Plays and poems

Preface

jHB work of a young man of one-and-twenty — indeed, Harriet kenyon was written when I was barely twenty — I cannot hope that these PlyAYS and POEMS will greatly please or widely interest. However, I believe, the catholic reader will find the volume of such merit as will repay perusal.

No doubt the critical will censure me, and rightly, for the lax metre of certain parts of the PI,AYS, yet I purposely (though I now believe, unwisely) wrote the Ply AYS as they are published, and must be censured rather for perverted judgment than for any great lack of metrical skill. While either is to be condemned, the former may be corrected, but the latter, hardly.

The poem to the Flag is fashioned after Shelley's

'SKYI^ARK.'

EM.

o o o

COLUMBIAN ODE.

I

lyo! within the West,

Like a sun ye burn, In a splendor drest

That the blind discern.

The Fearful never were thy prophets, Columbia eterne.

Peace found thee among

States of Liberty; War has left thee sung By the guiltless free; And triumph calls to triumph through all thy harps of

[ melody.

Thou art free and strong.

And the Light is thine: God has known thee long;

Man shall know thy shrine: And where thy spirit is there is a better way divine.

Thou 're a prophecy

Unto the belated; Hymning lyiberty

To the subjugated Until the vasty deserts blossom for the Liberated.

On thy front sublime —

While the spheres are pealing Down the sweep of time — Like the dawn revealing, Now flames that leavening light which through the ages

[ has been stealing.

On the sacred shrine Of thy sovereignty, Fall that light divine.

Which may ever be, That beats not on the throne but on the altars of Democ-

[racy.

Man's last work art thou, Shaping to God's thought:

While the heavens bow.

Thou' 11 not come to naught, For thou art builded of a prayer and wonderfully wrought.

II Ye will teach the bound

By thy history.

How the way is found Out of tyranny, Until their spirit is made one with the Spirit of Liberty.

(Hark! the winds that rock

Bring across the deep Sound of Freedom's shock, And the splendors leap From fields where burning Patriots sow to fields where a

[People reap.)

Ye will ever cherish

Thy pure liberty, That it shall not perish

From Man's history; Still as a prophet free — and go forth freeing and to free.

Ye '11 teach us to know Peace the noblest art; Yet, against thy foe, None will stand apart.

With days and nights untroubled with the Nation's

[troubled heart.

Ye will weigh the Dead,

And the Unborn weigh ; Hold the glory fled

I^ess than morning gray; Nor will thy Thinkers hold the dawn shall stand against

[ the day.

Ye' 11 press on the dawn, In the vanguard still; Nor put good in pawn 'Gainst the fear of ill; And when Truth's lightning beckons ye' 11 respond from

[every hill. 13

(Still a glory swims

In the prophet's ken With a light that dims

That which is on men: Empires and Persuasions end, but God-like truths begin.)

Ye will shield the right

As ye did in youth: Ye will love the light, And will meet the truth: Nor will ye raven down the darkness with the bigot's

[ tooth.

Ye will look before:

Ye will look ahead: Ye will weigh all lore,

All the Masters said: Nor will thy Thinkers give a living issue to the Dead.

Ye will bruise the chain

Hedging Spirit in, — Want and human pain,

Tyranny and sin — Until the grave shall lie beyond the work that is within.

Know thy daughters are

Mothers of the Free; Woman still thy star And thy destiny; And as her brow is wide or cramped so Heaven's face

[shall be. 14

Ye will cherish Art:

Music ye' 11 esteem: Beauty and its part, Ye will not misdeem; But give thy youth to Spirit and bring forth the sacred

[dream.

Ye will greet the Bard,

That he hymn the State, Or on pleasant sward

Pipe with heart elate.

Or trumpet through a clarion pen the roll-call of thy Great.

(Still Posterity

Sees through Poets' eyes: Half of history In the Poet dies: Events pass by but music lingers, and a song is wise.)

Ill

Glory shall be thine

Stooping to the low; Glory as divine

As from truth doth flow; The glory that has found thee free and that shall keep

[ thee so.

Empire shall be thine.

