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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Songs at the
Start
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
Title: Songs at the Start
Author: Louise Imogen Guiney
Release date: September 19, 2016 [eBook #53087]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Emmy, MWS and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file
was
produced from images generously made available by
The
Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS AT THE
START ***
Songs at the Start
BY
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY
“And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But by the instinct of sweet music driven.”
Shelley: Prometheus Unbound.
BOSTON
CUPPLES, UPHAM AND COMPANY
1884
Copyright,
By Louise Imogen Guiney,
1884.
C. J. PETERS AND SON,
STEREOTYPERS AND ELECTROTYPERS,
145 High Street.
ERRATA.
Page 10. Third line: read haunt for haunts.
Page 26. Tenth and eleventh lines: omit the word no.
[Transcriber’s Note:
These changes have
been made to the text.]
THIS
FIRST SLIGHT OUTCOME OF TASTES TRANSMITTED BY
MY FATHER,
Is Inscribed to His Friend and Mine,
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.
CONTENTS.
Page
Gloucester Harbor 9
Leonore 12
A Ballad of Metz 14
Private Theatricals 21
Divination by an Easter Lily 22
The Rival Singers 23
After the Storm 26
Hemlock River 28
On One Poet Refusing Homage to Another 29
Brother Bartholomew 33
Reserve 36
Patriot Chorus on the Eve of War 37
Lo and Lu 39
Her Voice 42
An Epitaph 44
The Falcon and the Lily 46
Boston, from the Bridge 48
The Red and Yellow Leaf 49
“Poete my Maister Chaucer” 51
Mount Auburn in May 52
Among the Flags 53
Child and Flower 54
Knight Falstaff 56
The Poet 57
A Criminal 59
Orient-Born 60
Charondas 62
Crazy Margaret 65
To the Winding Charles 69
My Neighbor 70
The Sea-Gull 73
Lily of the Valley 74
Lover Loquitur 76
Vitality 77
To the River 78
The Second Time they Met 79
On Not Reading a Posthumous Work 81
Bessy in the Storm 83
After a Duel 85
Indifference 87
The Pledging 88
At Gettysburg 90
Early Death 92
My Soprano 93
The Cross Roads 94
“Heart of Gold” 98
A Jacobite Revival 100
Spring 104
Adventurers 105
L’Etiquette 107
The Grave and the Rose 110
Songs at the Start.
GLOUCESTER HARBOR.
North from the beautiful islands,
North from the headlands and highlands,
The long sea-wall,
The white ships flee with the swallow;
The day-beams follow and follow,
Glitter and fall.
The brown ruddy children that fear not,
Lean over the quay, and they hear not
Warnings of lips;
For their hearts go a-sailing, a-sailing,
Out from the wharves and the wailing
After the ships.
Nothing to them is the golden
Curve of the sands, or the olden
Haunt of the town;
Little they reck of the peaceful
Chiming of bells, or the easeful
Sport on the down:
The orchards no longer are cherished;
The charm of the meadow has perished:
Dearer, ay me!
The solitude vast, unbefriended,
The magical voice and the splendid
Fierce will of the sea.
Beyond them, by ridges and narrows
The silver prows speed like the arrows
Sudden and fair;
Like the hoofs of Al Borak the wondrous,
Lost in the blue and the thund’rous
Depths of the air;
On to the central Atlantic,
Where passionate, hurrying, frantic
Elements meet;
To the play and the calm and commotion
Of the treacherous, glorious ocean,
Cruel and sweet.
In the hearts of the children forever
She fashions their growing endeavor,
The pitiless sea;
Their sires in her caverns she stayeth,
The spirits that love her she slayeth,
And laughs in her glee.
Woe, woe, for the old fascination!
The women make deep lamentation
In starts and in slips;
Here always is hope unavailing,
Here always the dreamers are sailing
After the ships!
LEONORE.
