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POEMS

BY

JOHN L. STODDARD

1913




CONJUGI CARISSIMAE


PROEM

They called him mad,--the poor, old man,
Whose white hair, worn and thin,
Fell o'er his shoulders, as he played
His cherished violin,
Forever drawing to and fro
O'er silent strings a loosened bow.

At times on his pathetic face
A look of perfect rapture shone,
Intent on some celestial chords,
Discerned by him alone;
And sometimes he would smile and pause,
As if receiving loud applause.

So, many a humble poet dreams
His songs will touch the human heart,
And full of hope his offering lays
Before the shrine of Art;
Poor dreamer, may he never know
That he too draws a silent bow!




CONTENTS


PROEM
MY PROMENADE SOLITAIRE
REINCARNATION
TO THE "RING NEBULA"
THE WAIF
THE SILVER HERONS
TO THE SPHINX
YOUTH AND AGE
SUNSET AT INTERLAKEN
UNDER THE STARS
CORSICA
TO THE VENUS OF MELOS
MORS LEONIS
A STORY OF THE SEA
OLD HYMN TUNES
BEFORE A STATUE OF BUDDHA
THE PILLARS OF HERCULES
FRIENDSHIP
TO MY DEAD DOG
TO-DAY
TO THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI
THE DEATH OF ANTONINUS PIUS
THE BUTTERFLY
AFTER THE STORM
FALLEN
"AEQUANIMITAS"
DREAMLAND
ROME REVISITED
ON THE PALATINE
THE FAREWELL AT FONTAINEBLEAU
JAPAN--OLD AND NEW
THE UNFORGOTTEN HEROES
A WINTER'S DAY
ON THE PROMENADE
SOLITUDE
OUT OF THE RANKS
AUTONOMY
ORIENT TO OCCIDENT
THE CAPTIVE
WEARINESS
A MAY MONODY
MY LOST FRIENDS
TO SLEEP AND TO FORGET
IN SILENCE
AT THE VILLA OF FREDERICK III
IN A COLUMBARIUM
DISCOURAGEMENT
MESALLIANCE
IN A MODERN CITY
MY BORES
GRATITUDE
IN TENEBRIS
TWO MOTHERS
AT HOCHFINSTERMUeNZ
THE GIFT OF JUNO
THE AWAKENING
THE WINE OF LIFE
LIFE'S TRILOGY
MYSTERIES
STAR DRIFT


TYROLEAN

OBERMAIS
CONTENTMENT
TO MERAN'S NORTHERN MOUNTAINS
AT SUNSET
POST NUBES LUX
THE HOME-COMING FROM ROME
MY GARDEN
THE MOUNTAINS OF MERAN
OSWALD, THE MINNESINGER
AFTER THE VINTAGE
THE PASSING MOON
AUTUMN IN MERAN
THE STATUE OF THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH
THE OUTCASTS
HEIMWEIL
MY LIBRARY
TOUT PASSE


BESIDE LAKE COMO

THE FAUN
ISOLA COMACINA
THE OLD CARRIER
EVENING ON LAKE COMO
DELIO PATRI
ACQUA FREDDA
THE POSTERN GATE
UNDINE
JANUARY IN THE TREMEZZINA
THE WANDERER
SECLUSION
ONE MORE
UNDER THE PLANE TREE
"CONJUGI CARISSIMAE"
THE PAGAN PAST
RETIREMENT
IN NOVEMBER
THE CALL OF THE BLOOD
THE CASCADE
BIRD SLAUGHTER
THE IRON CROWN
CONTRASTS
IN MY PERGOLA
EVANESCENCE
LAKE COMO IN AUTUMN
TO THE PORTRAIT OF NAPOLEON
DAY AND NIGHT
PASSING AND PERMANENT
TRIPOLI
INFLUENCE
LEO
FAREWELL TO THE FAUN
WAKEFULNESS
VILLA PLINIANA
POINT BALBIANELLO
AT LENNO


PERSONALLY ADDRESSED

LINES WRITTEN FOR A GOLDEN WEDDING
TO THE WALKING-STICK OF MY DEAD FRIEND
TO C.
TO MR. AND MRS. A.H.S.
To M.C. OF ATHENS
TO J.B.
TO M.P.
TO MISS MARY C. LOW
IN MEMORIAM. G.M.M.
TO HON. CHARLES M. DICKINSON
TO J.C.Y.
TO HON. JESSE HOLDOM


