisy 35 The Angler's Reveille 37 The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet 41 School 45 Indian Summer 46 Spring in the North 47 Spring in the South 51 A Noon Song 53 Light Between the Trees 55 The Hermit Thrush 57 Turn o' the Tide 58 Sierra Madre 59 The Grand Canyon 61 The Heavenly Hills of Holland 67 Flood-Tide of Flowers 69 God of the Open Air 71 NARRATIVE POEMS
The Toiling of FelixLABOUR AND ROMANCE
A Mile with Me 165 The Three Best Things 166 Reliance 169 Doors of Daring 170 The Child in the Garden 171 Love's Reason 172 The Echo in the Heart 173 “Undine” 174 “Rencontre” 175 Love in a Look 177 My April Lady 178 A Lover's Envy 179 Fire-Fly City 180 The Gentle Traveller 182 Nepenthe 183 Day and Night 185 Hesper 186 Arrival 187 Departure 188 The Black Birds 189 Without Disguise 192 An Hour 193 “Rappelle-Toi” 194 Love's Nearness 196 Two Songs of Heine 197 Eight Echoes from the Poems of Auguste Angellier 198 Rappel d'AmourHEARTH AND ALTAR
A Home Song 217 “Little Boatie” 218 A Mother's Birthday 220 Transformation 222 Rendezvous 223 Gratitude 224 Peace 225 Santa Christina 226 The Bargain 229 To the Child Jesus 230 Bitter-Sweet 231 Hymn of Joy 232 Song of a Pilgrim-Soul 234 Ode to Peace 235 Three Prayers for Sleep and Waking 239 Portrait and Reality 242 The Wind of Sorrow 243 Hide and Seek 244 Autumn in the Garden 246 The Message 248 Dulcis Memoria 249 The Window 251 Christmas Tears 253 Dorothea, 1888-1912 255EPIGRAMS, GREETINGS, AND INSCRIPTIONS
For Katrina's Sun-Dial 259 For Katrina's Window 260 For the Friends at Hurstmont 261 The Sun-Dial at Morven 263 The Sun-Dial at Wells College 263 To Mark Twain 264 Stars and the Soul 266 To Julia Marlowe 268 To Joseph Jefferson 268 The Mocking-Bird 269 The Empty Quatrain 269 Pan Learns MusicPRO PATRIA
Patria 287 America 288 The Ancestral Dwellings 289 Hudson's Last Voyage 292 Sea-Gulls of Manhattan 299 A Ballad of Claremont Hill 301 Urbs Coronata 304 Mercy for Armenia 306 Sicily, December, 1908 308 “Come Back Again, Jeanne d'Arc” 309 National Monuments 311 The Monument of Francis Makemie 312 The Statue of Sherman by St. Gaudens 313 “America for Me” 314 The Builders 316 Spirit of the Everlasting Boy 330 Texas 337 Who Follow the Flag 352 Stain not the Sky 362 Peace-Hymn of the Republic 364THE RED FLOWER AND GOLDEN STARS
The Red Flower 369 A Scrap of Paper 371IN PRAISE OF POETS
Mother Earth 421 Milton 423 Wordsworth 425 Keats 426 Shelley 427 Robert Browning 428 Tennyson 429 “In Memoriam” 430 Victor Hugo 431 Longfellow 434 Thomas Bailey AldrichMUSIC
Music 447 Master of Music 464 The Pipes o' Pan 466 To a Young Girl Singing 467 The Old Flute 468 The First Bird o' Spring 470THE HOUSE OF RIMMON
A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS
The House of Rimmon 473 Dramatis Personæ 474 APPENDIX
CARMINA FESTIVA
The Little-Neck Clam 551 A Fairy Tale 555 The Ballad of the Solemn Ass 558 A Ballad of Santa Claus 562 Ars Agricolaris 565 Angler's Fireside Song 570 How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim 571 A Bunch of Trout-Flies 574 Index of First Lines 577
SONGS OUT OF DOORS
EARLY VERSES
THE AFTER-ECHO
How long the echoes love to play
Around the shore of silence, as a wave
Retreating circles down the sand!
