THE BALLAD OF ORISKANY

SHE leaned her cheek upon her hand,
And looked across the glooming land;
She saw the wood from farm to farm
Touched by the twilight's ghostly charm;
And heard the owl's cry sound forlorn
Across the fields of waving corn,
And sighed with sad voice dreamily:
Oriskany! Oriskany!

The moonlight through the open door
Laid its broad square upon the floor;
A beetle plunging through the gloom
Hummed fitfully within the room;
Across the casement's opening
Night creatures sped on purring wing,
And still she murmured musically

The fatal name, Oriskany.

She raised her face to the dim night skies,
A dream of peace was in her eyes;
Like memory speaking from the dead
Her voice seemed, as she spoke and said:
""T is two years past this very morn
That he came riding through the corn,
With his gay comrades gallantly,
To wed me in Oriskany.

"At eve the rooms were all alight,
The bride and bridesmaids clad in white,
As we stood side by side apart,
I trembling, but how blest at heart!
The lights, the flowers, the sparkling eyes,
Were sweet to me as paradise;
The vows like music were to me,

That bound us in Oriskany.

"All day within the homestead dim
I think of him, I dream of him;
My tasks of hands and feet and soul
Lead true to him as to their goal;
In woman's heart God wrote it thus:
That men should be as gods to us.
I feel the pangs, the weakness see,
Yet worship in Oriskany.

"I cannot think of him as dead

Upon our one-year's bridal bed,
Oriskany, Oriskany!

Nor dream of him within the tomb,
Amid the willowed churchyard's gloom,
Oriskany, Oriskany!

Crossing a pasture slope that sunward lay, I suddenly surprised beneath a tree A girlish creature who at sight of me Sprang up all wild with daintiest dismay. "Stay, pretty one!" I cried,—“who art thou, pray?"

Mid tears and freaks of pettish misery, And sighing, "I am April," answered she; "I rear the field flowers for my sister May."

Then with an arch laugh sidewise, clear and strong,

Turned blithely up the valley with a song.

And fifty years suffice to overgrow With gentle memories the foul weeds of hate

That shamed his grave. The world begins to know

Her loss, and view with other eyes his fate.

Even as the cunning workman brings to pass The sculptor's thought from out the unwieldy mass

Of shapeless marble, so Time lops away The stony crust of falsehood that concealed

His just proportions, and, at last revealed, The statue issues to the light of day,

Most beautiful, most human. Let them fling

The first stone who are tempted even as he,

And have not swerved.

rare soul sing

When did that

The victim's shame, the tyrant's eulogy, The great belittle, or exalt the small, Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall The slaves of tyranny or ignorance? Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fame

Hath he reviled?

name

Upon what noble

Did the winged arrows of that barbed wit glance ?

The years' thick, clinging curtains backward pull,

And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams,

"Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful

As he hath been or might be ; Sorrow seems Half of his immortality." He needs

No monument whose name and song and deeds

Are graven in all foreign hearts; but she, His mother, England, slow and last to wake,

Needs raise the votive shaft for her fame's sake:

Hers is the shame if such forgotten be!

VENUS OF THE LOUVRE

Down the long hall she glistens like a star, The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,

The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.1

From Mizpeh's mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law
With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.

Then from the stony peak there rang

A blast to ope the graves: down poured The Maccabean clan, who sang

Their battle-anthem to the Lord. Five heroes lead, and, following, see Ten thousand rush to victory!

Oh for Jerusalem's trumpet now,

To blow a blast of shattering power, To wake the sleepers high and low,

And rouse them to the urgent hour! No hand for vengeance - but to save, A million naked swords should wave.

Oh deem not dead that martial fire,

Say not the mystic flame is spent! With Moses' law and David's lyre, Your ancient strength remains unbent. Let but an Ezra rise anew, To lift the Banner of the Jew!

A rag, a mock at first — erelong,

When men have bled and women wept, To guard its precious folds from wrong, Even they who shrunk, even they who slept, Shall leap to bless it, and to save. Strike for the brave revere the brave!

THE CROWING OF THE RED
COCK

ACROSS the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn;
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,

Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.
A million burning roof-trees light
The world-wide path of Israel's flight.

Where is the Hebrew's fatherland?

The folk of Christ is sore bestead; The Son of Man is bruised and banned, Nor finds whereon to lay his head. His cup is gall, his meat is tears, His passion lasts a thousand years.

MY LETTER

FROM far away, from far away,
It journeyed swiftly night and day,
It rested not. With cruel haste

It crossed the ocean's trackless waste.
It swerved no moment in its flight
Through mist and storm and deepest night.
No mercy prompted it to stay,
No pity moved it to delay.
O'er seas that rose up to detain,
Silent as Death it sped amain.
Through cities crowding close and strong,
Undazed, untired, it fled along.
No voice cried out through all the land,
Great Heaven saw, yet stirred no hand.
No angel, kinder than the rest,
Held his white shield before my breast.
Across the land, across the sea,
Straight, swift, and sure, it came to me!
Unlet, unhindered, undeterred,

Straight, swift, and sure, it brought me word !

TO A HURT CHILD

WHAT, are you hurt, Sweet? So am I;
Cut to the heart;

Though I may neither moan nor cry,
To ease the smart.

Where was it, Love? Just here! So wide

Upon your cheek!

Oh happy pain that needs no pride,
And may dare speak.

Lay here your pretty head. One touch
Will heal its worst,

THE ANDALUSIAN SERENO

WITH Oaken staff and swinging lantern bright,

He strolls at midnight when the world is still

Through dismal lanes and plazas plumed with light,

Guarding the drowsy thousands in Seville.

Gazing upon his ever star-thronged sky,

With careless step he wanders to and fro;