TRANSLATIONS

THE KISS TO THE FLAG
EMILY'S GRAVE
SERENADE TO NINON
THE RED TYROLEAN EAGLE
ANDREAS HOFER
STREAM AND SEA

* * * * *

RACHEL




MY "PROMENADE SOLITAIRE"

Up and down in my garden fair,
Under the trellis where grapes will bloom,
With the breath of violets in the air,
As pallid Winter for Spring makes room,
I walk and ponder, free from care,
In my beautiful Promenade Solitaire.

Back and forth in the checkered shade
Traced by the lattice that holds the vine,
With the glory of snow-capped crests displayed
On the sapphire sky in a billowy line,
I stroll, and ask what can compare
With the charm of my Promenade Solitaire.

To and fro 'neath the nascent green
Which clambers over its slender frame,
With white peaks lighting up the scene,
As snowfields glow with the sunset flame,
I saunter, halting here and there
For the view from my Promenade Solitaire.

In and out through the silence sweet,
Plash of fountain and song of bird
Are the only sounds in my lov'd retreat
By which the air is ever stirred;
It is like a long-drawn aisle of prayer,
So hushed is my Promenade Solitaire.

Onward rushes the world without,
But the breeze which over my garden steals
Brings from it merely a distant shout
Or the echo light of passing wheels;
In its din and drive I have now no share,
As I muse in my Promenade Solitaire.

Am I dead to the world, that I thus disdain
Its moil and toil in the prime of life,
When perhaps a score of years remain
To win more gold in its selfish strife?
Am I foolish to choose the purer air
Of my glorious Promenade Solitaire?

Ah no! From my mountain-girdled height
I watch the game of the world go on,
And note the course of the bitter fight,
And what is lost and what is won;
And I judge of it better here than there,
As I gaze from my Promenade Solitaire.

It is ever the same old tale of greed,
Of robbing and killing the weaker race,
Of the word proved false by the cruel deed,
Of the slanderous tongue with the friendly face;
'Tis enough to make one's heart despair
Even here in my Promenade Solitaire.

They cheer, and struggle, and beat the air
With many a stroke and thrust intense,
And urge each other to do and dare,
To gain some good they deem immense;
But they look like ants contending there
From the height of my Promenade Solitaire.

Backward and forward they run and crawl,
Houses and treasures they heap up high,
Hither and thither their booty haul, ...
Then suddenly drop in their tracks and die!
For few are wise enough to repair
In time to a Promenade Solitaire.

Meantime the Earth speeds on through space,
As the sun for a million years hath steered,
And, an eon hence, the entire race
Will have played its part and disappeared;
But what will the lifeless planet care,
As it follows its Promenade Solitaire?




REINCARNATION

I know not how, I know not where,
But from my own heart's mystic lore
I feel that I have breathed this air,
And walked this earth before;

And that in this, its latest form
My old-time spirit once more strives,
As it has fought through many a storm
In past, forgotten lives.

Not inexperienced did my soul
This incarnation's threshold tread;
Not recordless has proved the scroll
It brought back from the dead.

To certain, special lines of thought
My mind intuitively tends,
And old affinities have brought
Not new, but ancient friends.

What thrilled me in a previous state
Rekindles here its ancient flame;
What I by instinct love and hate
I knew before I came;

And lands, of which in youth I dreamed
And read, heart-moved, and longed to see,
When really visited, have seemed
Not strange but known to me.

When Mozart, still a child, untaught,
Ran joyous to the silent keys,
And with inspired fingers wrought
Majestic harmonies,

There fell upon his psychic ear
Faint echoes of a music known
Before his natal advent here,
In former lives outgrown.

In many a dumb brute's wistful eyes
A dawning human soul aspires,
For thus from lower forms we rise,--
Ourselves our spirits' sires.

Full many a thought that thrills my breast
Is fruit resulting from a seed
Sown elsewhere,--on my soul impressed
By many an arduous deed;

Full many a fetter which hath lamed
My struggling spirit's upward flight
Was once by that same spirit framed,
When further from the Light;

With justice, therefore, comes the pain
That o'er the tortured world extends;
And hopeful is the lessening stain,
As each life-cycle ends.

