Mountain idylls, and Other Poems Part 10

Christmas Chimes.

Once more the merry Christmas bells, Are ringing far and wide; Their chime in rhythmic chorus swells, While every brazen throat foretells, A joyous Christmastide.

What is the burden of your chime, Ye bells of Christmastide?

What tidings in your clangorous rhyme, What message would your tongues sublime To human hearts confide?

Our chime is of salvation's plan, And every Christmastide Since Christmas bells to chime, began We've caroled Heaven's gift to man, A Saviour crucified.

The Unknowable.

O! Sun, resplendent in the smiling morn, As thou dost view the wastes of earth and sky, Canst thou behold the realms of the Unborn, Canst thou behold the realms of those who die?

Where dwells the spirit e'er its mortal birth, E'er yet it suffereth The pain and sorrow incident to earth?

Where after death?

The Sun gave answer, with refulgent glow: Child of a fleeting hour, thou too must die to know.

Canst tell, thou jeweled canopy of s.p.a.ce, Bewildering, and boundless to the eyes, Knowest thou the unborn spirits' dwelling place?

Knowest thou the distant regions of the skies Where rest the spirits freed from mundane strife, From mortal grief and care?

Knowest thou the secret of the future life?

Canst thou tell where?

From s.p.a.ce infinite echoed the reply: Child of a transient day, thou too, to know, must die.

Ye Winds who blow and cleave the formless skies, Ye Winds who blow with desolating breath, Can ye reveal pre-natal mysteries, And can ye solve the mystery of death?

Within thy ambient and viewless folds Imprisoned in the air, May not the spirits wait their earthly moulds?

Then tell ye where.

The answer came invisible and low: Frail child of earthly clay, thou too must die to know.

What are your tidings, O ye raging Seas?

Do your waves wash the islands of the blest, Or view the Gardens of Hesperides?

Know you the unborn spirits' place of rest?

And do your waters lave that unknown sh.o.r.e?

And when the night is gone, Shall the freed spirit, tired and faint no more, Behold the dawn?

The sad sea murmured, as its waves rolled high: As all those gone before, thou, too, to know, must die.

The Suicide.

What anguish rankled 'neath that silent breast?

What spectral figures mocked those staring eyes, Luring them on to Stygian mysteries?

What overpowering sense of grief distressed?

What desperation nerved that rigid hand To pull the trigger with such deadly aim?

What deep remorse, or terror, overcame The dread inherent, of death's shadowy strand?

Perhaps the hand of unrelenting fate Fell with such tragic pressure, that the mind In frenzy, uncontrollable and blind, Sought but the darkness, black and desolate.

Perhaps 'twas some misfortune's stunning blight, Perhaps unmerited, though deep disgrace, Or vision of a wronged accusing face Pictured indelibly before the sight.

Perhaps the gnawing of some secret sin, Some aberration fraught with morbid gloom, A buried hope which ever burst its tomb, Despondency, disaster, or chagrin.

That heart which throbbed in pain and discontent Is silent as the grave for which it yearned; That brain, which once with proud ambition burned, Now oozes through the bullet's ghastly rent.

Those eyes, transfixed with such a gruesome stare, Once beamed with laughter, innocent and bright; The morning gave no presage of the night; A smile may be the prelude of despair.

Whate'er his secret, it remains untold, For why to human anguish add one groan?

Is grief the deeper grief because unknown?

So let the grave his form and burden hold.

Ye who have felt no crushing weight of care, From blame profuse, in charity refrain; Some depths of sorrow overwhelm the brain, Some loads too great for human strength to bear.

I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.

I think when I stand in the presence of Death, How futile is earthy endeavor, If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath, The tongue has been silenced forever.

For no message is flashed from the l.u.s.treless eyes, When clos-ed so languid and weary, And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries, In response to the agonized query!

We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud With a vague and insatiate yearning, And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud, With our vision of no discerning.

Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light, From that shadowy strand uncertain; But He who ordained the day and night, Framed also Death's silent curtain.

Hope.

Hope is the shadowy essence of a wish, A fond desire which floats before our eyes; With lurid aberration, feverish,-- We clutch the shadow which elusive, flies; Though at our grasp the mocking fancy flees, Hope still pursues and soothes realities.

Hope, as a mirage on the desert waste, Lures the lost traveler, by a vision fair Of gushing fountains which he may not taste, Of streamlets cool depicted on the air; With tongue outstretched and parched he onward speeds, But as he moves the phantom scene recedes.

In the foul dungeon or the narrow cell, The prisoner doth pace his lonely beat, And as he treads, his shackles clank a knell Responsive to each movement of his feet; Yet through his grated window, he discerns The star of hope which ever brightly burns.

A n.o.ble ship her ponderous anchor weighs, Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight; A young wife waves farewell. As many days In pa.s.sing turn her golden tresses white, She scans the horizon through a mist of tears, Hopes for that vanished sail which ne'er appears.

A galley slave in age and clime remote, Chained to his seat, unwilling plies the oar; Before his eyes fond dreams of freedom float, He hopes amid the battle's crash and roar; And as the waves the imprisoned wretches drown, Hopes, as his fetters draw him swiftly down.

A mighty host in force of arms we see, With march invasive, cross a boundary line; At its approach no freemen turn and flee, Each with his life defends his family shrine; As burning homes illuminate the sky With ghastly light, they hope and fight and die.