You scarce can mark her flying feet
Or bear her eyelids’ flash a space;
Her passing by is like the sweet
Blown odor of some tropic place;
She has a voice, a smile sincere,
The blitheness of the nascent year,
April’s growth and grace;
All youth, all force, all fire and stress
In her impassioned gentleness,
Half exhortation, half caress.
A thing of peace and of delight,—
A fountain sparkling in the sun,
Reflecting heavenly shapes by night,—
Her moods thro’ ordered beauty run.
Light be the storm that she must know,
And branches greener after snow
For hope to build upon;
Late may the tear of memory start,
And Love, who is her counterpart,
Be tender with that lily-heart!
A BALLAD OF METZ.
Léon went to the wars,
True soul without a stain;
First at the trumpet-call,
Thy son, Lorraine!
Never a mighty host
Thrilled so with one desire;
Never a past Crusade
Lit nobler fire.
And he, among the rest,
Smote foemen in the van,—
No braver blood than his
Since time began.
And mild and fond was he,
And sensitive as a leaf;—
Just Heaven! that he was this,
Is half my grief!
We followed where the last
Detachment led away,
At Metz, an evil-starred
And bitter day.
Some of us had been hurt
In the first hot assault,
Yet wills were slackened not,
Nor feet at fault.
We hurried on to the front;
Our banners were soiled and rent;
Grim riflemen, gallants all,
Our captain sent.
A Prussian lay by a tree
Ri id i d l
Rigid as ice, and pale,
And sheltered out of the reach
Of battle-hail.
His cheek was hollow and white,
Parched was his purpled lip;
Tho’ bullets had fastened on
Their leaden grip,
Tho’ ever he gasped and called,
Called faintly from the rear,
What of it? And all in scorn
I closed mine ear.
The very colors he wore,
They burnt and bruised my sight;
The greater his anguish, so
Was my delight.
We laughed a savage laugh,
Who loved our land too well,
Giving its enemies hate
Unspeakable:
But Léon, kind heart, poor heart,
Clutched me around the arm;
“He faints for water!” he said,
“It were no harm
To soothe a wounded man
Already on death’s rack.”
He seized his brimming gourd,
And hurried back.
The foeman grasped it quick
With wild eyes, ’neath whose lid
A coiled and viper-like look
Glittered and hid
Glittered and hid.
He raised his shattered frame
Up from the grassy ground,
And drank with the loud, mad haste
Of a thirsty hound.
Léon knelt by his side,
One hand beneath his head;
Not kinder the water than
The words he said.
He rose and left him so,
Stretched on the grassy plot,
The viper-like flame in his eyes
Alas! forgot.
Léon with easy gait
Strode on; he bared his hair,
Swinging his army cap,
Humming an air.
Just as he neared the troops,
Over there by the stream—
Good God! a sudden snap
And a lurid gleam.
I wrenched my bandaged arm
With the horror of the start:
Léon was low at my feet,
Shot thro’ the heart.
Do you think an angel told
Whose hands the deed had done?
To the Prussian we dashed back,
Mute, every one.
Do you think we stopped to curse,
o you t e stopped to cu se,
Or wailing feebly, stood?
Do you think we spared who shed
A friend’s sweet blood?
Ha! vengeance on the fiend:
We smote him as if hired;
I most of them, and more
When they had tired.
I saw the deep eye lose
Its dastard, steely blue:
I saw the trait’rous breast
Pierced thro’ and thro’.
His musket, smoking yet,
Unhanded, lay beside;
Three times three thousand deaths
That Prussian died.
And he, my brother, Léon,
Lies, too, upon the plain:
O teach no more Christ’s mercy,
Thy sons, Lorraine!
[This incident actually befell a private in a
Massachusetts volunteer regiment, belonging to the
Fifth Corps, at the battle of Malvern Hill.]
PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
You were a haughty beauty, Polly,
(That was in the play,)
I was the lover melancholy;
(That was in the play.)
And when your fan and you receded,
And all my passion lay unheeded,
If still with tenderer words I pleaded,
That was in the play!
