Book: Debris
M >>
Madge Morris >> Debris
Each loved one that thou leavest here,
Some other love may wear,
Each heart will have some other heart
Its loneliness to share.
But I have nothing, darling, left--
You're all the world to me--
And only God and Heaven can know
The love I give to thee.
WATCHING THE SHADOWS.
Watching the shadows, the fire-light shadows,
That gather and play on the wall;
Dark, flitting shadows, fanciful shadows,
That gather and rise and fall.
Reading the fire shadows' language of shadows,
Pages of darkness and light--
Watching, watching,
Watching the shadows to-night.
Watching the shadows, the fire-light shadows,
That over the wall fitful play;
Dreaming of shadows, dreaming of shadows,
Deep darker shadows than they.
Heart-shading shadows, soul-darkening shadows,
Flitting in memory's light--
Dreaming, dreaming,
Watching the shadows to-night.
Watching the shadows, the fire-light shadows,
Merrily dancing about,
Wondering if heart-shadows vanish like shadows,
When life's fitful flame has gone out;
Wondering if shadows are deep, darker shadows,
Aeons of ages of blight;
Wondering, wondering,
Watching the shadows to-night.
I GIVE THEE BACK MY HEART.
I give thee back thy fickle heart,
Thy faithless vows I've spurned,
I bury deep the blighted hopes
That in my bosom burned.
Yet who had thought a brow so fair,
From guile so seeming free,
A voice so sweet, so winning rare,
So treacherous could be?
Who would have dreamed a form that seemed
Proud Honor's templed shrine,
Could hold within an urn of sin
A soul so false as thine?
Nor strange 'twould be, if ne'er again,
Till age had wasted youth,
That heart betrayed by such as thou,
Could trust in human truth.
But go! and though thy wiles no more
Will move my heart to strife,
Canst glad thy vain soul with the thought
That thou hast wrecked a life.
LIGHT BEYOND.
Is your heart bowed down with sorrow;
Does your lot the hardest seem;
Think you of a brighter morrow,
Of a fairer future dream.
Have your prospects all been blighted;
Has each promise proved a snare;
Deepest wrongs are sometime righted,
Never yield you to despair.
Has the slanderer's tongue unsparing
Ruthless tarnished with its stain;
Was your good name worth the wearing--
Go and win it back again.
Would you rest where sunshine lingers;
You must toil the darkness through;
Only work with willing fingers,
Only live you brave and true.
Never care or trouble borrow,
"Trouble's real if it seems"--
Ever see a bright to-morrow,
Though you see it but in dreams.
A NEGLECTED "WOMAN'S RIGHT."
I have listened to this cry of "Woman's Rights," this clamoring
for the ballot, for redress for woman's wrongs, and I could but
think, amid it all, that there is one "woman's right"--the right
that could make the widest redress for woman's wrongs--which she
holds in her own hands and does not exercise. It is the right to
defend, to uplift and ennoble womankind; to be as lenient to a
plea for mercy from a fallen woman as though that plea had come
from the lips of a fallen man; to throw around her also the broad
mantle of charity, and if she would try to reform, give her a
chance. Far be it from any honest woman to countenance the
abandoned wretch who plies an unholy calling in defiance of all
morality, for her very breath is contamination; but why should
you greet with smiles and warmest handclasps of friendship the
man who pays his money for her blackened soul? When two human
beings ruled by the same mysterious nature, have yielded to
temptations and fallen, what is this monster of social distinction
that excuses the sin of one as a folly or indiscretion, while
it makes that of the other a crime, which a lifetime cannot
retrieve? It is a strange justice that condones the fault of one
while it condemns the other even to death; that gives to one,
when dead, funeral rite and Christian burial and to the other
the Morgue and a dishonored grave, simply because one is a
strong man and the other a weak woman. And it is a stranger,
sadder truth that 'tis woman's influence which metes out this
justice to woman. Mother, if you must look with scorn and
contempt upon the woman who through her love for some man has
gone down to destruction, do not smilingly acknowledge her
paramour a worthy suitor for your own unsullied daughter. Maiden,
if you must sneeringly raise your white hand and push back into
the depths of pollution the woman who seeks to reinstate herself
in the path of rectitude, do not permit the man who keeps half a
dozen mistresses to clasp his arm around your waist and whirl you
away to the soft measure of the "Beautiful Blue Danube." If the
ban of society forbids that you say to a penitent sin-sick
sister, "Go and sin no more," if you must consign her to the life
of infamy which inevitably follows the deaf ear which you turn
upon her appeal, then do it; but in God's name do not turn around
and throw open the doors of your homes and welcome to the
sanctity of your family altars the man who enticed her to ruin.