Empire to redeem; That pure rule divine

That shall still beseem The star of Empire hung aloft an Emancipator's dream.

Law shall spring of thee;

Law that educates, Law that 's prophecy Of the self-mandates: Till honor through the law 's the crowning glory of thy

[States.

Love shall brood o'er thee

And all discord quell, Pouring charity, From a living well, Upon the mountains and savannas where the Unfettered

[dwell.

Thine shall be the faith- Light and Liberty; And all thy Spirit saith Shall shine outwardly, Till dawns that day when men fulfill themselves fulfilling

[ thee.

MY COUNTRY^

O, my Country,

Art thou strong ?

Then I have need of thee :

O, my Country,

Art thou weak ?

Then thou hast need of me.

Be my worship ■ And my work.

And thee I'll chief adore ;

Not that I love

The nations less But love my Country more.

i6

''OLD GLORY/'

Hail to thee, ''Old Glory"!

Yet banner never waved Like to thee in story,

Nor never freemen saved A nobler standard with the blood of heroes laved.

In the light of Mars,

The foemen's flag thou nearest;

Towering with thy stars, Still thou over-peerest, And cheering still advance and advancing ever cheerest.

In the vanguard's brightening

Where Victory commands.

Stormed by shell and lightning,

Thou clap thy mighty hands, Like to a winged captain whom no foe withstands.

The battle's rolling blast

Hides thy triplicity; Like the sun o'ercast Above a stormy sea Thou art unseen, yet I see where heroes die for thee.

Again the battle rack

With thy seven bars is bright,

As, when storm is black, Upon the fearful night The crooked lightning breaks and heaven melts with light.

Where thou '11 wave we dream not; What flag has waved like thee ?

O'er the seas there stream not Such lights to Liberty As from thy stars descend in burning prophecy.

Like the battle steed,

With neck clothed in thunder,

Pawing at th' mighty lead

And swallowing th' ground under; Rejoicing to lead a People slavery's chains to sunder.

Like an eagle riding

Upon the whirlwind blast, In its strength abiding

Until the storm is past, And on the crags the thunder-bolts are chained at last.

Like the morning star.

Aloft a promised land, Streaming from afar

Upon some earnest band.

And bringing with it airs by Freedom's hymn thrice fanned.

i8

Ivike the sun at zenith

First seen by him born blind,

Grasping all it meaneth Unto a soul confined A lifetime from the common light of human kind.

^olian organs making

New music in the hills, Melodies awakening

Beneath harmonious quills.

The wind against thy folds aerial out-thrills.

Teach us, glorious birth.

The light which is on thee:

Nor upon the earth, Nor yet within the sea, Is else such living light and pure intensity.

The refulgent sun,

Or evening's silver car, 'Gainst thy unfurled legion,

Like empty glories are; A splendor fit to move before a slave afar.

What fire is the fountain Of thy prophetic light ?

What star upon the mountain ?

What morrow in midnight ?

What secret writing in the face of heaven bright ?

In thy awful glory

A bondman cannot be: Ye have slaves in story, But not in prophecy: The fathers ye enslaved have shrouded sons in thee.

Floating free or furled,

In peace or fearful war, What promise for the world Still prophecy thou afar In that high audience illustrious of the morning star?

In the lit serene,

Seen at that starry height, Still thy memories glean Fraternity from might, That when the inspired prophet bodes he bodes of light.

Emblem of the brave,

Hung be the heavens with thee;

While the hills concave Bruit chants to Liberty — Our mightiest songs are those that hymn the Nation's free.

Wave, forever wave,

Within the Master's sight.

While the free and brave

Hymn " God and Equal Right,"

And take those words like suns and live within their light.

SONNET.

Dishonored may he stand who shall delay- In his oppressed or tyrant-troubled land; Who shall not, in her bondage, raise a hand

To strike her chains incarnadine away.

And thrice dishonored he who shall betray His land's election to a venal band, Or light in peace foul Discord's ready brand,

Flaming the State to war for Caesar's pay.

Our Country's call is also Heaven's call, When tyrants have abused her sacred right:

Her free election is the armature

Which God has given man against the might

And violence of that old feudal thrall:

Her peace is Heaven's peace when she is pure.