One after one, with sweet delay,
The mellow sounds that cliff and island gave,
Have lingered in the crescent bay,
Until, by lightest breezes fanned,
They float far off beyond the dying day
And leave it still as death.
But hark,—
Another singing breath
Comes from the edge of dark;
A note as clear and slow
As falls from some enchanted bell,
Or spirit, passing from the world below,
That whispers back, Farewell.
So in the heart,
When, fading slowly down the past,
Fond memories depart,
And each that leaves it seems the last;
Long after all the rest are flown,
Returns a solitary tone,—
The after-echo of departed years,—
And touches all the soul to tears.
1871.
DULCIORA
A tear that trembles for a little while
Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world
Wavers within its circle like a dream,
Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb
Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.
A smile that hovers round a mouth beloved,
Like the faint pulsing of the Northern Light,
And grows in silence to an amber dawn
Born in the sweetest depths of trustful eyes,
Is dearer to the soul than sun or star.
A joy that falls into the hollow heart
From some far-lifted height of love unseen,
Unknown, makes a more perfect melody
Than hidden brooks that murmur in the dusk,
Or fall athwart the cliff with
Ah, not for their own sake are earth and sky
And the fair ministries of Nature dear,
But as they set themselves unto the tune
That fills our life; as light mysterious
Flows from within and glorifies the world.
For so a common wayside blossom, touched
With tender thought, assumes a grace more sweet
Than crowns the royal lily of the South;
And so a well-remembered perfume seems
The breath of one who breathes in Paradise.
1872.
THREE ALPINE SONNETS
I
THE GLACIER
At dawn in silence moves the mighty stream,
The silver-crested waves no murmur make;
But far away the avalanches wake
The rumbling echoes, dull as in a dream;
Their momentary thunders, dying, seem
To fall into the stillness, flake by flake,
And leave the hollow air with naught to break
The frozen spell of solitude supreme.
At noon unnumbered rills begin to spring
Beneath the burning sun, and all the walls
Of all the ocean-blue crevasses ring
With liquid lyrics of their waterfalls;
As if a poet's heart had felt the glow
Of sovereign love, and song began to flow.
Zermatt, 1872.
II
THE SNOW-FIELD
White Death had laid his pall upon the plain,
And crowned the mountain-peaks like monarchs dead;
The vault of heaven was glaring overhead
With pitiless light that filled my eyes with pain;
And while I vainly longed, and looked in vain
For sign or trace of life, my spirit said,
“Shall any living thing that dares to tread
This royal lair of Death escape again?”
But even then I saw before my feet
A line of pointed footprints in the snow:
Some roving chamois, but an hour ago,
Had passed this way along his journey fleet,
And left a message from a friend unknown
To cheer my pilgrim-heart, no more alone.
Zermatt, 1872.
III
MOVING BELLS
I love the hour that comes, with dusky hair
And dewy feet, along the Alpine dells,
To lead the cattle forth. A thousand bells
Go chiming after her across the fair
And flowery uplands, while the rosy flare
Of sunset on the snowy mountain dwells,
And valleys darken, and the drowsy spells
Of peace are woven through the purple air.
Dear is the magic of this hour: she seems
To walk before the dark by falling rills,
And lend a sweeter song to hidden streams;
She opens all the doors of night, and fills
With moving bells the music of my dreams,
That wander far among the sleeping hills.
Gstaad, August, 1909.
MATINS
Flowers rejoice when night is done,
Lift their heads to greet the sun;
Sweetest looks and odours raise,
In a silent hymn of praise.
So my heart would turn away
From the darkness to the day;
Lying open in God's sight
Like a flower in the light.
THE PARTING AND THE COMING GUEST
Who watched the worn-out Winter die?
Who, peering through the window-pane
At nightfall, under sleet and rain
Saw the old graybeard totter by?
Who listened to his parting sigh,
The sobbing of his feeble breath,
His whispered colloquy with Death,
And when his all of life was done
Stood near to bid a last good-bye?
Of all his former friends not one
Saw the forsaken Winter die.
Who welcomed in the maiden Spring?
Who heard her footfall, swift and light
As fairy-dancing in the night?
Who guessed what happy dawn would bring
The flutter of her bluebird's wing,
The blossom of her mayflower-face
To brighten every shady place?