Ah, woman, by your tireless efforts you may win the right to
vote, your voice may be heard in the Assembly Halls of the
Nation; but if you administer as one-sided a justice in political
life as you do in social life, the reform for which you pray will
never come!
WOULD YOU CARE?
All day on my pillow I wearily lay,
With a stabbing pain at my heart,
With throbbing temples, and a feverish thirst
Burning, my lips apart.
If I longed for a touch of your soft, strong hand,
For you one little minute there;
For a smile, or a kiss, or a word to bless,
Would you blame me, love?--would you care?
When the long, long, lonesome day was done,
And you never for a moment came,
If I tried to shut you out of my heart,
Impatient at your name;
If disappointment's bitter sting
Was harder than pain to bear,
If I turned away with a doubting frown,
Would you blame me, love?--would you care?
Should I die to-night, and you saw me not
Again till my soul had fled
With its vain request, and my features wore
The white hue of the dead--
Would you place just once, in a last caress,
Your hand on my death-damp hair?
Would you give me a thought, or a fond regret?
Would you kiss me, love?--would you care?
A THOUGHT OF HEAVEN.
Friend of my heart, you say to me
That your belief is this--
The heaven is but a vision rare
Of pure, ethereal bliss.
And life there but a dream enhanced,
Where never sound alarms;
Where flowers ne'er fade and skies ne'er cloud,
And voiceless music charms--
And save as see we in our dreams
The dear ones gone before,
The friends that here we knew and loved,
We'll know and love no more.
An endless and unbroken rest,
Nor change, nor night, nor day,
Where aimless, as in sleep, we'll dream
Eternity away.
Sweet friend of mine, that Heaven of thine
Methinks if overblest;
We could not work on earth enough
To need so long a rest.
Our human nature could not be
Content with rest like this,
And even bliss could cloy, if we
Had nothing else but bliss.
Great Nature's hand, in every plan,
Had laid in wise design,
But what design, or use, is in
This theory of thine?
If, when our earth-career is done,
All conscious life must cease,
And we drift on, and on, and on,
In endless, dreamy peace--
If Heaven is but a mystic spell,
Whose glowing visions thrall,
Why should we have a life beyond?
Why have a Heaven at all?
CONSOLANCE.
"Be brave?" why, yes, I will; I'll never more despair;
Who could, with such sweet comforting as yours?
How, like the voice that stilled the tempest air,
Your mild philosophy its reasoning pours.
Go you and build a temple to the skies, and make
Your soul an alter-offering on the pile;
Then, from its lightning-riven ruin, take
Your crushed and bleeding self, and calmly smile.
When loud, and fierce, and wild, a storm sweeps o'er your rest,
Say that it soothes you--brings you peace again;
Laugh while the hot steel quivers in your breast,
And "make believe" you love the scorching pain.
See every earthly thing your life is woven round,
Fall, drop by drop, until your heart is sieved!
Go mad and writhe, and moan upon the ground,
And curse, and die, and say that you have prayed and lived!
Then come to me, as now, and I will take your hand,
And look upon your face and smile and say:
"All were not born to hold a magic wand;
Cheer up, my friend, you must be brave always."
