Complete poetical works of John Hay / [by John Hay] ; with an introd. by Clarence L. Hay [electronic text]

UNCOLLECTED PIECES

NARRATIVE POEMS

BENONI DUNN

I SAT on a worm fence talking With one of the Bear Creek boys, When all the woods were ringing With the blue jay's jubilant noise. Prairie and timber were glorious In the love of the hot young sun, But a philosophic gloom possessed The soul of Benoni Dunn.

"Nothin' in all this 'varsal yerth Is like what it ort to be, I've give up tryin' to see the nub — It's too hefty a job fer me. The weaker a feller's stummick may be, The bigger his dinner, you bet, And the more he don't care a damn for cash, The richer he's sure to get.

"Thar's old Brads — got a pretty young wife And the biggest house in Pike — No chick nor child — says he's sixty-two, But he's eighty-two more like. I'low God thinks it a derned good joke— The way he tries it on— To send a plenty of hazel-nuts To folks with their back teeth gone.

"I ort to be in Congress; I would ef I'd went to school. That's Colonel Scrubb our member He's jest a nateral fool. When he come here, Lord! he didn't know Peach blow from a dogwood blossom, And the derned galoot owned up to me That he never seed a 'possum!

"Everything works contráry— You never knows what to do: Ef I sow in wheat I'll wish it was corn Afore the fall is through.

And talk about pleasure — ef I was axed The thing that most I love, I'd say it's gingerbread — and that I git the littlest uv.

"What is the use of livin' Where everything goes skew-haw, Where you starve ef you keep the Commandments, And hang ef you break the law. I've give up tryin' to see the nub Uv what we was meant to be; The more I study, the more I don't know— It's too hefty a job fer me."

And this was the sum of the thinking Of tall Benoni Dunn, — While gay in weeds his cornfield laughed In the light of the kindly sun. Ruminant thus he maundered, With a scowl on his tangled brow, With gaps in his fence, and hate in his heart, And rust on his idle plough.

"AFTER YOU, PILOT"

DAWN gilded — over dunes of sand That border Mobile Bay — The fleet, which under Farragut In expectation lay. For ere that rising sun should set, Full many a sailor bold Should perish, leaving but a name On history's page of gold.

Others have sung and yet shall sing Of Farragut's renown: How to the Hartford's maintop lashed He gained his conqueror's crown. Let others sing those deeds while we, In sorrow and in pride, Tell how one gallant gentleman With high decorum died.

The Admiral came across the bar With threescore flags in air, The Gulf's blue mirror never glassed A scene so sternly fair. Over his fleet of eighteen ships His dark eye proudly ran; And Craven in the monitor Tecumseh led the van.

Morgan and Gaines shot forth their fires From either bellowing shore; With deeper rage the fleet replied— One thunderous, volleying roar. But straight ahead bold Craven dashed Upon the swelling tide, To seek and smite the Tennessee, The foeman's hope and pride.

A noble quarry! Seeking her, Most worth his knightly steel, He recked not of the leaking death Beneath his gliding keel.

One moment in the conning tower He thought of loved ones dear— Then at the black foe's lowering bulk He bade his pilot steer.

A roar, a shock, a shuddering plunge! Full well did Craven know No mortal skill might save his ship Smit by that dastard blow. The doom impending shrieked and beat Its fatal wings so nigh That only one might pass the stair And one must pause, and die.

"After you, Pilot," Craven said. O words of flawless fame! Out of that awful moment bloomed A pure, immortal name. The pilot passed, the hero stayed; Within that turret's round Met glorious death and endless life And faith by honor crowned.

The good ship plunged to ocean's ooze. Forth from the flood and fire Our reverence sees that gentle soul To kindred heaven aspire; And marks—when Craven stands beneath God's hero-sheltering dome— The shade of Philip Sidney rise And bid him welcome home.

SONNETS

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT

SON of a sire whose heart beat ever true To God, to country, and the fireside love To which returning, like a homing dove, From each high duty done, he gladly flew, Complete, yet touched by genius through and through, The lofty qualities that made him great, Loved in his home and priceless to the state, By Heaven's grace are garnered up in you. Be yours, we pray, the dauntless heart of youth, The eye to see the humor of the game, The scorn of lies, the large Batavian mirth; And, past the happy, fruitful years of fame, Of sport and work and battle for the truth, A home not all unlike your home on earth.