No changeless, endless states await
The good and evil souls set free;
Each grave is a successive gate
In immortality.

Too long this mighty truth hath slept
Among the darkened souls of men,--
"Ye cannot see God's face, except
Ye shall be born again."

The God-like Christs and Buddhas yearn,
However high their spirits' stage,
For man's salvation to return,
As Saviour or as Sage.

On our benighted, groping minds
Their noble precepts, star-like, shine;
Each soul, that wisely seeks them, finds
The truths that are divine.

Misunderstood and vilified,
Their aims and motives scarcely known,
How many of these Saints have died,
Rejected by their own!

Yet, though their followers miss the way,
In spite of precept and of prayer,
And lead unnumbered souls astray,
Committed to their care,

Upon the lofty spirit-plane,
Where all lies open to their sight,
The Masters know that not in vain
They left the Hills of Light.




TO THE "RING NEBULA"

O pallid spectre of the midnight skies,
Whose phantom features in the dome of Night
Elude the keenest gaze of wistful eyes,
Till amplest lenses aid the failing sight;
On heaven's blue sea the farthest isle of fire,
From thee, whose glories it would fain admire,
Must vision, baffled, in despair retire!

What art thou, ghostly visitant of flame?
Wouldst thou 'neath closer scrutiny resolve
In myriad suns that constellations frame,
Around which life-blest satellites revolve,
Like those unnumbered orbs which nightly creep
In dim procession o'er the azure steep,
As white-winged caravans the desert sweep?

Or art thou still an incandescent mass,
Acquiring form as hostile forces urge,
Through whose vast length continuous lightnings pass,
As to and fro its fiery billows surge?
Whose glowing atoms, whirled in ceaseless strife,
Where now chaotic anarchy is rife,
Shall yet become the fair abodes of life?

We know not; for the faint, exhausted rays
Which hither on Light's winged coursers come
From fires which ages since first lit their blaze,
One instant gleam, then perish, spent and dumb;
How sad the thought that, howsoe'er we yearn
Of life on yonder glittering orbs to learn,
We read no message, and could none return!

Yet this we know:--yon ring of spectral light,
Whose distance thrills the soul with solemn awe,
Can ne'er escape in its majestic might
The firm control of omnipresent law;
This mote descending to its bounden place,
Those suns whose radiance we can scarcely trace,
Alike obey the Power pervading space.




THE WAIF

I sit in my luxurious chair;
Soft rugs caress my slippered feet;
Within, a balmy, summer air;
Without, a wintry storm of sleet.

A favorite book is in my hands,
A thousand others line the walls;
Some souvenir of distant lands
In every nook the Past recalls.

Upon a Turkish tabouret
In Dresden cups of peerless blue
Gleams on a pretty Cashmere tray
The fragrant Mocha's ebon hue.

Two dainty hands prepare the draught,
While loving glances meet my own;
Two lips repeat (the coffee quaffed),
"To-night 'tis sweet to be alone."

Hark! in the court my faithful hound
Breaks rudely on our tete-a-tete;
Too well I understand that sound!
A mendicant is at my gate.

Admit him? Yes; for none shall say
That he who seeks in want my door
Is ever harshly turned away;
His plea is heard, if nothing more.

I leave my comforts with a sigh,
And, passing to the outer hall,
Behold a wanderer doomed to die,--
So ill, I look to see him fall.

I know his story ere he speaks;
And listening to his labored breath,
I trace, with tears upon my cheeks,
His long and hopeless fight with death.

A poor, storm-beaten, lonely waif,
Lured southward from a colder clime
By hope and that unfailing faith
That health will come again in time!

Alas! too late; the dread disease
Hath fixed its roots too firmly there;
And now sick, friendless, at my knees,
He pours forth his heart-breaking prayer.

What are his needs? Before all, food!
Hot soup, bread, wine, until at last
A sense of human brotherhood
Obliterates his cruel past;

Yet not for long; for though well-fed,
With warmer garments than before,
He hath no place to lay his head,
On turning from my friendly door.

I slip some silver in his hand,
('Twill purchase shelter for the night,)
Then, silent and remorseful, stand
To watch his bent form out of sight.