WHEN THE ROSES GO.
You tell me you love me; you bid me believe
That never such lover could mean to deceive.
You tell me the tale which a million times
Has been told, and talked, and sung in rhymes;
You rave o'er my "eyes" and my "beautiful hair,"
And swear to be true, as they always swear;
But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go,
And lovers are rovers oft, you know,
When the roses go.
I have heard of a woman, sweet and fair,
With dewy lips and shining hair,
And you pledged to her, on your bended knee,
The self-same vow you make to me.
She was fairer than I, I know;
She was pure and true, and she loved you so;
But the wrinkles will grow and the roses go--
How she learned that trouble comes, _you know_,
When the roses go.
You're a man in each outward sense, I trow,
With the stamp of a god on your peerless brow.
You hold my hand in your thrilling clasp,
And my heart grows weak in your subtle grasp,
Till I blush in the light of your tender eyes,
And dream of a far-of paradise--
Almost forgetting that ever from there
Another was turned in her bleak despair.
But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go--
I will answer you, love, my love, you know,
When the roses go.
* * * * *
THE DIFFERENCE.
With odds all against him, struggling to gain,
From fortune a name, with life to maintain,
Toiling in sunshine, toiling in rain,
Never waiting a blessing Heaven-sent,
Working and winning his way as he went--
Whether he starved, or sumptuously fared,
Nobody knew and nobody cared.
With success-crowned effort that fate had defied,
That wrought out from fortune what favor denied,
Standing aloof from the world in his pride;
The niche he has carved on fame's slippery wall
Friends are proclaiming with heraldry-call.
His Croesus-bright scepter has magical sway,
Yester's indifference solicits to-day.
His daring his triumph, how daily he fares,
Every one knows, and anxiously cares.
BEWARE.
Beautiful maiden,
So daintily fair,
Thy rose-hued lips,
Thy soft, flowing hair,
Symmetric perfection,
Sweet, winning face,
The charms that thou wearest
A palace might grace;
And yet thy bright beauty
May wreck and despair.
Beautiful maiden,
Beware! oh, beware!
There are flattering tongues
That 'twere death to believe,
And loves who woo
But to win and deceive;
For innocent feet
There is many a snare.
Beautiful maiden,
Beware! oh, beware!
A REGRET.
Close on my heart was resting
A sunny golden head,
As the dim gray of the twilight
Crept round with noiseless tread.
"Tell me a 'tory, mamma,"
The blue-eyed baby said,
"About some itty birdie
In za itty birdie bed.
"'Bout fen oo was itty
An'ze mens was walkin' hay
An' found free ittie birdies
Wiz za muzzer don away."
"Some other time, my darling;
Mamma's tired now."
A shade of disappointment
Swept over the baby's brow.
The dear blue eyes grew misty;
O, lips that lived to blame,
That kissed and whispered "sometime"--
That "sometime" never came.
Again, the dim, gray twilight
Creeps round with noiseless tread,
But on my heart is resting
No sunny golden head.
No sweet voice pleads with mamma
"Tell me a 'tory" now,
And only death can take away
The shadow on my brow.
* * * * *
"IT IS LIFE TO DIE."
"It is life to die," the muse has sung,
The prophet words have rung from pole to pole,
The trust, the hope to which many have clung,
An echo woke in many a weary soul.
"Ah! welcome thrice if but that death would come
As sweeps the avalanche from Alpine hight,
As falls the flashing storm-sent lightning-bolt,
Resistless in its terror and its might.
"But oh! to die by slowest slow decay,
To clothe a dying heart in life's warm breath,
When every day repeats a long eternity,
And every hour is but another death!"
O, God! why were we born to live a life,
From very thought of which our souls must shrink,
To sink down in the waves of human strife,
And ever only wait, and wait, and think.
No wonder that so many hapless ones,
Too sensitive the specter to defy,
Arm, Hamlet-like, against a sea of woes,
And test the truth, that "it is life to die."