One morning, down the village street,
“Oh, here am I,” we heard her sing,—
And none had been awake to greet
The coming of the maiden Spring.
But look, her violet eyes are wet
With bright, unfallen, dewy tears;
And in her song my fancy hears
A note of sorrow trembling yet.
Perhaps, beyond the town, she met
Old Winter as he limped away
To die forlorn, and let him lay
His weary head upon her knee,
And kissed his forehead with regret
For one so gray and lonely,—see,
Her eyes with tender tears are wet.
And so, by night, while we were all at rest,
I think the coming sped the parting guest.
1873.
IF ALL THE SKIES
If all the skies were sunshine,
Our faces would be fain
To feel once more upon them
The cooling plash of rain.
If all the world were music,
Our hearts would often long
For one sweet strain of
To break the endless song.
If life were always merry,
Our souls would seek relief,
And rest from weary laughter
In the quiet arms of grief.
WINGS OF A DOVE
I
At sunset, when the rosy light was dying
Far down the pathway of the west,
I saw a lonely dove in silence flying,
To be at rest.
Pilgrim of air, I cried, could I but borrow
Thy wandering wings, thy freedom blest,
I'd fly away from every careful sorrow,
And find my rest.
II
But when the filmy veil of dusk was falling,
Home flew the dove to seek his nest,
Deep in the forest where his mate was calling
To love and rest.
Peace, heart of mine! no longer sigh to wander;
Lose not thy life in barren quest.
There are no happy islands over yonder;
Come home and rest.
1874.
THE FALL OF THE LEAVES
I
In warlike pomp, with banners flowing,
The regiments of autumn stood:
I saw their gold and scarlet glowing
From every hillside, every wood.
Above the sea the clouds were keeping
Their secret leaguer, gray and still;
They sent their misty vanguard creeping
With muffled step from hill to hill.
All day the sullen armies drifted
Athwart the sky with slanting rain;
At sunset for a space they lifted,
With dusk they settled down again.
II
At dark the winds began to blow
With mutterings distant, low;
From sea and sky they called their strength
Till with an angry, broken roar,
Like billows on an unseen shore,
Their fury burst at length.
I heard through the night
The rush and the clamour;
The pulse of the fight
Like blows of Thor's hammer;
The pattering flight
Of the leaves, and the anguished
Moan of the forest vanquished.
At daybreak came a gusty song:
“Shout! the winds are strong.
The little people of the leaves are fled.
Shout! The Autumn is dead!”
III
The storm is ended! The impartial sun
Laughs down upon the battle lost and won,
And crowns the triumph of the cloudy host
In rolling lines retreating to the coast.
But we, fond lovers of the woodland shade,
And grateful friends of every fallen leaf,
Forget the glories of the cloud-parade,
And walk the ruined woods in quiet grief.
For ever so our thoughtful hearts repeat
On fields of triumph dirges of defeat;
And still we turn on gala-days to tread
Among the rustling memories of the dead.
1874.
A SNOW-SONG
Does the snow fall at sea?
Yes, when the north winds blow,
When the wild clouds fly low,
Out of each gloomy wing,
Silently glimmering,
Over the stormy sea
Falleth the snow.
Does the snow hide the sea?
Nay, on the tossing plains
Never a flake remains;
Drift never resteth there;
Vanishing everywhere,
Into the hungry sea
Falleth the snow.
What means the snow at sea?
Whirled in the veering blast,
Thickly the flakes drive past;
Each like a childish ghost
Wavers, and then is lost;
In the forgetful sea
Fadeth the snow.
1875.
ROSLIN AND HAWTHORNDEN
Fair Roslin Chapel, how divine
The art that reared thy costly shrine!
Thy carven columns must have grown
By magic, like a dream in stone.
Yet not within thy storied wall
Would I in adoration fall,
So gladly as within the glen
That leads to lovely Hawthornden.
A long-drawn aisle, with roof of green
And vine-clad pillars, while between,
The Esk runs murmuring on its way,
In living music night and day.
Within the temple of this wood
The martyrs of the covenant stood,
And rolled the psalm, and poured the prayer,
From Nature's solemn altar-stair.
Edinburgh, 1877.