THE BALLAD OF ORISKANY

SHE leaned her check 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 roomn;
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:
"Tis 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.

"The feast that flowed mid converse fleet, The music and the dancing feet, The games that flew from room to room, The cries, the laughter, and the bloom, And in the midst, so fair and tall, My bridegroom, prince among them all, 'Twas all one glad, sweet dream to me,

That night in gay Oriskany.

"The year went round, there came

guest

A lovely babe lay on my breast,-
Ah, we were blest! Then came the sound
Of drum and trump the valley round:
"I was just one year ago this morn
That he went armed across the corn,
In strength of heart and patriot glee,
To meet the foe on Oriskany.

"Below the hill the battle broke;
I heard the din, I saw the smoke;
Road-weary bands paused at the door,
And drank, and onward rode once more;
Poor wounded souls came crawling by
To find some quiet place to die;
My heart beat proud but fearfully
That day in wild 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 dend
Upon our one-year's bridal bed,
Oriskany, Oriskany

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

I see him as he passed that morn, Warm with all life, across the corn: 'Tis thus he shall return to me

At last, far from Oriskany."

APRIL

WEARY at heart with winter yesterday,
I sought the fields for something green to

see,

Some budded turf or mossbank quietly Uncovered in the sweet familiar way.

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!

Each crime that wakes in man the beast,

Is visited upon his kind.
The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,
The tyranny of kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.

When the long roll of Christian guilt
Against his sires and kin is known,
The flood of tears, the life-blood spilt,
The agony of ages shown,
What oceans can the stain remove
From Christian law and Christian love?

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 !

While I, whose wound bleeds overmuch, Go all unnursed.

There, Sweet. Run back now to your play,
Forget your woes.

I too was sorely hurt this day, -
But no one knows.

MY OTHER ME

CHILDREN, do you ever,
In walks by land or sea,
Meet a little maiden
Long time lost to me!

She is gay and gladsome,
Has a laughing face,
And a heart as sunny;

And her namne is Grace.

Naught she knows of sorrow,
Naught of doubt or blight;
Heaven is just above her-

All her thoughts are white.

Long time since I lost her,
That other Me of mine;
She crossed into Time's shadow
Out of Youth's sunshine.

Now the darkness keeps her;
And, call her as I will,
The years that lie between us
Hide her from me still.

I am dull and pain-worn,
And lonely as can be —
Oh, children, if you meet her,
Send back my other Me!

THE ANDALUSIAN SERENO

WITH onken 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;