Christmas Eve, 1902.

ATAVISM

O BEAUTEOUS daughter of a mighty race! In thy fair features and thy radiant eyes — Like bright clouds floating over brighter skies — The shadows of a glorious past we trace. Framed in the oval of thy perfect face Flit the pale belles of bygone centuries; A hint of lawgivers and jurists lies In that pure brow where strength is wed with grace. And looking on thy profile's symmetry A world-famed face across my memory comes, — 'Neath the slouched hat a watching eagle's eye, Where down the dusty line goes riding by, With blare of trumpets and hoarse growl of drums, Tecumseh Sherman marching to the sea.

TWILIGHT ON SANDUSKY MARSH

Low in the west the moon's slim crescent swings. Across the marsh the vesper breezes bear The sounds of gloaming; from far cornfields fare The chittering blackbirds, whose ingathering brings The silken flutter of a myriad wings. The wild duck's cry floats down the thickening air As of one hunted, full of fear and care. Sad twilight comes with dubious whisperings. How changed from that exultant world which lay In the wide smile of noon! The evening's shiver Means the day's death; its thronging whispers blend With thoughts that haunt men when their lives must end. Another dawn may gild a fairer day, But this day, when it dies, is gone forever.

SORRENTO

THE mirthful gods who ruled o'er Greater Greece Created this fair land in some high mood Of frolic joy; the smiling heavens brood Over a scene soft-whelmed in jocund peace. Gay clamors, odorous breathings never cease From basking crag, lime grove, and olive wood; Swart fishers sing from out the sparkling flood Where once the syrens sang in luring ease. The curved beach swarms with brown-skinned boys and girls Dancing the tarantella on the sands, Their limbs dive with music's jollity; And ever, where the warm wave leaps and swirls With glad embrace clasping the bowery lands, Breaks the tumultuous laughter of the sea.

PÆSTUM

Two thousand years these temples have been old. Yet were they not more lovely the first day, When o'er yon hills the young light blushed and lay Along the tapering columns, and eve's gold Over the Tyrrhene sea in glory rolled. By power of truth, by beauty's royal sway, While men, and creeds, and kingdoms pass away, Their gift to charm and awe they calmly hold. Beauty and truth! by that high grace divine They force the tribute of the vassal years; Clouds gloom, the blue wave dimples, the stars shine To make them fairer; even Time that tears And shames all other things, here can but bless And beautify this crumbling loveliness.

THANATOS ATHANATOS

(DEATHLESS DEATH)

AT eve when the brief wintry day is sped, I muse beside my fire's faint-flickering glare— Conscious of wrinkling face and whitening hair— Of those who, dying young, inherited The immortal youthfulness of the early dead. I think of Raphael's grand-seigneurial air; Of Shelley and Keats, with laurels fresh and fair Shining unwithered on each sacred head; And soldier boys who snatched death's starry prize, With sweet life radiant in their fearless eyes, The dreams of love upon their beardless lips, Bartering dull age for immortality; Their memories hold in death's unyielding fee The youth that thrilled them to the finger-tips.

NIGHT IN VENICE

LOVE, in this summer night, do you recall Midnight, and Venice, and those skies of June Thick-sown with stars, when from the still lagoon We glided noiseless through the dim canal? A sense of some belated festival Hung round us, and our own hearts beat in tune With passionate memories that the young moon Lit up on dome and tower and palace wall. We dreamed what ghosts of vanished loves made part Of that sweet light and trembling, amorous air. I felt — in those rich beams that kissed your hair, Those breezes, warm with bygone lovers' sighs— All the dead beauty of Venice in your eyes, All the old loves of Venice in my heart.

PEACE

AFTER STUART MERRILL

TREMBLING of purple banners in the fight, Wild neigh of horses in destruction's path, Howling of trumpets answering yells of wrath, Dim eyes where slowly fades the living light; And on the plains, the ghastly heaped up death O'er which the guns thunder their dull refrain; And summer is shamed and autumn grieves in rain, And carnage breathes abroad a hateful breath. Back! O thou nightmare of the tired world's rest! The Spring sees blooming at the mother's breast Pink mouths of babes with cooing laughter rife; While from the valley to the mountain springs, Amid the rustle of zephyrs and of wings, Sound, like young heart-beats, all the bells of Life.

