Songs Ysame

Songs Ysame

TOOur MotherMary Erskine Fellows

PRELUDE

WE cannot sing of life, whose years are brief,Nor sad heart-stories tell, who know no grief,Nor write of shipwrecks on the seas of Fate,Whose ship from out the harbor sailed but late.But we may sing of fair and sunny days,Of Love that walks in peace through quiet ways;And unto him who turns the page to seeOur simple story, haply it may beAs when in some mild day in early spring,One through the budding woods goes wandering;And finds, where late the snow has blown across,Beneath the leaves, a violet in the moss.1887. A. F. B.NOW I can sing of life, whose days are brief,For I have walked close hand in hand with grief.And I may tell of shipwrecked hopes, since mineSank just outside the happy harbor line.But still my song is of those sunny daysWhen Love was with me in those quiet ways.And unto him who turns the page to seeThat day's short story, haply it may be,The joy of those old memories he feels:As one who through the wintry twilight steals,And sees, across the chilly wastes of snow,The darkened sunset's rosy afterglow.1892. A. F. J.

PART I.

SONGS YSAME

The Lighting of the Candles

WHENCE came the emberThat touched our young souls' candles first with light;In shadowy years, too distant to remember,Where childhood merges backward into night?I know not, but the halo of those tapersHas ever since around all nature shone;And we have looked at life through golden vaporsBecause of that one ember touch alone.

At Early Candle-Lighting

THOSE, who have heard the whispered breathOf Nature's secret "Shibboleth,"And learned the pass-word to unrollThe veil that hides her inmost soul,May follow; but this by-path leadsThrough mullein stalks and jimson-weeds.And he who scorning treads them downWould deem but poor and common-placeThose whom he'll meet in homespun gown.But they who lovingly retraceTheir steps to scenes I dream about,Will find the latch-string hanging out.With them I claim companionship,And for them burn my tallow-dip,At early candle-lighting.To these low hills, around which clingMy fondest thoughts, I would not bringAn alien eye long used to sightsAmong the snow-crowned Alpine heights.An eagle does not bend its wingTo low-built nests where robins sing.Between the fence's zigzag rails,The stranger sees the road that trailsIts winding way into the dark,Fern-scented woods. He does not markThe old log cabin at the endAs I, or hail it as a friend,Or catch, when daylight's last rays wane,The glimmer through its narrow paneOf early candle-lighting.As anglers sit and half in dreamDip lazy lines into the stream,And watch the swimming life below,So I watch pictures come and go.And in the flame, Alladin-wise,See genii of the past arise.If it be so that common thingsCan fledge your fancy with fast wings;If you the language can translateOf lowly life, and make it great,And can the beauty understandThat dignifies a toil-worn hand,Look in this halo, and see howThe homely seems transfigured nowAt early candle-lighting.A fire-place where the great logs roarAnd shine across the puncheon floor,And through the chinked walls, here and there,The snow steals, and the frosty air.Meager and bare the furnishings,But hospitality that kingsMight well dispense, transmutes to gold,The welcome given young and old.Plain and uncouth in speech and dress,But richly clad in kindliness,The neighbors gather, one by one,At rustic rout when day is done.Vanish all else in this soft light, —The past is ours again tonight;'Tis early candle-lighting.Oh, well-remembered scenes like these:The candy-pullings, husking-bees —The evenings when the quilting framesWere laid aside for romping games;The singing school! The spelling match!My hand still lingers on the latch,I fain would wider swing the doorAnd enter with the guests once more.Though into ashes long agoThat fire faded, still the glowThat warmed the hearts around it met,Immortal, burns within me yet.Still to that cabin in the woodI turn for highest types of goodAt early candle-lighting.How fast the scenes come flocking toMy mind, as white sheep jostle throughThe gap, when pasture bars are down,And pass into the twilight brown.Grandmother's face and snowy cap,The knitting work upon her lap,The creaking, high-backed rocking-chair;The spinning-wheel, the big loom whereThe shuttle carried song and thread;The valance on the high, white bedWhose folds the lavender still keep.Oh! nowhere else such dreamless sleepOn tired eyes its deep spell lays,As that which came in those old daysAt early candle-lighting.A kitchen lit by one dim light,And 'round the table in affright,A group of children telling tales.Outside, the wind – a banshee – wails.Even the shadows, that they throwUpon the walls, to giants grow.The hailstones 'gainst the window panesFall with the noise of clanking chains,Till, glancing back, they almost feelBlack shapes from out the corners steal,And, climbing to the loft o'erhead,The witches follow them to bed.The low flame flickers. Snuff the wick!For ghosts and goblins crowd so thickAt early candle-lighting.An orchard path that tramping feetFor half a century have beat;Here to the fields at sun-up wentThe reapers. Here, on errands sent,Small bare-feet loitered, loath to go.Here apple-boughs dropped blooming snow,Through garden borders gaily setWith touch-me-nots and bouncing Bet;Here passed at dusk the harvesterWith quickened step and pulse astirAt sight of some one's fluttering gown,Who stood with sunbonnet pulled downAnd called the cows. Ah, in a glanceOne reads that simple, old romanceAt early candle-lighting.One picture more. A winter dayJust done, and supper cleared away.The romping children quiet grow,And in the reverent silence, slowThe old man turns the sacred page,Guide of his life and staff of age.And then, the while my eyes grow dim,The mother's voice begins a hymn:"Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayerThat calls me from a world of care!"What wonder from those cabins rudeCame lives of stalwart rectitude,When hearth-stones were the altars whereArose the vestal flame of prayerAt early candle-lighting.No crumbling castle walls are ours,No ruined battlements and towers.Our history, on callow wings,Soared not in time of feudal kings;No strolling minstrel's roundelayTells of past glory in decay,But rugged life of pioneerHas passed away among us here;And as the ivy tendrils growAbout the ancient turrets, soThe influence of its sturdy truthShall live in never-ending youth,When simple customs of its dayHave, long-forgotten, passed awayWith early candle-lighting.

