A Wreath Of Virginia Bay Leaves Part 15

His pa.s.sion-stricken Sappho seems alive-- Before her none can ever feel alone, For on her face emotions so do strive That we forget she is but pallid stone; And all her tragedy of love and woe Is told us in the chilly marble's snow.

Bacchante, with her vine-crowned hair, Leaps to the cymbal-measured dance With such a pa.s.sion in her air-- Upon her brow--upon her lips-- As thrills you to the finger-tips, And fascinates your glance.

These are, as 'twere, three of his Songs in stone-- The first full of the tenderness of love, Speaking of moon-rise, and the low wind's call: The second of love's tragedy and fall; The third of shrill, mad laughter, and the tone Of festal music, on whose rise and fall Swift-footed dancers follow.

n.o.bler than these sweet lyric dreams, Dreamt out beside Italia's streams, He'd worked some Epic studies out, in part-- To leave them incomplete his chiefest pain When the low pulses of his failing heart Admonished him of death.

Ay! he had soared upon a lofty wing, Wet with the purple and encrimsoned rain Of dreams, whose clouds had floated o'er his brain Until it ached with glories.

If you would see his Epic studies, go-- Go with the student from his dim arcade-- Halt where the Statesman standeth in the hall, And mark how careless voices hush and fall, And all light talk to sudden pause is brought In presence of the n.o.ble type of thought-- Embodied Independence which he wrought From stone of far Carrara.

View his Columbus: Hero grand and meek, Scarred 'mid the battle's long-protracted brunt-- Palos and Salvador stamped on his front, With not a line about it, poor or weak-- A second Atlas, bearing on his brow A New World, just discovered.

Go see Virginia's wise, majestic face With some faint shadow of her coming woe Writ on the broad, expansive, virgin snow Of her imperial forehead, just as though Some disembodied Prophet-hand of eld The Sculptor's chisel in its touch had held, Foreshadowing her coming crown of thorns-- Her crown and her great glory!

These of the many; but they are enough-- Enough to show that I have rightly said The marble's snow bids back from him decay, He sleepeth long; but sleeps not with the dead Who die, and are forgotten ere the clay Heaped over them hath hardened in the sun.

This much of Galt, the Artist: Of the man Fain would I speak, but in sad sooth I can Ne'er find the words wherein to tell How he was loved, or yet how well He did deserve it.

All things of beauty were to him delight-- The sunset's clouds--the turret rent apart-- The stars which glitter in the noon of night-- Spoke in one voice unto his mind and heart, His love of Nature made his love of Art, And had his span Of life been longer He had surely done Such n.o.ble things that he Like to a soaring eagle would have been At last--lost in the sun!

TO THE POET-PRIEST RYAN.

_IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A COPY OF HIS POEMS_.

Himself I read beneath the words he writes ...

I may come back and sing again.--RYAN.

I.

This Bard's to me a whole-souled man In honesty and might, For when he sees Wrong in the van He leaps like any Knight To horse, and charging on the wrong Smites it with the great sword of Song.

II.

Beneath the ca.s.sock of the Priest There throbs another heart-- Another--but 'tis not the least-- Which in his Lays takes part, So that 'mid clash of Swords and Spears There is no lack of Pity's tears.

III.

This other heart is brave and soft, As such hearts always are, And plumes itself, a bird aloft, When Morning's gates unbar-- Till high it soars above the sod Bathed in the very light of G.o.d.

IV.

Woman and Soldier, Priest and Man, I find within these Lays, And the closer still th' Verse I scan The more I see to praise: Some of these Lyrics shower down The glories of the Cross and Crown.

V.

To thee, oh Bard! my head I bow, As I'd not to a King, And my last word, writ here and now, Is not a little thing; Recall the promise of thy strain-- Thou art to "come and sing again!"

THREE NAMES.

Virginia in her proud, Colonial days Boasts three great names which full of glory shine; Two glitter like the burnished heads of spears, the third in tender light is half divine.

Turning that page my eager fancy hears Trumpets and drums, and fleet on fleet appears.

Those names are graven deep and broad, to last And outlast Ages: while recording Time Hands down their story, worth an Epic Rhyme To light her future by her splendid past: One planned the Saxon's Empire o'er these lands,-- The other planted it with valiant hands-- The third, with Mercy's soft, celestial beams, Lights fair romances, histories and dreams.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Whether in velvet white, slashed, and be-pearled, And rich in knots of cl.u.s.tering gems a-glow: Or, in his rusted armor, he unfurled St. George's Cross by Oronoko's flow; He was a man to note right well as one Who shot his arrows straightway at the sun.

Dark was his hair, his beard all crisp and curled.

And narrow-lidded were his piercing eyes, Anhungered in their glances for a world That he might win by daring enterprise,-- Explorer, soldier, scholar, poet, he Not only wrote but acted historie!-- And that great Captain, of our Saxon stock, Took his last slumber on the ghastly block!

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

A yeoman born, with patrimony small, He held the world at large as his estate; Found fit advices in the bugle's call And took his part in iron-tongued debate Where'er one sword another sword blade notched; Ne'er was he slain, though often he was scotched, Now down, now up, but always fronting fate.

At last a figure resolute, and grand In arms he leaped upon Virginia's strand; Fitted in many schools his course to steer He knew the ax, the musketoon, and brand, How to obey, and better to command; First of his line he stood--a planted spear The New World saw the English Pioneer!

_POCAHONTAS_.

Her story, sure, was fashioned out above, Ere 't was enacted on the scene below!

For 't was a very miracle of love When from the savage hawk's nest came the dove With wings of peace to stay the ordered blow-- The hawk's plumes b.l.o.o.d.y, but the dove's as snow!

And here my heart oppressed by pleasant tears Yields to a young girl's half angelic spell-- Yes, for that maiden like a Saint appears; She needs no fresco, stone, nor shrine to tell Her story to the people of this Land-- Saint of the Wilderness, enthroned amid The wooded Minster where the Pagan hid!

SUNSET ON HAMPTON ROADS.

Behind me purplish lines marked out the town, Before me stretched the n.o.ble Roadstead's tide: And there I saw the Evening sun go down Casting a parting glory far and wide-- As King who for the cowl puts off his crown-- So went the sun: and left a wealth of light Ere hidden by the cloister-gates of Night.

Beholding this my soul was stilled in prayer, I understood how all men, save the blind, Might find religion in a scene so fair And formulate a creed within the mind;-- See prophesies in clouds; fates in the air; The skies flamed red; the murm'ring waves were hushed-- "The conscious water saw its G.o.d and blushed."