Archives: Poems

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Her life is a luminous banner borne ever ahead of her era, in

      lead of the forces of freedom,

            Where wrongs for justice call.

High-hearted, far-sighted, she pressed with noble intrepid impatience,

      one race and the half of another

            To liberate from thrall.

If now in its freedom her spirit mingle with ours and find us

      toiling at dusk to finish

            The task of her long day,

On ground hard held to the last, gaining her goal for women,

      if for her word we hearken,

            May we not hear her say:

“Comrades and daughters exultant, let my goal for you be a mile-

      stone. Too late have you won it to linger.

            Victory flies ahead.

Though women march millions abreast on a widening way to free-

      dom, trails there are still for women

            Fearless to break and tread.

“Keep watch on power as it passes, on liberty’s torch as it

      travels, lest woman be left with a symbol,

            No flame in her lamp alive.

In the mine, the mill and the mart where is bartered the bread of

      your children, is forged the power you strove for,

            For which you still must strive.”

Her spirit like southern starlight at once is afar and around us;

      her message an inward singing

            Through all our life to run:

“Forward together, my daughters, till born of your faith with

      each other and of brotherhood all the world over,

            For all is freedom won.”

Reign did silence o’er the stage
       As night passed on
And destiny fraught with laurels sat,
       Sweet laurels never won,
Till was read aloud her name
       And forth the sweet voiced singer came.
While grim old night worn out with age,
       Listening to the vibrating stage,
Wept because he must pass on.

       But hark! they do applaud her so:
She bows, she smiles and then looks round,
       She opens her lips and lo!
Bursts forth a trembling sea of sound:
       A sea voluptuous in its swell.
The waves rose high and then they fell;
       While beat the etherial shores, the tide,
And ebbing then the waves subside
       To music’s gentler flow.

O’er the vast and blue expanse
       Leaped the merry music on:
Around the universe, the flow
       Of that angelic tone;
Till heaven’s shores, the tidelets lashed
       And wavelets o’er the portals dashed.
The billowy waves break forth the sounds
       Reach the great white throne and rebound
Echoing the song of home.

Your head is wild with books, Sybil,

     But your heart is good and kind—

I feel a new contentment near you,

     A pleasure of the mind.

Glad should I be to sit beside you,

     And let long hours glide by,

Reading, through all your sweet narrations,

     The language of your eye.

Since the maternal saint I worshipped

     Did look and love her last,

No woman o’er my wayward spirit

     Such gentle spell has cast.

Oh! tell me of your varied fortunes,

     For you know not, from your face

Looks out strange sadness, lit with rapture,

     And melancholy grace.

You are a gem, whose native brilliance

     Could never wholly reign,

An opal, whose prismatic fire

     A white cloud doth restrain.

And thus, the mood to which you move me

     Is never perfect, quite,

‘Tis pity, wonderment, and pleasure,

     Opacity and light.

Bear me then in your presence, Sybil,

     And leave your hand in mine,

For, though human be my nature,

     You’ve made it half divine. 

Not less because in purple I descended
The western day through what you called
The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?
What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,
And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.
I was myself the compass of that sea:

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.

Over the river, and through the wood,
  To grandfather’s house we go;
       The horse knows the way
       To carry the sleigh
  Through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood—
  Oh, how the wind does blow!
       It stings the toes
       And bites the nose
  As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
  To have a first-rate play.
       Hear the bells ring
       “Ting-a-ling-ding”,
  Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood
  Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
       Spring over the ground,
       Like a hunting-hound!
  For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood,
  And straight through the barn-yard gate.
       We seem to go
       Extremely slow,—
  It is so hard to wait!

Over the river and through the wood—
  Now grandmother’s cap I spy!
       Hurrah for the fun!
       Is the pudding done?
  Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
   Our harvesting is gladly o’er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
   Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
   We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
   We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
   The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
   Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of our hath brought us grace;
   When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
   But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
   Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
   From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
   Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
   Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
   To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
   Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
   Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
   We could not thank thee for them all.

Prisoners are we,

American citizens imprisoned

For daring in the name of Democracy

To protest against the continued denial

Of the right of self-government

To twenty millions of the American people.

We lie in a dungeon

Long ago abandoned and condemned,

Just as politically we are held

Imprisoned in a subjection

Abandoned and condemned

By every other nation of English speech and spirit.

Painfully raising my head,

I look down the long row

Of gray-blanketed heaps.

Under every heap a woman,

Weak, sick, but determined,

Twenty gray fortresses of determination.

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Not to dance with her
Was such a trivial thing

There were girls more fair than she,––

To-day
Ten girls dressed in white.
Each had a white rose wreath.

They made a dead man’s arch
And ten strong men
Carried a body through.

Not to dance with her
Was a trivial thing.