I met my rival at the gateway,
(That was in the play,)
And so we fought a duel straightway;
(That was in the play.)
But when Jack hurt my arm unduly,
And you rushed over, softened newly,
And kissed me, Polly! truly, truly,
Was that in the play?
DIVINATION BY AN EASTER LILY.
Out of the Lenten gloom it springs,
Out of the wintry land,
White victor-flower with breath of myrrh,
Joy’s oracle and harbinger;
I take it in my hand,
I fold it to my lips, and know
That death is overpast,
That blessèd is thy glad release,
And thou with Christ art full of peace,
Dear heart in Heaven! at last.
THE RIVAL SINGERS.
Two marvellous singers of old had the city of Florence,—
She that is loadstar of pilgrims, Florence the beautiful,—
Who sang but thro’ bitterest envy their exquisite music,
Each for o’ercoming the other, as fierce as the seraphs
At the dread battle pre-mundane, together down-wrestling.
And once when the younger, surpassing the best at a festival,
Thrilled the impetuous people, O singing so rarely!
That up on their shoulders they raised him, and carried him
straightway
Over the threshold, ’mid ringing of belfries and shouting,
Till into his pale cheek mounted a color like morning
(For he was Saxon in blood) that made more resplendent
The gold of his hair for an aureole round and above him,
Seeing which, called his adorers aloud, thanking Heaven
That sent down an angel to sing for them, taking their homage;—
While this came to pass in the city, one marked it, and harbored
A purpose which followed endlessly on, like his shadow.
Therefore at night, as a vine that aye clambering stealthily
Slips by the stones to an opening, came the assassin,
And left the deep sleeper by moonlight, the Saxon hair dabbled
With red, and the brave voice smitten to death in his bosom.
Now this was the end of the hate and the striving and singing.
But the Italian thro’ Florence, his city familiar,
Fared happily ever, none knowing the crime and the passion,
Winning honor and guerdon in peaceful and prosperous decades,
Supreme over all, and rejoiced with the cheers and the clanging.
Carissima! what? and you wonder the world did not loathe him?
Child, he lived long, and was lauded, and died very famous.
AFTER THE STORM.
I.
Now that the wind is tamed and broken,
And day gleams over the lea,
Row, row, for the one you love
Was out on the raging sea:
Row, row, row,
Sturdy and brave o’er the treacherous wave,
Hope like a beacon before,
Row, sailor, row
Out to the sea from the shore!
II.
O, the oar that was once so merry,
O, but the mournful oar!
Row, row; God steady your arm
To the dark and desolate shore:
Row, row, row,
With your own love dead, and her wet gold head
Laid there at last on your knee,
Row, sailor, row,
Back to the shore from the sea!
HEMLOCK RIVER.
On that river, where their will is,
Grow the tranquil-hearted lilies;
In and out, with summer cadence,
Brown o’erbrimming waters slide;
Shade is there and mossy quiet,—
O but go thou never nigh it!
Ghosts of three unhappy maidens
Float upon its bosom wide.
ON ONE POET REFUSING HOMAGE
TO ANOTHER.
A name all read and many rue
Chanced on the idle talk of two;
I saw the listener doubt and falter
Till came the rash reproof anew.
Then on his breath arose a sigh,
And in the flashes of reply
I saw the great indignant shower
Surcharge the azure of his eye.
Said he: “’Neath our accord intense
At mutual shrines of soul and sense,
Flows, like a subterraneous river,
This last and only difference.
“Behold, I am with anguish torn
That you should name his name in scorn,
And use it as an April flower
Plucked from his grave and falsely worn:
“Thrice better his renown were not!
And he in silence lay forgot,
Than to exhale a strife unending
Should be his gentle memory’s lot.
“How can you, freedom in your reach,
Nurse your high thought on others’ speech,
And follow after brawling critics
Reiterating blame with each?
“The world’s ill judgments roll and roll
Nor touch that shy, evasive soul,
Whose every tangled hour of living
God draws to issues fair and whole.