LIBERTY.

Republics do not freemen make,

Nor Despotisms slaves ; For they alone are free that forsake

The license which betrays.

But they who do subdue are free The wildness of their will ;

But he is the son of Liberty That 's Virtue's bondman still.

Yea, from within is liberty !

The which outlives the grave.

Thus Despotisms have their free.

Republics have their slave.

ODE TO ADMIRAL DEWEY.

O let his song be sung again,

His glorious song of victory ; Sweetest in the ears of free-born men,

And all compact of liberty : O sing it o'er, ye Muse, and sing it loftier for the Free.

Say how our Chieftain met the Foe,

Leading his brave, determined men ; And how he dealt the open blow

Against the Spaniard there and then ; And how he struck once for the sunken Maine nor struck

[again.

Say how he met the Spanish host,

There where a blow ' gainst tyranny (Along that tyrant-governed coast) Was twice a blow for liberty, Dealt in that just and perfect cause that its own prayer

[could be.

The Enemy comes on, and lo !

Down from Olympia's conscious gun, A cloud of fire leaps on that Foe, That lifting, when the field is won. Reveals a new and western nation lighted by Freedom's

[sun.

The Enemy comes on — to sink,

Or charge but once — and charge to fly : He hangs on deep destruction's brink And strikes at Freedom's star — to die ; While Freedom's star, now large as a sun, flames in the

[morning sky.

The Foe strikes once for tyranny,

To falter then and bow him low ; Our Chief strikes thrice for liberty, Gathering strength from blow to blow ; And from his Flag-ship's bridge he looks the last on

[Freedom's Foe.

Above her groans he hears the sorrow

Of Spain's ten million slaves that bleed : He lays his ear unto the morrow And hears the music of his deed, Hears that deep burst triumphal and exalted chant of

[the Freed.

So falls the Foe for sins of State ;

His race is closed. Freedom's begun. Making a way for equal fate,

Spain's mad and losing race is run Even along that shore she galled, while sinks the

[darkened sun. 23

And now the victorious battle 's o'er ;

Heaven takes on its pristine blue, The waves, untroubled, flood the shore, The airs their purity renew ; The splendid deed is done that no American would undo.

Then hail ! all hail our Chieftain there !

To whom duty and victory are one ; All hail to Fame and Honor's heir ! Whose glory rose with the golden sun ; The foremost spirit of the fields that Retribution won.

To poets, he's a song from the sea.

Whene'er their pulses with freedom throng ; To freemen, one with lyibert}^ ;

An upraised hand against the wrong ; And we'll take Washington from our heart ere Dewey

[from our song.

DIRGE.

Sailors lay me in my grave When the moon is on the wave; Sea-weed for my winding sheet, Coral at my head and feet, Stars above their vigils keeping, Pale moon-beams upon me sleeping, Sea-bells o'er me tolling, tolling. Waters 'round me rolling, rolling, Rolling evermore.

THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO.

Not a word was spoke but the brief command Of the brave Lieutenant of the Merrimac ;

Not a hero among the little band

On the fading star of his hope looked back,

As swiftly the collier, into the mouth of hell. The dauntless ministers of Liberty bore,

With Freedom and Hope behind them and fell El Morro Castle and the Spaniards before.

** Into the Channel and block up the port, And the death will do us reverence ' ' — But the distant guns of the enemy retort, Clouding the fire of those lips intense.

And the dunest thunders of Spains wrap it round ;

But his robes shall be robings of glory, who bides Till the Channel is blocked to the bitter ground.

On, on, where a hero can let Destiny slip !

And the wave is white with the ghost of a shroud, And the fires are trained in the hole of the ship,

And El Morro hangs o'er like a thunder cloud.

The fires are trained in the hole of the ship

Where the mines were laid with no thought of the

And the Eight have let their destiny slip [morrow ; Under the walls of Castle El Morro.

Kissing its burial, the collier divides,

Yet proudly the flag of the Union waves o'er,

Till, fearing the fate of her soldiers, she hides The stars of her xdctory 'neath the watery floor.

