GEORGE FREDERICK SCOTT

O TENDER love of long ago, O buried love, so near me still On tides of thought that ebb and flow, Beyond the empire of the will; To-night with mingled joy and pain I fold thee to my heart again. And down the meadows, dear, we stray, And under woods still clothed in green, Though many springs have passed away And many harvests there have been, Since through the youth-enchanted land We wandered idly hand in hand. Then every brook was loud with song, And every tree was stirred with love, And every breeze that passed along Was like the breath of God above;— And now to-night we go the ways We went in those sweet summer days. Dear love, thy dark and earnest eyes Look up as tender as of yore, And, purer than the evening skies, Thy cheeks have still the rose they wore; I—I have changed, but thou art fair And fresh as in life's morning air. What little hands these were to chain So many years a wayward heart; How slight a girlish form to reign As queen upon a throne apart In a man's thought, through hopes and fears, And all the changes of the years. Dear girl, behold, thy boy is now A man, and grown to middle-age; The lines are deep upon his brow, His heart hath been griefs hermitage; But hidden where no eye can see, His boyhood's love still lives for thee,— Still blooms above thy grave to-day, Where death hath harvested the land, Though such long years have passed away Since down the meadows hand in hand We went, with hearts too full to know How deep their love was long ago.

THERE lies a lone isle in the tropic seas,— A mountain isle, with beaches shining white, Where soft stars smile upon its sleep by night, And every noonday fans it with a breeze. Here on a cliff, carved upward from the knees, Three uncouth statues of gigantic height, Upon whose brows the circling sea-birds light, Stare out to ocean over the tall trees. Forever gaze they at the sea and sky, Forever hear the thunder of the main, Forever watch the ages die away; And ever round them rings the phantom cry Of some lost race that died in human pain, Looking towards heaven, yet seeing no more than they.

NAKED and shaggy, they herded at eve by the sound of the seas, When the sky and the ocean were red as with blood from the battles of God, And the wind like a monster sped forth with its feet on the rocks and the trees, And the sands of the desert blew over the wastes of the drought-smitten sod. Here, mad with the torments of hunger, despairing they sank to their rest, Some crouching alone in their anguish, some gathered in groups on the beach; And with tears almost human the mother looked down at the babe on her breast, And her pain was the germ of our love, and her cry was the root of our speech. Then a cloud from the sunset arose, like a cormorant gorged with its prey, And extended its wings on the sky till it smothered the stars in its gloom, And ever the famine-worn faces were wet with the wind-carried spray, And dimly the voice of the deep to their ears was a portent of doom. And the dawn that rose up on the morrow, apparelled in gold like a priest, Through the smoke of the incense of morning, looked down on a vision of death; For the vultures were gathered together and circled with joy to their feast On hearts that had ceased from their sorrow, and lips that had yielded their breath. Then the ages went by like a dream, and the shoreline emerged from the deep, And the stars as they watched through the years saw a change on the face of the earth; For over the blanket of sand that had covered the dead in their sleep Great forests grew up with their green, and the sources of rivers had birth. And here in the aftertimes, man, the white faced and smooth-handed, came by, And he built him a city to dwell in and temples of prayer to his God; He filled it with music and beauty, his spirit aspired to the sky, While the dead by whose pain it was fashioned lay under the ground that he trod. He wrenched from great Nature her secrets, the stars in their courses he named, He weighed them and measured their orbits; he harnessed the horses of steam; He captured the lightnings of heaven, the waves of the ocean he tamed,— And ever the wonder amazed him as one that awakes from a dream. But under the streets and the markets, the banks and the temples of prayer, Where humanity laboured and plotted, or loved with an instinct divine, Deep down in the silence and gloom of the earth that had shrouded them there Were the fossil remains of a skull and the bones of what once was a spine. Enfolded in darkness forever, untouched by the changes above, And mingled as clay with the clay which the hands of the ages had brought, Were the hearts in whose furnace of anguish was smelted the gold of our love, And the brains from whose twilight of instinct has risen the dawn of our thought. But the law, that was victor of old with its heel on the neck of the brute, Still tramples our hearts in the darkness, still grinds down our face in the dust; We are sown in corruption and anguish—whose fingers will gather the fruit? Our life is but lent for a season—for whom do we hold it in trust? In the vault of the sky overhead, in the gulfs that lie under our feet, The wheels of the universe turn, and the laws of the universe blend; The pulse of our life is in tune with the rhythm of forces that beat In the surf of the furthest star's sea, and are spent and regathered to spend. Yet we trust in the will of the Being whose fingers have spangled the night With the dust of a myriad worlds, and who speaks in the thunders of space; Though we see not the start or the finish, though vainly we cry for the light, Let us mount in the glory of manhood and meet the God-Man face to face.

THE immortal spirit hath no bars To circumscribe its dwelling-place; My soul hath pastured with the stars Upon the meadow-lands of space. My mind and ear at times have caught, From realms beyond our mortal reach, The utterance of Eternal Thought, Of which all nature is the speech. And high above the seas and lands, On peaks just tipped with morning light, My dauntless spirit mutely stands With eagle wings outspread for flight.

GOD spake three times and saved Van Elsen's soul; He spake by sickness first, and made him whole; Van Elsen heard Him not, Or soon forgot. God spake to him by wealth; the world outpoured Its treasures at his feet, and called him lord; Van Elsen's heart grew fat And proud thereat. God spake the third time when the great world smiled, And in the sunshine slew his little child; Van Elsen like a tree Fell hopelessly. Then in the darkness came a voice which said, "As thy heart bleedeth, so My heart hath bled; As I have need of thee, Thou needest Me." That night Van Elsen kissed the baby feet, And kneeling by the narrow winding sheet, Praised Him with fervent breath Who conquered death.