Bob White

JUST now, beyond the turmoil and the dinOf crowded streets that city walls shut in,I heard the whistle of a quail begin:"Bob White! Bob White!"So faintly and far away fallingIt seemed that a dream voice was calling"Bob White! Bob White!"How the old sights and sounds come throngingAnd thrill me with a sudden longing!Through quiet country lanes the sunset shines.Fence corners where the wild rose climbs and twines,And blooms in tangled black-berry vines,"Bob White! Bob White!"I envy yon home-going swallow,Oh, but swiftly to rise and follow —Follow its flight,Follow it back with happy flying,Where green-clad hills are calmly lying.Wheat fields whose golden silences are stirredBy whirring insect wings, and naught is heardBut plaintive callings of that one sweet word,"Bob White! Bob White!"And a smell of the clover growingIn the meadow lands ripe for mowing,All red and white.Over the shady creek comes sailing,Past willows in the water trailing.Tired heart, 'tis but in dreams I turn my feet,Again to wander in the ripening wheatAnd hear the whistle of the quail repeat"Bob White! Bob White!"But oh! there is joy in the knowingThat somewhere green pastures are growing,Though out of sight.And the light on those church spires dying,On the old home meadow is lying.

Grandfather

HOW broad and deep was the fireplace old,And the great hearth-stone how wide!There was always room for the old man's chairBy the cosy chimney side,And all the children that cared to crowdAt his knee in the evening-tide.Room for all of the homeless onesWho had nowhere else to go;They might bask at ease in the grateful warmthAnd sun in the cheerful glow,For Grandfather's heart was as wide and warmAs the old fireplace, I know.And he always found at his well-spread boardJust room for another chair;There was always rest for another headOn the pillow of his care;There was always place for another nameIn his trustful morning prayer.Oh, crowded world with your jostling throngs!How narrow you grow, and small;How cold, like a shadow across the heart,Your selfishness seems to fall,When I think of that fireplace warm and wide,And the welcome awaiting all.

The Old Church

CLOSE to the road it stood among the trees,The old, bare church, with windows small and high,And open doors that gave, on meeting day,A welcome to the careless passer by.Its straight, uncushioned seats, how hard they seemed!What penance-doing form they always woreTo little heads that could not reach the text,And little feet that could not reach the floor.What wonder that we hailed with strong delightThe buzzing wasp, slow sailing down the aisle,Or, sunk in sin, beguiled the constant flyFrom weary heads, to make our neighbors smile.How softly from the churchyard came the breezeThat stirred the cedar boughs with scented wings,And gently fanned the sleeper's heated browOr fluttered Grandma Barlow's bonnet strings.With half-shut eyes, across the pulpit bent,The preacher droned in soothing tones aboutSome theme, that like the narrow windows high,Took in the sky, but left terrestrials out.Good, worthy man, his work on earth is done;His place is lost, the old church passed away;And with them, when they went, there must have goneThat sweet, bright calm, my childhood's Sabbath day.