But safe from the Merrimac's thunder-lapped side, On the flow of the shell-rent waters upborne,

Under truced Kl Morro the heroes ride

Who gave themselves up to glory that morn.

To glory and to the Castilians' bars,

Which have fallen like broken reeds away.

For what deed was done in the Antillian Wars Lrike the fadeless deed of those Eight that day ?

SONNET.

Columbia, from my true judgment's birth,

I loved thee ever and do love thee still ; And something have recorded of thy worth,

Made musical what better minds made real. Yet love for thee has still been qualified

With fearfulness that thou'rt imbued with wrong : Nor, though I warmly sing, may est be denied

And unrecorded pause behind the song. For thou ignoble riches hast up-laid,

Which first He sends who would destroy, while Art Hath scarce the worship of hypocrisy.

The music and the vision are betrayed — No god leaps up within thy artist's heart

Creative through a nation's sympathy.

PEACE.

Peace counts her host beneath the morning star ;

Peace counts that host beneath the evening star :-

The battle Spirit — still invisible,

But filled with visible and fearful works —

Which darkness loosened, when that April morn

Sealed up its bloody edicts of revolt,

Has fled afar into the wilderness,

And Peace is come again, her fair large brow

Illustrious with those far-beaming lights

That play around the golden morning tops

Where spirits mild by spirits have been seen.

Phalanx and squadron and battalion fade,

Like some huge bulk seen distant in a dream

Before the bright approach of clement Morn :

The navies melt away and birds of calm,

O'er that chaffed flood and chaos of their track.

Circle in ever-radiating light ;

The soldiers and the captains sleep the sleep,

No more a toy to war's calamity,

Who fell with light upon them from the Cause ;

The living soldier also has his rest.

With dreams of love and wakings of renown.

The larger hope is come ; the flowing arc

Of that still clouded circle grown apace

That alien lands have glimpses of the whole,

Whose fullness is the measure of our race :

The mantle o'er our growth is cast aside.

Which was in secret, as the larger growth

Was ever since that shapeless Chaos fell, Flamed o'er by Light from out her silent morn, And Titan of the elder world we spring Perceived where seemed no puissance eterne. State-called, the powers, potentates and thrones, Out of the West, return into the East Which gathered in their spirits astonied When deep laid was the future's corner-stone Blazoned with that one word, ** Columbia," Whose shadow on the earth's high places falls : While "lyiberty " is written first o'er every State.

COLUMBIA AND THE PHILIPPINES.

The Lord who made thee strong had made thee free, Upright, and unseduced that ye should flame The sword of Heaven o'er Iberia's shame,

Till she die into light and liberty:

Nor armament nor wide expanse of sea

Didst stay thy chastising hand divine, nor tame Thee, O Columbia, who, in His name.

Didst blot with thine own blood that history

Of sacrilege. But O, Right Hand of God, Why tremblest thou to lead this lesser race

Out of its darkness! Wilt thou be His rod And not His angel? Shall His patient face

Be veiled before a Nation that hath trod

But half the upward way which He did trace?

ODE*

Come, O come, bright Spirit,

Mellifluous son of light ; Thou who shalt inherit.

With thy free birthright, A starry crown of genius gloriously bright.

Come, thou Poet golden,

Nursling of the Nine, Spirit unbeholden,

Sire of mighty line, Unborn, yet not unprophesied, come forth divine.

Thou to whom be given,

With immortal bays, That last gift of heaven.

Which is chief always.

To love thy native land and sing its perfect days.

Come, thou Bard supreme,

Who shall hymn the Free ; Thou whose chiefest theme Shall be lyiberty, The Democracy that is and Brotherhood to be.

Lo ! an Epic splendid

Doth thy genius wait, — The Heroes that defended

Liberty's young State ; The unwritten Epic of the Constitution's Great.

Those immortal Founders

That have gone before ;

Those creant Expounders

Whom we do adore :

Those old heroic Dreamers who shall dream no more.

Lo ! a Drama stately

Waits thy Spirit afar, — Civil strife that lately

Struck at Freedom''s star ; Fulfilling union thro' disunion, harmony through war.