On, on he goes through snow and sleet,
With nothing more of warmth and cheer!
From such a home to such a street!
Ah, should I not have kept him here?

My room is no less bright and warm,
But all its charm and joy have fled;
That lonely figure in the storm
Leaves both our hearts uncomforted.

For this is but one tiny wave
In life's vast, shoreless sea of woe,--
One note in man's hoarse cry to save,
Resounding o'er its ebb and flow;

I ask myself in blank dismay,--
Ought I my little wealth to own?
Yet, should I give it all away,
'Twere but a drop to ocean thrown!

Great God! if what I dimly see,
In this small section of mankind,
Of pain and want and misery,
Can thus bring anguish to my mind,

How canst _Thou_ view the awful _whole_,
As our ensanguined planet rolls
From unknown source to unknown goal
Its freight of suffering human souls?

Permitted pain!--the first and last
Of riddles that we strive to solve,
More poignant ever, and more vast,
As man's mentalities evolve,

I hear thy victims' ceaseless wails,
I view the path my race hath trod,
And at the sight my spirit quails,
And cries in agony to God!




THE SILVER HERONS

Within a home for captive beasts
Whose world had dwindled to a cage,
I noted in their mournful eyes
Such resignation, fear, and rage,
I longed at once to set them free,
And send them over land and sea
To live again in liberty.

For them no more the mountain range,
The desert vast, the jungle's lair!
Their meaner fate through grated bars
To feel the public's hateful stare;
Poor prisoners! doomed henceforth to pace
With stinted strides a narrow space,
And, daily, gaping crowds to face.

At length I stood before a cage,
Where, guarded by a loftier screen,
Were artificial rocks, and pools,
And strips of vegetation green;
There, perched upon some rocky mound,
Or crouching on the miry ground,
A flock of waterfowl I found.

Storks, poised upon a single leg,
Stood dreaming of the eternal Nile,--
The Mecca of their winter flight,
When lured by Egypt's sunny smile;
While ducks and geese, in gabbling mood,
Explored the muddy pond for food,
Attended by their noisy brood.

Their keeper brought their evening meal;
And instantly on broad-webbed feet,
And stilt-like legs, and flapping wings,
The feathered bipeds rushed to greet,
With snaps and cluckings of delight,
The joyful, ever-welcome sight
Of supper at the approach of night.

Yet all came not! Two stood apart,
With plumage like fresh-fallen snow,--
Two "Silver Herons," of a race
As pure and fine as earth can show;
Amid the tumult that was rife,
These loathed the others' greedy strife,
And looked disgusted with their life.

With closed eyes, shrinking from the mass,
They seemed, in thought, removed as far
From all their coarse environment
As sun is separate from star!
The very picture of disdain,
From all such gorging, it was plain,
They had determined to refrain.

The keeper murmured with reproach,--
"Those Silver Herons are too proud!
Why should they not partake of food
Together with the common crowd?
They eat a little from my hand,
But would prefer to starve, than stand
Besmeared by that uncleanly band.

"A month hence, neither will be here;
For both will grieve themselves to death;
And when one falls, its mate expires
With scarcely an additional breath;
And, should there come another pair,
In their turn they the fate will share
Of those two herons standing there."

Poor hapless birds! I see them yet,
Alone and starving in their pride,--
Their glittering plumage still intact,
While standing bravely side by side;
And, although put to hunger's test,
Continuing mutely to protest
Against defilement with the rest.

O Silver Herons, teach mankind
To cherish thus a stainless name!
To shun the vile, ignoble crowd,
Preferring death to smirch and shame!
A foul, unfriendly mob to brave,
And go, unspotted, to the grave,
Is not to _lose_ one's life, but _save_.




TO THE SPHINX

O sleepless Sphinx!
Thy sadly patient eyes,
Forever gazing o'er the shifting sands,
Have watched Earth's countless dynasties arise,
Stalk forth like spectres waving gory hands,
Then fade away with scarce a lasting trace
To mark the secret of their dwelling place:
O sleepless Sphinx!

O changeless Sphinx!
The very dawn of Time
Beheld thee sculptured from the living rock!
Still wears thy face its primal look sublime,
Surviving all the hoary ages' shock:
Still royal art thou in thy proud repose,
As when the sun on tuneful Memnon rose,
O changeless Sphinx!