* * * * *
O, SPEAK IT NOT.
O, speak not hastily the word
Thine ear from idle tongues has heard.
If false the tale thou couldst recall,
How hard, and cruel must it fall?
If true, why, helping it along
Will never, never right the wrong.
O, speak it not, not speak the word
That wounds, though but in jest 'tis heard;
Keep back the thrust, the look askance,
The petty doubt, the sneering glance;
Keep back the taunts and jeers,
Life has enough of breaking hearts,
Of pointed barbs and venomed darts--
Enough of pain and tears.
A SHATTERED IDOL.
O blame me not for the cruel words
In a moment of madness said;
The shadow that fell upon my life
Is cold as the shrouded dead.
Deem not I am hard and heartless;
My tears are as warm as thine;
'Twas clay that I crowned and worshipped,
And wept o'er its crumbled shrine.
To me, my passionate, deathless soul,
Was less than his finger-tips;
He turned away fro the gold of my love
For the dross on a wanton's lips.
My faith in his truth is broken--
Even truth itself is a lie.
I have cursed him!--but I love him,
And I'll love him till I die.
POOR LITTLE JOE.
A ring on the door bell,
Some one at the door,
Mute asking admittance
Where never before
A stranger in midnight,
In silence and stealth,
Sought access to gain
In a mansion of wealth.
Into the gaslight
A package is borne;
Quickly from round it
The wrappings are torn.
What is it? a baby!
What seek you to-night,
So rosy and smiling,
Nor in fear, nor in fright?
Ah! little intruder,
What is it you wear
So close to your breast?
Sure but hand in despair
Could have written the message
Unconscious you bear,
And "loved" and "God blessed" you
While leaving you there.
Let's see the story
'Tis telling for you;
How brief and pathetic;
But can it be true?
A mother heart brokenly
Praying in grief
From hand of a stranger
Her baby's relief.
"He's helpless and homeless,
But stainless as snow;
O, take him and keep him--
My poor little Joe."
That's all there is of it,
If false or if true;
Yet long enough seems it,
And sad enough, too.
No love-welcomed greeted
The sweet baby face,
In the life that gave his life
There was not a place.
No place for the baby,
There's none for him here,
No heart that may give him
A smile or a tear.
Off to the refuge,
For such, he must go,
He's only a foundling--
Poor little Joe.
Deserted, forsaken,
Thrust out in the strife,
Adrift on the pitiless
Ocean of life.
What will become of him,
Who may decide
If good or if evil
His life shall betide.
No tender caresses
Ever to know,
Nor guidance, nor blessing--
Poor little Joe.
* * * * *
FATE.
Ruth was a laughing-eyed prattler,
Thoughtless, and happy, and free;
She planted a seed in the garden,
And said: "It will grow to a tree--
A beautiful blossoming tree."
The birds and the squirrels played round it,
As careless and merry was she,
But not tree ever grew from her planting--
No beautiful blossoming tree.
Ruth was a winsome-faced maiden,
Happy, and hopeful, and free;
She planted a seed in the garden,
And smilingly waited to see--
A beautiful blossoming tree.
She covered the ground up with flowers,
The butterfly came, and the bee,
But no tree ever grew from her planting--
No beautiful blossoming tree.
Ruth was a pale saddened woman,
Thoughtful, with tremblings and fears,
She planted a seed in the garden,
And watered the place with her tears--
And watched it with tremblings and fears.
The winds and the rains beat upon it,
The lightnings flashed o'er it in glee;
But she sleeps 'neath the tree of her planting--
A beautiful blossoming tree.
THE GHOSTS IN THE HEART.
They came in the hush of the midnight,
In the glare of the noonday start
Out from the graves we made them--
The graves we made in the heart.
There is love with its fickle fancies;
Its grave was so wide and deep,
And we heaped the mound with oblivion,
But the soul of love could not sleep.
