Opening
ELEGY IN AUTUMN
IN MEMORY OF FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD
NEW YORK FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN MCMXVII
Copyright, 1917, by Clinton Scollard
ELEGY IN AUTUMN
I
Brother in song, you who have gone before Along far incommunicable ways, Leaving me here upon this mortal shore, A bondman to the tyrant nights and days, Across the distance, hail! Though Time may sever, and we meet no more, Yet what shall Time avail!
II
’Twas Autumn when we first set hand to hand, And eye to eye, in loyal comradeship; Drowsed with a draught of Beauty seemed the land, As it had raised a golden cup to lip; But you embodied Spring, Its harvest hopes, its deeds in joyance planned, Its brave adventuring.
III
I can recall your buoyance,--can recall The star-sown hours beneath the Cambridge trees, When o’er us wheeled the bright processional Of bold Orion and the Pleiades, And how we strolled along Laughterful, and oblivious to all Save the sweet thrall of Song.
IV
Youth has its visions and its fervors; yours Were lovingly enlinked with Poesy; You dreamed the dream that many an one allures, The vernal dream where life is harmony. And though the years estranged Your full allegiance, something still assures My heart you never changed.
V
What merriment was ours those shut-in nights When Winter, clamorous at the casement, cried! What dear association, what delights As we in friendly emulation vied, While Aspiration’s cruse Was brimmed for us, beholding on dim heights The presence of the Muse!
VI
And then there opened wider paths to tread When Love, with Song, beguiled you on and on, While Art around your feet unfaltering shed Its luminous light, irradiant as the dawn; Though you saw many part From deities long worshipped, you were wed Inalienably to Art.
VII
What though the rigid chains of circumstance Oft held you in the trammels of the town, Your heart went woodward where the fairies dance What time the moon its silvery sheen sifts down. You loved the reeds and rills, The sea, the shore, their glamour and romance, And all the climbing hills.
VIII
And when you made escape, and sensed the wild Aromas beat about you, when you fared By tracks unwonted, like an unleashed child You gleefully your gay abandon shared. Care from your shoulders thrown, You seemed an Ariel spirit, long exiled, Come back unto its own.
IX
With gracious Memory again I go To tread with you where meads are green and gold, Where upland slopes are strewn with daisy-snow, And bee-balm torches light the flocks to fold, And willow branches wave Above Oriskany, singing far below Its liquid summer stave.
X
Now south we sail where stormy currents meet Round the wind-harassed cape of Hatteras, Beyond whose beacons, when the tides retreat, The wide sea-mirror is like burnished glass; There, ’mid the drowsy calms, As Ponce de Leon did of yore, we greet The tall Floridian palms.
XI
Here down the live-oak aisles ’tis ours to stray With wraiths of many a stern conquistador, Those vanished warriors of an elder day When gray San Marco bore the brunt of war; Here we in revery lean Upon the ramparts beetling o’er the bay, And watch the shifting scene;--
XII
The boats that dip and dart like living things, Seeking the open sea beyond the bar; The graceful gulls with sunlight on their wings Up the Matanzas soaring fleet and far Where inlets deep beguile; And o’er the waters undulant shimmerings The low coquina isle.
XIII
Then, at the drooping of the twilight hour, We wander in the ancient plaza where We breathe the attar of the jasmine flower Like incense on the altar of the air; And list, as music swells Down drifting from the old cathedral tower, The arpeggio of the bells.
XIV
We linger by the sea-wall while the tide Below us murmurs like a sad refrain, Bearing from outer ocean reaches wide The lore and legend of the Spanish main, Nor leave that spot serene Till Sleep, as with the mantle of the bride, Wraps fair Saint Augustine.
XV
Days dedicate to rapturous things were these; It was as though Youth came again, and brought Past aims, past ardors and past ecstasies, And toward the shrine of Beauty turned our thought. And there were after times Of exultation, prismic harmonies, When hours ran by in rhymes.
XVI
Once, ’mid cathedral Carolinian pines, We saw the Springtide, at its radiant birth, Kindle to fragrant gold the coiling vines, And make a garden of the wakened earth; And every morning heard Within the treetops, melody linked with mirth, The hidden mocking-bird.
XVII
And while the cardinal through the waving bredes Of pendulous moss swift flitted like a flame, Back flooded to our minds the illustrious deeds, Emblazoned on the honor-scroll of Fame, When Liberty was won, Hearkening the Ashley whisper to its reeds The name of Marion.
XVIII
From Gloucester cliffs and brown Nantucket dunes The mountains lured you, and the mountain star; For us the Woodland sang its lyric runes Where’er we followed it, or near or far, In sun or shadow cool, Or loitered through long languorous afternoons By Dian’s darkling pool.
XIX
Far up the valley Wittenberg’s vast form, Its summit beckoning, with you I view, And above sweeping slopes where wild bees swarm Glimpse timid deer at dawn and fall of dew; Through Panther Kill we roam, And mark the purple streamers of the storm Ascend behind the Dome.
XX
And, too, in bookmen’s mines of dusty ore Ever shall I remember how we delved, Plucking from out the musty treasure-store Rich rarities within the darkness shelved, Elated if we found Leaves that some name we long had honored bore In frayed morocco bound.
XXI
Thus, step by step, we trod adown the years, Thus, side by side, with ne’er a break between; We shared our laughter and we shared our tears, Nor deemed inexorable Fate might intervene To sever the strong cord That bound us, Fate with its “abhorrèd shears,” That is man’s over-lord.
XXII
You that in Autumn came, in Autumn went; How vain to say the mourning word! how vain To beat the bars of that arbitrament That metes to mortals pleasurement or pain! How vain!--how vain!--and yet We beat upon them, and we only gain The poignance of regret!
XXIII
Autumn again with all its loveliness; Autumn again that brought an end to joy, Despite the sight of earth in amber dress, And airs that bear the blitheness of a boy! Autumn, and leaves that toss In bright brief triumphing, while they express The brooding sense of loss.
XXIV
Autumn again down every winding way That, in the days gone by, our footsteps pressed!-- Instead of woven amaranth would I lay Above your dust--you gone by paths unguessed-- Love’s deathless asphodel; Until some happier hour,--when, who shall say?-- Brother in song, farewell!
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