An Old-Time Pedagogue

SLOWLY adown the village streetWith groping cane and faltering feet,He goes each day through cold or heat —Old Daddy Hight.His hair is scant upon his head,His eyes are dim, his nose is red,And yet, his mien is stern and dread —Old Daddy Hight.The village lads his form descryWhile yet afar, and boldly cry —(For bears are scarce and rods are high)"Old Daddy Hight!"But when their fathers meet his glance,They nod and smile and look askance.He taught them once the Modoc dance —Old Daddy Hight.How long we cling to servitude,How long we keep the schoolboy's mood!Still seems with awful power endued —Old Daddy Hight.They feel a cringing of the knee,Those fathers, yet, whene'er they seeAdown the walk pace solemnly —Old Daddy Hight.Wide is his fame, of how he taught,And how he flogged, and reckoned naughtThe toils and pains that knowledge bought —Old Daddy Hight.He had no lack of "ways and means"To track the loiterers on the greens;He scorned all counterfeits and screens —Old Daddy Hight.Oh, dire the day that brewed mishap!That brought to luckless back his strap,To hanging head his Dunce's cap —Old Daddy Hight.No blotted page dared meet his eye;The owner quaked and wished to die,When rod in hand, with wrath strode by —Old Daddy Hight.He helped them up the thorny steepOf wisdom's path with pain to creep,With vigilance that might not sleep —Old Daddy Hight.Now, down his life's long, slow decline,He walks alone at eighty-nine —The last of his illustrious line —Old Daddy Hight.

Her Title-Deeds

INSIDE the cottage door she sits,Just where the sunlight, softest there,Slants down on snowy kerchief's bands,On folded hands and silvered hair.The garden pale her world shuts in,A simple world made sweet with thyme,Where life, soft lulled by droning bees,Flows to the mill-stream's lapsing rhyme.Poor are her cottage walls, and bare;Too mean and small to harbor pride,Yet with a musing gaze she seesHer broad domains extending wide.Green slopes of hills, and waving fields,With blooming hedges set between,Through shifting veils of tender mist,Smile, half revealed, a mingled scene.All hers, for lovingly she holdsA yellow packet in her hand,Whose ancient, faded script proclaimsHer title to this spreading land.Old letters! On the trembling pageDrop unawares, unheeded tears.These are her title-deeds, her landsSpread through the realms of by-gone years.

INTERLUDES

Voices of the Old, Old Days

OH, voices of the old, old days,Speak once again to me,I walk alone the old, old waysAnd miss your melody.To-night I close my tired eyesAnd hear the rain drip slow,And dream a hand is on my browThat pressed it long ago.My thoughts stray through the lonely nightUntil I seem to seeHome faces, in the firelight,That always smiled on me.Those shadows dancing on the wallsAre not by embers cast,They are the forms my heart recallsFrom out the happy past.Forgotten is the gathering gloom,The night's deep loneliness,As round me in the silent roomWith noiseless tread they press.Though in the dark the rain sobs on,I heed its sound no more;For voices of the old, old daysAre calling as of yore.

Silent Keys

AS we would touch with soft caress the browOf one who dreams, the spell of sleep to break,Across the yellowed keys I sweep my hand,The old, remembered music to awake;But something drops from out those melodies —There are some silent keys.So is it when I call to those I loved,Who blessed my life with tender care and fond:So is it with those early dreams and hopes,Some voices answer and some notes respond,But in the chords that I would strike, like these,There are some silent keys.Heart, dost thou hear not in those pauses fallA still, small voice that speaks to thee of peace?What though some hopes may fail, some dreams be lost,Though sometimes happy music break and cease.We might miss part of heaven's minstrelsiesBut for these silent keys.

PART II

Retrospection

THE grandsire, in the chimney corner, takesThe almanac from its accustomed place,And while the kettle swings upon the crane,And firelight flickers on his wrinkled face,Reviews the slow procession of the months;And sees again upon the hills of greenThe gypsy Springtime pitch her airy tentAmong the blossoms. Then the silver sheenOf harvest moon shines down on rustling cornUntil the hazy air of Autumn thrillsWith sound of woodman's ax and hunter's horn,And darker shadows climb the russet hills.But while he ponders on the open page,The last sand in the hour-glass slips away.The end seems near of his long pilgrimage,And he would call the fleeting year to stay.But passing on, she goes – a sweet-faced nun —To take within the Convent of the PastThe veil of silence. Then the gates swing shut,And Time, the grim old warden, bolts them fast.No more can come again those halcyon daysThe Year took with it to its dim-lit cell;But often at the bars they stand and gaze,When through the heart rings memory's matin-bell.