LOVE'S DAWN

IN wandering through waste places of the world, I met my love and knew not she was mine. But soon a light more tender, more divine, Filled earth and heaven; richer cloud-curtains furled The west at eve; a softer flush impearled The gates of dawn; a note more pure and fine Rang in the thrush's song; a rarer shine Varnished the leaves by May's sweet sun uncurled. To me, who loved but knew not, all the air Trembled to shocks of far-off melodies, As all the summer's rustling thrills the trees When spring suns strike their boughs, asleep and bare. And then, one blessed day, I saw arise Love's morning, glorious, in her tranquil eyes.

HELEN'S STAR STONE

THERE was a red star stone, old poets feign, Hung on the neck of Helen, the most fair Of women, the world's wonder; gathering there, Dripped ever one bright drop of blood; like rain That ere it fails blows into mist again. The crimson gout melted to roseate air, And that divine white bosom, proudly bare, Of all the woe it cost bore never a stain. So you, serene and beauteous lady, rove 'Mid throngs of luckless ones who gaze and die. And not a tremor of heartbreak, not a sigh Nor strangling sob of strong men whelmed in love Avails your calm heart by one beat to move Or dims the cloudless heaven of your eye.

A CHALLENGE

THE luminous pages of all story prove High love hath ending in heroic woe; Sharp-fanged and fell, dark death doth ever go In waiting for the wandering feet of love. And if that fate be shunned, love's footsteps move Down the dull slope that leads to regions low Where the thick pulse of ease and wont beats slow As in some dusk and poppy-haunted grove. Shall we accept, or shall we not defy, Entrenched in our fast love, this augury? Never shall I less than adore thee, Sweet! No use, my queen, shall dim thy radiant crown. And if, in envy, death shall strike me down, Let his dart find me here, kissing thy feet!

LOVE AND MUSIC

I GAZED upon my love while music smote The soft night air into glad harmony; Lapt on the ripples of a silver sea, I heard the bright tones rapturous dance and float. Hearing and sight were wed; each flattering note Meant some perfection of my love to me. Caressed by music, it was bliss to see Her form, white-robed, the jewel at her throat, Her glimmering hands, her dusky, perfumed hair, Her low, clear brow, her deep, proud, dreaming eyes, Bent kindly upon me, her worshiper; The dulcet, delicate sounds that shook the air— As if love's joy rained from the starlit skies — Seemed all sweet, inarticulate thoughts of her.

OBEDIENCE

THE lady of my love bids me not love her. I can but bow obedient to her will; And so, henceforth, I love her not; but still I love the lustrous hair that glitters over Her proud young head; I love the smiles that hover About her mouth; the lights and shades that fill Her star-bright eyes; the low, rich tones that thrill Like thrush-songs gurgling from a vernal cover. I love the fluttering dimples in her cheek; Her cheek I love, its soft and tender bloom; I love her sweet lips and the words they speak, Words wise or witty, full of joy or doom. I love her shoes, her gloves, her dainty dress; And all they clasp, and cling to, and caress.

COMPENSATION

PINDAR, the Theban, sang to Hieron In Doric verse, rich as rough-hammered gold, The Immortals deal to men, now as of old, Two ill things for one good. These words, forth blown From such a trumpet, through the ages groan A note of misery. And yet I hold That though they deal us evils manifold We owe the High Powers gratitude alone. For one good may be worth a thousand ills; And all the sum of wretchedness that fills The travailing earth, the sea, the arching blue Cannot exceed the wealth of joy that lies In sweet, low words, in smiles and loving eyes — Cannot compare with love, if love be true.

ESTRELLA

MY love is like a planet in the sky Whereon a star-seer bends his reverent gaze, Waiting for those bright moments when its rays Flame out in beauty; then his raptured eye May trace its light and shadow; he may try To pluck in shreds its rainbow-tinted blaze; But still unknown and vague the planet stays Throned in the luminous blue, serene and high. I, though I love and wonder, may not know. Too lofty for me is that magic lore. A sacred mystery folds evermore The thoughts that make her deep eyes flash and glow, The meaning of that slow smile's dazzling shine, The sweet, proud lips no kisses can make mine.