O voiceless Sphinx!
Thy solemn lips are dumb;
Time's awful secrets lie within thy breast;
Age follows age; revering pilgrims come
From every clime to urge the same request,--
That thou wilt speak! Poor creatures of a day,
In calm disdain thou seest them die away:
O voiceless Sphinx!

Majestic Sphinx!
Thou crouchest by a sea
Whose fawn-hued wavelets clasp thy buried feet:
Whose desert-surface, petrified like thee,
Gleams white with sails of many an Arab fleet:
Whose tawny billows, surging with the storm,
Break on thy flanks, and overleap thy form;
Majestic Sphinx!

Eternal Sphinx!
The Pyramids are thine;
Their giant summits guard thee night and day,
On thee they look when stars in splendor shine,
Or while around their crests the sunbeams play:
Thine own coevals, who with thee remain
Colossal Genii of the boundless plain!
Eternal Sphinx!




YOUTH AND AGE

"I will gain a fortune," the young man cried;
"For Gold by the world is deified;
Hence, whether the means be foul or fair,
I will make myself a millionaire,
My single talent shall grow to ten!"
But an old man smiled, and asked "And then?"

"A peerless beauty," the young man said,
"Shall be the woman I choose to wed.
And men shall envy me my prize,
And women scan her with jealous eyes;"
And he looked annoyed, when once again
The old man smiled, and asked "And then?"

"I will build," he answered, "a home so fine,
That kings in their castles shall covet mine;
The rarest pictures shall clothe its walls,
And statues stand in its stately halls;
It shall lack no luxury known to men;"
But still the old man asked "And then?"

"I will play a role in Church or State
That all mankind shall acknowledge great;
I will win at last such brilliant fame,
That distant lands shall know my name,
For I can wield both sword and pen;"
But again the old man asked "And then?"

"Is your heart a stone," the young man cried,
"Hath all ambition within you died,
That nothing seems to you worth while?
What mean you by that sphinx-like smile?
Of what are you secretly thinking, when
You utter those mournful words,--'And then?'"

Gently the old man said "O youth,
The words I have spoken veil a truth
Learned only through the lapse of years,
And first discerned through a mist of tears;
For youth is full of illusions fair
Which manhood sees dissolve in air.

"Your millions will not make you blest,
They will rob you, instead, of peace and rest:
Your beautiful wife may be the prey
Of a treacherous friend or a skilled roue;
And the splendid palace that you crave
Will make you Society's gilded slave.

"'Tis a weary road to political fame;
Its price you must often pay in shame;
And the world-known name for which you yearn
On a bulletin board or a funeral urn,
Is scarcely worth the toil and strife
Which poison the peaceful joys of life.

"For be you ever so wise and good,
By some you will be misunderstood,
And fame will bring you envious foes
To spoil for you many a night's repose;
And alas! as your pathway upward tends,
You will find self-interest in your friends!

"The loudest shout of the mob's applause
Will die out after a moment's pause;
And what is the greatest public praise
To one whose form in the earth decays?
The cruel world will always laugh
At the fulsome lie of an epitaph.

"But Spring recks not of Winter's snow,
And you will not believe, I know,
That all those boons that tempt your powers,
If gained, will be like fragile flowers,
Whose freshness wilts in the fevered hand,
Like roses dropped on the desert sand.

"And much of the work you deem sublime
Is like the grain of pink-hued lime
Which once was a coral insect's shell,
But now is a microscopic cell,
Entombed with countless billions more
In a lonely reef on an unknown shore!"

"Alas!" said the youth,--and his eyes were wet,--
"Is old age merely a vain regret,
The retrospect of wasted years,
Of false ideals and lost careers?
Advise me! What must I reject,
And what for my permanent good select?"

"Belovd youth," the old man said,
"All is not vain, be comforted!
Seek not thine own, but others' joy;
Ring true, like gold without alloy;
Waste not thy time in asking Why,
Or Whence, or Whither when we die;

"The actual world, the present hours
Will give enough to tax thy powers;
At no clear duty hesitate;
Serve well thy neighbor and the State;
So shalt thou add thy tiny form
To bind the reef that breasts the storm!"