Echoes From Erin

ACROSS old Purple Mountain I hear a bugle call,And down the rocks, like water, the echoes leap and fall.One note alone can startle the voices of the peaks,And waken songs of Erin, whene'er the bugle speaks.They call and call and call,Until the voices allRing down the dusky hollows and in the distance fall.Methinks, like Purple Mountain, the past will sometimes rise,And memory's call awaken its echoing replies.Within the tower of Shandon again the bells will sway,And follow, with their ringing, the Lee upon its way,And chime and chime and chime,Where ivy tendrils climb,Till bells and river mingle to sound the silvery rhyme.Again the daisied grasses beside the castle wallsWill stir with softest sighing, to hear the wind's footfalls;And through the moss-grown abbey, along Killarney's shore,The melodies of Erin will echo evermore,And roll and roll and roll,Till spirit hands shall tollThe music of the uplands unto the listening soul.Killarney, Ireland.

An Alpine Valley

OH, happy valley at the mountain's feet,If half your happiness you could but know!Though over you a shadow always falls,And far above you rise those heights of snow,So far, your yearning love you may not speakWith rosy flush like some high sister peak,Yet you may clasp its feet in fond embrace,And gaze up in its face.And sometimes down its slopes a wind will comeAnd bring a sudden, noiseless sweep of snow,Like a soft greeting from those summits sentTo comfort you below.What more? Love may not ask too great a boon.Enough to be so near, though cast so low.Think that a sea had rolled between you twainIf careless fortune had decreed it so,And you could only lie and look acrossTo distant cloudy heights and know your loss,And see some favored valley, fair and sweet,Heap flowers at its feet.Cham, Switzerland.

Through an Amber Pane

BY some strange alchemy that turns to goldThe light that drops from gray and leaden skies,Though heavy mists the outer world enfold,'Tis always sunshine where Napoleon lies.No more an exile by an alien sea,Forgetful of the banishment and bane;Now lies he there, in kingly dignity,His tomb a Mecca shrine beside the Seine.And there the pilgrim hears the story told,How Paris placed above her hero, dead,A window that should turn to yellow goldThe light that on his resting place is shed.So on him falls, though summers wane,The sunshine of that amber pane.By some strange miracle, maybe divine,The sunlight falls upon the buried pastAnd turns its water into sparkling wine,And gilds the coin its coffers have amassed.Could it have been those long-lost halcyon daysTrailed not a cloud across our April sky?Faltered we not along those untried ways?Grew we not weary as the days went by?Ah, yes! But unreturning feet forgetRough places trodden in the long ago,Rememb'ring only paths with flowers beset,While pressing onward, wearily and slow.For Memory's windows but retainThe sunshine of an amber pane.The little white, wind-blown anemoneBy one round dewdrop may be fully filled,And by some light-winged, passing honey-beeIts cup of crystal water may be spilled.So does the child heart hold its happiness:A drop will fill it to its rosy rim.It is not that these later days bring less,That joy so rarely rises to the brim;It is because the heart has deeper grown.A fuller knowledge must its thirst assuage.Perhaps we would not deem those pleasures flownAs bright as those which star the present age,Had not upon them long years lainThe sunshine of an amber pane.The dust of dim forgetfulness piles fastUpon the chains that thralled us yesterday.So will it be when this day, too, is past,And in its arms we've seen it bear awayThe cares that brooded in the tired brain;The work that weighted down the weary hand;The high hopes that we struggled to attain;The problems that we could not understand.Washed of its stain, bereft of any sting,Seen through the window of the Memory,Perchance, a gentler grace to it may clingThan we may now think possible to see.For skies will gleam, though gray with rain,Like sunshine through that amber pane.We may not stand on Patmos, and look throughThe star-hinged portals where the great pearls gleam.No brush that unveiled beauty ever drew,Save one, that caught its shadow in a dream.So lest we falter, faithless and afraid,The Merciful, remembering we are dust,Reveals not heaven for which our hearts have prayed,But by a token teaches us to trust;And day by day allows us to look throughThe window of the Memory, broad and vast,(Till jasper minarets rise into view)Upon the happy heaven of the past;And gives, till purer light we gain,The sunshine of that amber pane.