INFINITE VARIETY

IN my one love are many loves entwined; Each hour makes me unfaithful to the last; The beauty present dims the beauty past; Of her worst rivals is her self combined. When she is pale, in her dear cheek I find The fairest shade on earth was ever cast; And if she blush, that hue is not surpassed In roses ruffled by the wanton wind. Sometimes her sweet lips droop to a purpose sad; Then all my soul in loving sympathy Burns to dispel her sadness with a kiss; And when they flash and curve in laughter glad, Around the corners of her mouth I see A swarm of hovering loves, sporting in bliss.

TO ONE ABSENT

ONLY a week ago, heaven bent so near It bartered greetings with the jocund earth, The sweet June day was lived with love and mirth, A world of verdure laughed in summer cheer. And when night came its charm was doubly dear; Under that opulent moon joy knew no dearth; All beautiful and gracious things had birth In your eyes' cherishing light; — for you were here. Now all that glow of life is vanished; lorn The world lies under the cold gleam of morn. Withered and shrinking in the spectral blue Hangs the sad moon, a pale and shuddering ghost Of all that glory in your absence lost — Fading and waning, love, for lack of you.

SLEEP

I BLESS the power of this charmed summer night, I bless its magic and its mystery, Which in ecstatic visions brings to me The worshiped presence of my soul's delight. Mine eyes are sealed, but on my clearer sight Her heaven-bright features shine more radiantly, Her sweet voice with a richer melody Enchants the dark, more luminous than light. I miss the sense of daylight's haunting ills, Bathed in this lambent tide of sleep and love; I only see one dazzling image beam, Shrined in a rosy universe of dream, Fairer than Dian bending tranced above The sleeping shepherd on the Latmian hills.

EUTHANASIA

TAKE from my hand, dear love, these opening flowers. Afar from thee they grew, 'neath alien skies Their stems sought light and life in humble wise, Fed by the careless suns and vagrant showers. But now their fate obeys the rule of ours. They pass to airs made glorious by thine eyes. Smit with swift joy, they breathe, in fragrant sighs, Their souls out toward thee in their last glad hours, Paying leal tribute to a brighter bloom. Thus, and not other, is the giver's fate. Through years unblest by thee, a cheerless path, A checkered maze of common glare and gloom, He came to know in rapture deep though late How thou couldst brighten life and gentle death.

A PRAYER IN THESSALY

A LOVER prayed to Eros in this wise:—

Since my love loves not me, Eros! I pray That thou wilt take this torturing love away. But since she is so fair, still let mine eyes Unloving, joy in her, her beauty prize; Still let her clear voice ring as pure and gay To my calm heart as mating birds in May.

The words went up the blue Thessalian skies.

But ere they reached the high god's golden seat, The lover to retract his prayer was fain:

Nay, let me keep the bitter with the sweet, Better than placid bliss is love's dear pain. My love I'll hold and cherish though it prove More blighting than the frowning brows of Jove.

ACCIDENTS

A VISION seen by Plato the divine: Two shuddering souls come forward, waiting doom From Rhadamanthus in the nether gloom. One is a slave — hunger has made him pine; One is a king — his arms and jewels shine, Making strange splendor in the dismal room. "Hence!" cries the judge, "and strip them! Let them come With nought to show if they be coarse or fine." Of garb and body they are swift bereft: Such is hell's law — nothing but soul is left. The slave, in virtue glorious, is held fit For those blest isles of peace where just kings go. The king, by vice deformed, is sent below To herd with base slaves in the wailing pit.

SONGS AND LYRICS

VESPERS

MY Star has vanished in the west, And with it dies the day, And all the rosy light of life Is fading into gray.

The sky is full of other stars, But none to me are dear; Their silvery light fills all the night, But still the world is drear.

Far in the west one tender flush The dim horizon stains,— A memory of hours that were, A hope that yet remains.

For, wheeling over many lands And brightly shining on, In happier days my Evening Star Will be my Star of Dawn.

TO THE VESPER SPARROW

SING the last word of the day! Voice of the sparrow belated! What hast thou seen by the way? What hast thou loved most or hated? Sadness to melody mated, What is the grudge thou wouldst pay?

Work, is it sadder than play? Sorrow or joy sooner sated? Dreams the sweet blossom of May To what dull fruitage 't is fated? When life and death are translated, Seems Death or Life the more gay?