“It grieves me less that, purely good,
Hi i d kl d t d
His aims are darkly understood,
Than that your spirit jars unkindly
Against its golden brotherhood.
“Et tu, Brute! Where he hath flown
On kindred wing you cross the zone,
And yet for hate, thro’ lack of knowing,
Austerely misconstrue your own.
“No closer wave and wave at sea
Than he and you for grace should be;
I would endure the chains of bondage
That you might share this truth with me!
“A leaf’s light strength should break the wind,
Ere my desire, your wilful mind;
If I should waste my lips in pleading,
Or drain my heart, you still were blind,
“Still warring on the citadels
Of Truth remotely, till her bells
Rouse me, your friend, to old defiance,—
Tho’ dear you be in all things else,—
“And tho’ my hope the day-star is
Of broadening eternities,
Wherein, the shadows cleared forever,
Your cordial hand shall rest in his.”
BROTHER BARTHOLOMEW.
Brother Bartholomew, working-time,
Would fall into musing and drop his tools;
Brother Bartholomew cared for rhyme
More than for theses of the schools;
And sighed, and took up his burden so,
Vowed to the Muses, for weal or woe.
At matins he sat, the book on his knees,
But his thoughts were wandering far away;
And chanted the evening litanies
Watching the roseate skies grow gray,
Watching the brightening starry host
Flame like the tongues at Pentecost.
“A foolish dreamer, and nothing more;
The idlest fellow a cell could hold;”
So murmured the worthy Isidor,
Prior of ancient Nithiswold;
Yet pitiful, with dispraise content,
Signed never the culprit’s banishment.
Meanwhile Bartholomew went his way
And patiently wrote in his sunny cell;
His pen fast travelled from day to day;
His books were covered, the walls as well.
“But O for the monk that I miss, instead
Of this listless rhymer!” the Prior said.
Bartholomew dying, as mortals must,
Not unbelov’d of the cowlèd throng,
Thereafter, they took from the dark and dust
Of shelves and of corners, many a song
That cried loud, loud to the farthest day,
How a bard had arisen,—and passed away.
Wonderful verses! fair and fine,
Rich in the old Greek loveliness;
The seer-like vision, half divine;
Pathos and merriment in excess.
And every perfect stanza told
Of love and of labor manifold.
The King came out and stood beside
Bartholomew’s taper-lighted bier,
And turning to his lords, he sighed:
“How worn and wearied doth he appear,—
Our noble poet,—now he is dead!”
“O tireless worker!” the Prior said.
RESERVE.
You that are dear, O you above the rest!
Forgive him his evasive moods and cold;
The absence that belied him oft of old,
The war upon sad speech, the desperate jest,
And pity’s wildest gush but half-confessed,
Forgive him! Let your gentle memories hold
Some written word once tender and once bold,
Or service done shamefacedly at best,
Whereby to judge him. All his days he spent,
Like one who with an angel wrestled well,
O’ermastering Love with show of light disdain;
And whatsoe’er your spirits underwent,
He, wounded for you, worked no miracle
To make his heart’s allegiance wholly plain.
PATRIOT CHORUS ON THE EVE OF
WAR.
In thy holy need, our country,
Shatter other idols straightway;
Quench our household fires before us,
Reap the pomp of harvests low;
Strike aside each glad ambition
Born of youth and golden leisure,
Leave us only to remember
Faith we swore thee long ago!
All the passionate sweep of heart-strings,
Thirst and famine, din of battle,
All the wild despair and sorrow
That were ever or shall be,
Are too little, are too worthless,
Laid along thine upward pathway
As with our souls’ strength we lay them,
Stepping-stones, O Love! for thee.
If we be thy burden-bearers,
Let us ease thee of thy sorrow;
If our hands be thine avengers,
Life or death, they shall not fail;
If thy heart be just and tender,
Wrong us not with hesitation:
Take us, trust us, lead us, love us,
Till the eternal Truth prevail!
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