That great War forerun

By the civic pen.

Which twice was fought and won In the Master's ken, — On the fields incarnadine and in the souls of men.

Lo ! a glorious Song

Waits thee on the height, —

Those sweet bursts, that throng E'en the pulse of night, Of Liberty rejoicing in the main of light.

That transcendent paean

Pleasing unto Him, Sweeter than the strain

Of vocal Seraphim ; That gladness of the Free which is Columbia's hymn.

Come, O come, bright Spirit

To this pleasant sward ; Thou who shalt inherit

Freedom's master chord : Come thou in the poet's own good time, beloved Bard.

Come, thou Avatar,

Glorious Son of Song, Thou whose golden star Is o'er Olympus hung, Where the sacred Nine are leading thee from the morning

[tops among.

SONNET*

The Poet stood upon the bivouacked fields of fear ;

(Where Death had reared his dark pavilion on the

[height

And looked out o'er a kingdom girt with lurid light, Which War had made him heir to as his Ipved compeer.) The morning star came down and, in the white dawn

Faded the starry constellations on his sight, [clear,

Even as past away in multitudinous flight The spirits of those thousands slain in battle drear. But, Lo ! another star is in the firmament —

The golden sun is bowing the blue East with light ; And, in the sovereign morn, the Poet's heart is bent To hymn a glorious resurrection ere the night Of that great multitude which past before the spheres : So hymns the Poet's heart divine with its stops of hu-

[man fears.

COLUMBIA.

She is sowing in her mighty youth

The first seeds of decay : She has paid a guilty price in gold

That blood may not un-pay : She has flamed the Orient to war For imperial Caesar's pay.

She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth.

She has ta'en Jehovah's name in vain

With the name of Destiny : Her free-born People runneth back

The path of Liberty, And bring again the lightless age Of human tyranny.

She is departing, departing.

Departing from the truth.

She is summoning Oppression's Host

By the bell on I^iberty Hall : And the starry flowers of Liberty

Are dead and withering all Wherever the ironed and bloody tread Of ignoble Empire doth fall.

She is departing, departing.

Departing from the truth.

She is teaching Liberty's first lesson

Shall be Oppression 's war : While Liberty the hills among

Where rose her morning star, Long lingering, looks her last upon The white-domed Capitol afar.

She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth.

Lighted by the restless planet Mars,

Her drama doth unfold ; Freedom is widowed of her sons,

While Honor groweth cold,

And like unto a scroll played out

The Constitution 's uproUed.

She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth.

THE POLITICIANS.

Look on this politician, then on this,

As like as Judas' to Iscariot's kiss.

Which is the greater knave ?" men ask in vain,

Since both are damned and will be damned again.

And when, in opposition, they fight for pelf

The Devil seems divided ' gainst himself.

ODE TO PAULINK

I.

Thou art not dead, Pauline, nor I despair:

Thy spirit was not given to the urn. Cold was thy body, cold thy forehead fair,

And in thine eyes no more the light did burn ; — Emptied of life— all but thy golden hair,

Where death was softened till it seemed as sleep — Thou lay in pallid robes on rigid bier : Yet thine immortal spirit was not there ;

Twas but its vesture o'er which we did keep A blinded watch through all the darkness drear.

II.

Thou art not dead, Pauline ; 'tis Death that's dead.

Within yon marble vault, thy sweet form lies, But thine immortal spirit has long fled

Unto that nearer Land than those dim skies. Faith was not shaken by thy father's tears —

Tears ! these upon our bridal morn he shed, Yet w^e did not eternal farewell take. Nay, Love, my heart is empty of all fears ;

He wept that thou wast a bride again — not dead — The bride of Death that would in Heaven wake.

III. Thou visit me in other ways than dreams

Spirit to Spirit sometimes do we meet ; And oft thy face, in visionary gleams,

lyooks out upon me from thy hidden seat. Thy very portrait is alive to me,

Soft breathing words of tenderness and love. I cannot stir abroad amid the flowers But that the risen lark sings hymns of thee,

As he doth soar in golden light above

And pour one spirit through the vernal hours.