Linger, shy singer, O stay! Though the swift night has abated Sky, lake, and woodland to gray. Long have we questioned and waited. Question and answer unmated Die with the vanishing day.

THY WILL BE DONE

NOT in dumb resignation We lift our hands on high, Not like the nerveless fatalist, Content to trust and die. Our faith springs like the eagle Who soars to meet the sun, And cries exulting unto Thee, O Lord, Thy Will be done!

When tyrant feet are trampling Upon the common weal, Thou dost not bid us bend and writhe Beneath the iron heel. In Thy name we assert our right By sword or tongue or pen, And even the headsman's axe may flash Thy message unto men.

Thy Will! It bids the weak be strong, It bids the strong be just; No lip to fawn, no hand to beg, No brow to seek the dust. Wherever man oppresses man Beneath Thy liberal sun, O Lord, be there Thine arm made bare, Thy righteous will be done.

EROS EPHEMERIS

ENOUGH of thunderous passion That clouds life's weary way. Bid now in merrier fashion The jocund pulses play. Welcome the airy fancies That charm and pass away, The light loves, The bright loves, The loves that live a day.

Too rude for mortal bosoms The storms that rage for aye; Ask not from frost the blossoms That deck the laughing May. Bid welcome all the gay loves That wither if they stay, The sweet loves, The fleet loves, The loves that live a day.

IS SHE HERE?

HE came in victory's lambent flame 'Mid myriad shouts and trumpets' blare, While the glad people's loud acclaim Made vocal all the summer air.

But while the cannon's thunder boomed Half-heard amid the loyal cry, And starry banners glowed and bloomed In beauty neath that western sky,

He from the highway turned apart And to a quiet nook drew near, The dearest pulses of his heart Beating the question, "Is she here?"

The glory well and hardly earned In civic toil and battle's fire Was all forgotten as he turned To meet his human heart's desire.

And light as dust lay in the scale The favor of a flattering world Weighed by that joy which cannot fail In love and faith and honor furled.

Like fire within the opal's heart, Like fragrance in the rose's breast, A sacred joy, serene, apart, The highest and the holiest.

MATINS

THE trembling pulses of the dawn Fill with faint glow the violet skies, And on the moist, day-smitten lawn The peace of morning lies.

A blessed truce of woe and sin, A glad surcease of care's annoy; The waking world has pleasure in Its matin light and joy.

And all the joy that fills the air, And all the light that gilds the blue, I see it in your eyes and hair, I know it, love, in you.

O'er lips and eyes and golden floss There floats a charm I cannot reach, A glimpse of gain, a threat of loss, Beyond my subtlest speech.

The amethyst flush will fade above Into the dust-dim glare of noon: The love of youth, the youth of love, Will fade and pass as soon.

Kiss close, belov'd! for never yet Could love its bloom unchanging keep. There are no hearts but they forget, There are no eyes but sleep.

SWEETEST AND DEAREST

VAIN are all names To express what thou art, Gem, rose, or morning-star, Joy of my heart. Still do the fond old words Ring best and clearest — Thou art my love, my own, Sweetest and dearest.

Every warm heart-beat chimes These words to me; Needless all others Between me and thee. In the deep silences One voice thou hearest — 'T is my heart calling thee Sweetest and dearest.

REVEILLE

FLY, poppied drowse, away! Across the marshes sweep, Chasing the fallen moon, the shadows gray; Make me not laggard, Sleep!

Against the morning move, Fronting the reddening miles! Touch the white eyelids of the girl I love, And fill her dreams with smiles.

TWO ON THE TERRACE

WARM waves of lavish moonlight The Capitol enfold, As if a richer noon light Bathed its white walls with gold. The great bronze Freedom shining, Her crest in ether shrining, Peers eastward as divining The new day from the old.

Mark the mild planet pouring Her splendor o'er the ground; See the white obelisk soaring To pierce the blue profound. Beneath the still heavens beaming, The lighted town lies gleaming, In guarded slumber dreaming— A world without a sound.

No laughter and no sobbing From those dim roofs arise, The myriad pulses throbbing Are silent as the skies. To us their peace is given, The meed of spirits shriven; I see the wide, pure heaven Reflected in your eyes.

