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    Poems
    Poems
    Poems
    Ebook81 pages51 minutes

    Poems

    By Elizabeth Stoddard

    ()

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    About this ebook

    DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Poems" by Elizabeth Stoddard. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigiCat
    Release dateSep 16, 2022
    ISBN8596547337614
    Poems

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      Book preview

      Poems - Elizabeth Stoddard

      Elizabeth Stoddard

      Poems

      EAN 8596547337614

      DigiCat, 2022

      Contact: DigiCat@okpublishing.info

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Titlepage

      Text

      THE POET'S SECRET.

      The poet's secret I must know,

      If that will calm my restless mind.

      I hail the seasons as they go,

      I woo the sunshine, brave the wind.

      I scan the lily and the rose,

      I nod to every nodding tree,

      I follow every stream that flows,

      And wait beside the steadfast sea.

      I question melancholy eyes,

      I touch the lips of women fair:

      Their lips and eyes may make me wise,

      But what I seek for is not there.

      In vain I watch the day and night,

      In vain the world through space may roll:

      I never see the mystic light

      Which fills the poet's happy soul.

      Through life I hear the rhythmic flow

      Whose meaning into song must turn;

      Revealing all he longs to know,

      The secret each alone must learn.

      NOVEMBER.

      Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;

      Long have I listened to the wailing wind,

      And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,

      For autumn charms my melancholy mind.

      When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:

      The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;

      The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail

      Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!

      Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,

      The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:

      They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier

      These waiting mourners do not sing for me!

      I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods.

      Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;

      The naked, silent trees have taught me this—

      The loss of beauty is not always loss!

      MUSIC IN A CROWD.

      When I hear music, whether waltz or psalm,

      Among a crowd, I find myself alone;

      It does not touch me with a soothing balm,

      But brings an echo like a moan

      From some far country where a palace rose,

      In which I reigned with Cleopatra's pride:

      Come, Charmian! bring the asp for my repose.

      And queenly, men shall say, she died.

      There lived and ruled a happy, noble race,

      Primeval souls who held imperial power—

      My kindred, gone forever from their place,

      And I am here without a dower!

      They were a Vision, though. And are these real,

      These men and women, moving as in sleep,

      Who, smiling, gesture to the same Ideal,

      For which the music makes me weep?

      Have they my longings for that other world

      New to them yet? I grant that Music's swell

      Is like the sea; they may be thither hurled

      By storms that thunder and compel;

      Or, like those voyagers in the land of streams,

      Glide through its languid air, its languid wave,

      To learn that Here and There are but two dreams,

      That end in Nothing and the Grave!

      I LIVE WITHIN THE STRANGER'S GATE.

      I.

      I live within the stranger's gate,

      And count the hours

      Since God let fall the bolt of fate!

      Where the waves fall on yonder shore

      In cloudy spray,

      And where the winds forever roar,

      The pillars of a mansion stand,

      Without a roof;

      The saddest ruin in the land!

      II.

      When sunset strikes across the sea

      The wreck looms up;

      Then Memory comes, and touches me.

      I see a pitiful white face

      Break through the mould

      Decaying at the pillar's base,

      And hands that beckon me to prayer.

      But I still curse,

      And wake the Furies slumbering there!

      III.

      In the strange drama of the Past

      It was my part

      To hold carousal to the last;

      It was for me to hide the shame,

      And brave the world

      With lies about our ancient name!

      I played it well, and played it long:

      But let it pass,

      The world has never known the 'wrong.

      IV.

      Upheave, black mould, and totter all

      The ruin down!

      Fall, monumental pillars, fall,

      Upon her grave! Above her breast

      May ivy creep,

      And roses blow! I choose to rest.

      THE HOUSE OF YOUTH.

      The rough north winds have left their icy caves

      To growl and grope for prey

      Upon the murky sea;

      The lonely sea-gull skims the sullen waves

      All

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