And hate! ah, we buried it deeper
Than all the rest of the train;
But one word through memory flashing,
And its ghost comes back again.
There are phantoms of sunshiny hours
That fled when the summer time fled,
And specters that mock while they haunt us,
Long buried, but never dead.
And ever and ever an hour
Will come that the heart-wraiths control,
Till down from Eternity's tower
A banshee shall ring for the soul.
ONLY A TRAMP.
Only a tramp by the roadside dead,
Only a tramp--who cares?
His feet are bare, his dull eyes stare,
And the wind plays freaks with his unkempt hair.
The sun rose up and the sun went down,
But nobody missed him from the town
Where he begged for bread 'till the day he was dead.
He's only a tramp--who cares?
Only a tramp, a nuisance gone.
One more tramp less--who cares?
Ghastly and gray, in the lane all day,
A soiled, dead heap of human clay.
Would the wasted crumbs in the rich man's hall,
Where the gas-lights gleam and the curtains fall,
Have given him a longer lease of breath--
Have saved the wretch from starving to death?
He's only a tramp--who cares?
Only a tramp! was he ever more
Than a beggar tramp? Who cares?
Was the hard-lined face ever dimpled and sweet?
Has a mother kissed those rough brown feet,
And thought their tramping a sweeter strain
Than ever will waken his ear again?
Does somebody kneel 'way over the sea,
Praying "Father, bring back my boy to me?"
Does somebody watch and weep and pray
For the tramp who lies dead in the lane to-day?
He's only a tramp--who cares?
* * * * *
PUT FLOWERS ON MY GRAVE.
When dead, no imposing funeral rite,
Nor line of praise I crave;
But drop your tears upon my face--
Put flowers on my grave.
Close not in narrow wall the place
In which my heart finds rest,
Nor mark with tow'ring monument
The sod above my breast.
Nor carve on gleaming, marble slab
A burning thought or deed,
Or word of love, or praise, or blame,
For stranger eyes to read.
But deep, deep in your heart of hearts,
A tender mem'ry save;
Upon my dead face drop your tears--
Put flowers on my grave.
OLD AUNT LUCY.
Why into that darkened chamber
Walk you with such noiseless tread?
No slumbering one will awaken--
The sheeted form is dead.
Why gaze on the rigid features,
So white in death's embrace,
With such look of awe and pity?
'Tis only the same old face.
Why touch you now so tender
The hands that silent lay?
They're only the sunburned fingers
That toiled for you night and day.
Why now, with your tear-dimmed vision,
So softly do you press
Upon the wrinkled forehead
Your lips in sad caress?
How much of care had lighted
That lingering, loving kiss,
Had you in life but gave it--
You never thought of this.
No loving hand e'er brightened
Her life with tender care,
No mother's baby-kisses
Were ever hers to share.
Only for others caring,
The long, long years have fled;
Now, only, they say,--the neighbors--
"Poor old Aunt Lucy's dead."
And they whisper a girl's ambition,
A name in the world to make;
'Way back in her vanished youth-time,
Gave up for a duty's sake.
But whatever had been the story
Of love, or grief, or woe,
It died with the heart, and no one
Will ever care or know.
The hands were hard and toil-stained,
And sallow the cheeks and chin,
But whiter not the snow-wreath
Than the soul that dwelt within.
And methinks a crown resplendent--
Just over the waveless sea--
With gems of self-denial,
Awaits for such as she.
UNSPOKEN WORDS.
Unspoken words may thrill the heart,
Their meaning be more deeply felt
Than all the glowing oratory
Poured at the shrine where reason knelt.
The fairest pictures art conceives,
The noblest sentiments of mind,
The loveliest, purest gems of thought
Are those which never are defined.
The hand that paints the rainbow dyes
Ne'er leaves a trace its skill to show--
The art that gilds the sunset skies
And tints the flower, we may not know.
Nor may we know the wizard power
Which o'er our being wields control,
Nor how, when silence seals the lips,
Heart speaks to heart and soul to soul.