Ah love! a thousand æons Shall range their trooping years; The morning stars their pæans Shall sing to countless ears. These married States may sever, Strong Time this dome may shiver, But love shall last forever And lovers' hopes and fears.

So let us send our greeting, A wish for trust and bliss, To future lovers meeting On far-off nights like this,

Who, in these walls' undoing Perforce of Time's rough wooing, Amid the crumbling ruin Shall meet, clasp hands, and kiss.

"RHYMES"

APPARENTLY COMPOSED DURING THE EARLY MONTHS OF THE CIVIL WAR

SOWN sparsely through earth's lifetime there are hours That teem with giant forms of novel powers; When from an idler century's budding gloom The petals of an epoch burst to bloom, Vaguely revealing to the questioning skies Anthers and spikes of unfamiliar dyes; When through life's growing woof, run suddenly, Threads, dim — presageful of the fate to be, And omens darkly from the distance stray, Like orient splendors out of morn's dull gray, Whispering low, as gather from afar The vague foreshadows of the distant war, The war-cries heavy with the hate of years The murmurous clashing of the myriad spears; Omens that presage not the honest fields Where alien mottoes mark opposing shields,

Where loyal men-at-arms, with martial glee With sword blades carve an emperor's decree, Where trumpets wail and silken banners wave Proudly and mournfully o'er valor's grave; Far darker lowers the promise of the fight Which locks in desperate grapple wrong and right, Where o'er the legions of embattled hosts Float the dim shadows of indignant ghosts Where good and evil armed and regnant stand Shouting the battle cry to either band, And men thus fired with hate and vengeance grim Strive with the sinews of the Anakim And on the trampled turf distills the stain That tinged the sod of Armageddon's plain.

At such a time Art sickens through the world, Song slumbers with lethargic pinions furled, Listless the painter at his easel stands, Drops the dulled chisel from the sculptor's hands, The harp hangs silent with untrembling chords For deeds are now more eloquent than words.

As, when reluctant night is half-withdrawn, Steals on the wold the mystery of dawn, The grove may rustle with unquiet wings But never a bird from out his covert sings. But when the routed shadows break and flee And Light stands victor on the dew-lit lea Glad in the triumph, from the twittering throng How pours the jubilant cataract of song! In this vague twilight poets silent wait While the stern Sisters chant the runes of fate. For fuller than the measure of their rhyme Swells the grand cadence of avenging Time, And deeper than the trembling of their chords The Anvil Chorus of the clashing swords.

Not mine the task to wander far away Into the rose-mists of a happier day, To re-create beneath these leaden skies The hues of a forgotten Paradise, Or soothe the soul with love's voluptuous swells, Soft as a Lydian dancer's ankle-bells:

Not this. For I have neither will nor power To scorn the regal summons of the hour And you'll forgive the unmelodious rhyme That beats the jangled rhythm of the time, For never since the days of that July, Consecrate through all time to Liberty, Since the glad light of that grand summer morn Kissed the bright forehead of an empire born, Has any hour brought in its flight a freight So cumbered with the mysteries of fate.

While all the earth in dread suspense is bowed, We can but watch the piling of the cloud. Out of its depths no blinding flash has come, Still sleep inert the inner thunders dumb. Until this cloud and gloom be overpast And the torn mist goes sailing down the blast And the glad earth, green in the springtime rain, Laughs with the sunshine and the flowers again, Of fairer themes what man shall dare to sing? The lute is silent, while the trumpets ring.

And Pleasure's lilt, and Fancy's airy play Wait for the freedom of a brighter day.

In the proud chronicles of a future age These passing days will fill the proudest page, Topping the landmarks of the coming time, The beacons of to-day will loom sublime. This is our hour supreme: this storm and stress Shall blot or vindicate our worthiness. This is the promise vague of fate's decree And other hours have been that this might be.

Far back through elder years and distant climes Shines the stern presage of the passing times. To keep the truth now periled, bright and pure, The people fought their King on Marston Moor, Where curled court darlings sank to death's eclipse— Sweet names of English ladies on their lips, And still the tyrant-hating lifestream ran Hot from the gashed veins of the Puritan.

Charged with the germ of days to come like these, The Mayflower shivering sailed the wintry seas And her stern crew beneath that iron sky Sang their first hymn to God and Liberty.