SUNSET AT INTERLAKEN

The sun is low;
Yon peak of snow
Is reddening 'neath the sunset glow;
The rosy light
Makes richly bright
The Jungfrau's veil of snowy white.

From vales that sleep
Night's shadows creep
To take possession of the steep;
While, as they rise,
The western skies
Seem loath to leave so fair a prize.

The light of day
Still loves to stay
And round that pearly summit play;
How fair a sight
That realm of light,
Contended for by Day and Night!

Now fainter shines,
As Day declines,
The lustrous height which he resigns;
The shadows gain
Th' illumined plane;
The Jungfrau pales, as if in pain.

When daylight dies,
The azure skies
Seem sparkling with a thousand eyes,
Which watch with grace
From depths of space
The sleeping Jungfrau's lovely face.

And when the Light
Hath put to flight
Night's shadows from each Alpine height,
Along the skies
It quickly flies,
To kiss the Maiden's opening eyes.

The timid flush
And rosy blush
Which then from brow to bosom rush,
Are pure and fair
Beyond compare,
Resplendent in the crystal air.

And thus alway
By night and day
Her varying suitors homage pay;
And tinged with rose,
Or white with snows,
The same fair, radiant form she shows.




UNDER THE STARS

The breath of summer stirs the trees,
A thousand roses round me bloom,
Whose saffron petals give the breeze
A wealth of exquisite perfume,
As, climbing high, with tendrils bold,
They clothe the walls with cups of gold.

No sound disturbs the silence sweet,
The weary birds have sunk to rest;
For where the snow and sunset meet
The light is fading in the west,
And now the carking cares of day
Slip lightly from my heart away.

The emptiness of social strife,
The pettiness of human souls,
The cheap frivolities of life,
The keen pursuit of paltry goals,--
How small they seem beneath the dome
That shelters my Tyrolean home!

A shining mote, our tiny earth
No furrow leaves in shoreless space!
What is one brief existence worth,
Which disappears, and leaves no trace?
That silent, star-strewn vault survives
The dawns and dusks of countless lives.

Why grieve, dear heart? Oblivion deep
Will soon enshroud both friend and foe,
And those who laugh and those who weep
Must join the hosts of long ago,
Whose transient hours of smiles and tears
Make up earth's wilderness of years.

The sunset's glowing embers die,
The snow-peaks lose their crimson hue,
Through deepening shades the ruddy sky
Burns slowly down to darkest blue,
Wherein a million worlds of light
Announce the coming of the night.

I gaze, and slowly my despair
At human wretchedness and crime
Gives place to hopes and visions fair,--
So much may be evolved by time!
So much may yet men's souls surprise
Beneath the splendor of God's skies!

Some day, somewhere, in realms afar
His light may make all problems plain,
And justice on some happier star
May recompense this planet's pain,
And earth's bleak Golgothas of woe
Grow lovely in life's afterglow.




CORSICA

In Bordighera's groves of palm
I linger at the close of day,
And watch, beyond the ocean's calm,
A range of mountains far away.

Their snowy summits, white and cold,
Flush crimson like a tinted shell,
As sinks the sun in clouds of gold
Behind the peaks of Esterel.

No unsubstantial shapes are they,--
The offspring of the mist and sea;
No splendid vision of Cathay,
Recalled in dreamful revery;

Their solid bastions,--towering high
Though rooted in earth's primal plan,--
Proclaim to every passer by
The cradle of the Corsican.

What martial soul there found rebirth,
When on those cliffs, then scarcely known,
There once more visited the earth
The spirit called Napoleon?

Three islands, like the sister Fates,
His life-thread wove upon their loom
From fair Ajaccio's silvered gates
To Saint Helena's mournful tomb;--

The first, his birthplace; whence appeared
His baleful star with lurid glow;
Next, Elba, where the world still feared
The fugitive from Fontainebleau;

Last, England's lonely prison-block,
Grim fragment 'neath a tropic sky,
Where, like Prometheus on his rock,
The captive Caesar came to die,

O Corsica, sublimely wild
And riven by the winds and waves,
Thy fame is deathless from thy child,
Whose glory filled a million graves.




TO THE VENUS OF MELOS

O goddess of that Grecian isle
Whose shores the blue Aegean laves,
Whose cliffs repeat with answering smile
Their features in its sun-kissed waves!

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