We do not know from whence the life
Imbued in crystal drop of rain,
Nor why, when torn and trampled on,
The rose's fragrance will remain.
Nor know we why the tender tone
Will linger when love's dream is fled,
Now why the smile we loved will live,
Although the face it wreathed will be dead.
Some strangely fascinating spell
Steals o'er the heart in ethic's hour;
We know not what, nor how, nor why,
Still must we own we feel its power--
A power that wakens slumbering dreams,
Intangible emotion swells,
That penetrates the soul's deep fount,
And greets the tide that from it wells.
It is not charm of form or face,
Nor is it long contact of years
That wins this mutual soul response,
This spirit sympathy endears.
A theory by time engraved
Fro life, one mad impulse may sweep--
A glance may into being start
Vain hopes that nevermore may sleep.
The quiet touch when hands are clasped
Would seemingly no sense impart,
Yet may it wake a deathless theme
And send it quivering to the heart.
And thus may kindred spirits feel,
Though tone of voice be never heard,
The sweet impassioned eloquence,
The magic of unspoken words.
O! TAKE AWAY YOUR FLOWERS.
O! take your pale camellias back;
Their soft leaves, waxen white
And odorless, too ill accord
With my dark mood to-night.
I do not want your hot-house flowers,
They're like the love you give--
A something tame and passionless
That breaths but does not live.
You take my hand as though you feared
Your clasp were over-bold,
Your kiss falls light at flake of snow,
And just as calm and cold.
I'd rather have your hatred
Than this lifeless loving claim,
If your heart beat one throb faster
At mention of my name.
Leave me, and bind those soulless leaves
A calmer brow above;
I cannot wear your flowers to-night--
I do not want your love.
RAIN.
Drop! drop! drop!
With a ceaseless patter fall,
With a sobbing sound on the sodden ground,
And the gray clouds over all.
Dost weep of the parted summer,
O, spirit of the rain?
For the vanished hours and the faded flowers
That never can come again?
The farmer smiles at they weeping,
Hushing the whispering leaves,
And dreams of days in the Autumn haze
And the gathered golden sheaves.
There's a voice of hope, a promise,
In the sound of thy refrain,
And as bright the hours and as fair the flowers
That will come to thee again.
And yet in our lives, though knowing
That we hold a scepter's sway,
How oft we turn with the thoughts that burn,
To weep on Autumn day.
Turn from the hopeful future
To weep in grief and pain,
For the vanished hours and the faded flowers
That never can come again.
I LOVE HIM FOR HIS EYES.
They praised the baby's dimpled hands,
His brow so broad and fair,
They kiss the dainty rose-bud mouth,
Caress the sunny hair.
His lisping words, his tottling steps,
His smiles they praise and prize,
They love him for his cunning ways,
I love him for his eyes.
The wealth of golden tinted curls
Old Time will streak with snow;
The rose-bud mouth so dainty curved
To sterner lines will grow.
The fleeting years will mark with change
Each feature now they prize,
Save only the sweet eyes I love--
I love him for his eyes.
Those wondrous, wondrous soulful eyes,
How strange the spell they fling
Unconsciously around my heart;
What memories they bring!
What buried hours come thronging back--
A distant, dearer clime--
Another pair of love-lit eyes,
Another summer time.
Oh, baby, take your eyes away:
They burn into my heart!
I'll kiss you once, and say good-by,
And hid the tears that start;
But through the years to come and go,
The changeful scenes to rise,
I'll love the little baby boy--
I love him for his eyes.
* * * * *
ONLY.
Only a sentence earnest spoke,
With never a thought to word it,
Fell like balm from the sea of calm,
On the aching heart that heard it.
Only a glance, a scornful smile,
A wavering purpose altered,
Goaded a hand the crime to do
At which before it faltered.
Only a kiss, a love caress,
Tender and trustful given,
Banished a cloud from brow of care,
Made home a woman's Heaven.