At a Tenement Window

SOMETIMES my needle stops with half-drawn thread(Not often though, each moment's waste means bread,And missing stitches leave the little mouths unfed).I look down on the dingy court below:A tuft of grass is all it has to show, —A broken pump, where thirsty children go.Above, there shines a bit of sky, so smallThat it might be a passing blue-bird's wing.One tree leans up against the high brick wall,And there the sparrows twitter of the spring,Until they waken in my heart a cryOf hunger, that no bread can satisfy.Always before, when Maytime took her wayAcross the fields, I followed close. To-dayI can but dream of all her bright array.My work drops down. Across the sill I lean,And long with bitter longing, for unseenRain-freshened paths, where budding woods grow green.The water trickles from the pump belowUpon the stones. With eyes half shut, I hearIt falling in a pool where rushes grow,And feel a cooling presence drawing near.And now the sparrows chirp again. No, hark! —A singing as of some far meadow lark.It is the same old miracle appliedUnto myself, that on the mountain-sideThe few small loaves and fishes multiplied.Behold, how strange and sweet the mystery!The birds, the broken pump, the gnarled tree,Have brought the fullness of the spring to me.For in the leaves that rustle by the wallAll forests find a tongue. And so that grassCan, with its struggling tuft of green, recallWide, bloom-filled meadows where the cattle pass.How it can be, but dimly I divine.These crumbs, God given, make the whole loaf mine.

A Song

"Home-keeping hearts are happiest." – Longfellow.

THERE will be distant journeyings enoughTo reach that Land beyond the ether's sea,To satisfy the veriest roaming heart, —Let me stay home with thee!There will be new companionships enoughIn that bright spirit-life. Why should we fleeSo soon to alien hearts and stranger scenes?I would stay home with thee.The heart grows homesick, thinking of the changeWhen these familiar things no more shall be;When e'en the thought of them, perchance, shall fade, —Let me stay home with thee.I would imprint upon my mind each scene,Each meadow path, and stream, and orchard-tree,Beloved since childhood, holy with our hopes,Sweet with the thoughts of thee.And each dear household place, let me learn allBy heart, where I am wont thy form to see.Who knows what things shall pass? If I may shareA hearth in heaven with thee?

Eclipse

GOD keep us from the sordid moodThat shrinks to self-infinitude,That sees no thing as good or grand,That answers not the hour's demand,And throws o'er Heaven's splendors furledThe shadow of our little world.

In the Dark

HERE in the dark I lie, and watch the starsThat through the soft gloom shine like tear-bright eyesBehind a mourner's veil. The darkness seemsAlmost a vapor, palpable and dense,In which my room's familiar outlines melt,And all seems one black pall that folds me round.Only a mirror glimmers through the dusk,And on the wall a dim, uncertain squareShows where a portrait hangs. Ah, even soBeloved faces fade into the pastAnd naught remains except a space of lightTo show us where they were.How still it seems!The busy clock, whose tell-tale talk was drownedBy Day's uproarious voices, calls aloud,Undaunted by the dark, the flight of time,And through the halls its tones ring drearily.The breeze on tiptoe seems to tread, as thoughIt were afraid to rouse the drowsy leaves.The long, dim street is quiet. Nothing breaksThe dream of Night, asleep on Nature's breast.Hark! Some one passes. On the pavement stonesEach stealthy step gives back a muffled sound,Till the last foot-fall seems in distance drowned.So Death might pass, bent on his mission dread,Adown the silent street, and none might knowWhat hour he passed or what he bore away.Ah, sadder thought! So Life goes, unawares,Noiseless and swift and resolutely on,While the dumb world lies folded in the gloom,Unconscious and uncaring in its sleep.And towards the west, the stars, all silentlyLike golden sands in God's great hour-glass, glideAnd fall into the nether crystal globe.

Felipa, Wife of Columbus

MORE than the compass to the mariner,Wast thou, Felipa, to his dauntless soul.Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nightsOf rayless gloom, thou pointed ever toThe North Star of his great ambition. HeWho once has lost an Eden, or has gainedA paradise by Eve's sweet influence,Alone can know how strong a spell lies inThe witchery of a woman's beckoning hand.And thou didst draw him, tide-like, higher still,Felipa, whispering the lessons learnedFrom thy courageous father, till the floodOf his ambition burst all barriersAnd swept him onward to his longed-for goal.Before the jewels of a Spanish queenBuilt fleets to waft him on his untried way,Thou gavest thy wealth of wifely sympathyTo build the lofty purpose of his soul.And now the centuries have cycled by,Till thou art all-forgotten by the throngThat lauds the great Pathfinder of the deep.It matters not in that infinitudeOf space, where thou dost guide thy spirit-barkTo undiscovered lands, supremely fair.If to this little planet thou couldst turnAnd voyage, wraithlike, to its cloud-hung rim,Thou wouldst not care for praise. And if, perchance,Some hand held out to thee a laurel bough,Thou wouldst not claim one leaf, but fondly turnTo lay thy tribute, also, at his feet.