Poems - Marietta Holley
You were but a child, Jenny Allen,
But that hour made you wise;
A woman's grief and holy strength
Sprang up in your mournful eyes;
Ah, you were an angel, Jenny,
An angel in woman's guise.
But a pitiful, pitiful look, Jenny,
Your seraph features wore,
As I left you that dark autumn morn,
Left you forevermore;
And heaven seemed shut against me
As I blindly shut that door.
The years have rained on you golden gifts,
You dwell in a queenly show;
There are jewels of price in your silken hair,
And upon your neck of snow.
Do you ever think of me, Jenny,
And the dream of the long ago?
I have sat me down under foreign skies
Afire with an Orient glow;
I have seen the moon gild the desert sand,
And silver the Arctic snow,
But the thought of you Jenny Allen,
Goes with me where I go.
THE UNSEEN CITY.
Not far away does that bright city stand,
'Tis but the mist o'er its dividing stream,
That wraps the glory of its glitt'ring strand,
Its radiant skies, and mountains silvery gleam;
Oh, often in the blindness of our fate
We wander very near the city's gate.
We love that unseen city, and we yearn
Ever within our earthly homes to see
Its golden towers, that in the sunset burn,
Its white walls rising from the quiet sea;
Its mansions gleaming with immortal glow,
Filled with the treasure lost to us below.
Yes, dear ones that we loved and lost are there;
Bright in that fair clime beam those sweet eyes now;
Fanned by its soft breeze floats the shining hair,
Hair we have smoothed back from the gentlest brow;
Softest white hands we kissed and clasped in ours
Slipped from our grasp, lured by its glowing flowers.
Fairer it seems, its velvet walks were sweet,
Dearer its quiet streets, with gold paved o'er,
Since o'er them lightly fall the little feet--
The light feet bounding through our homes no more;
Oh, heart's dear music, tearfully missed,
That city's filled with melody like this.
It is not far away; down from its arches roll
Anthems too sacred for the outward ear,
Pouring their haunting sweetness on the soul;
Oh, how our waiting spirits thrill to hear,
In listening to the low bewildering strain,
Voices they said we should not hear again.
Oh, dear to us that city. He is there,
He whom unseen we love; no need of light;
His tender eyes illume the crystal air
Where His beloved walk in vesture white,
What though on earth they wandered, poor, distressed,
And saw through tears His glory, now they rest.
Oh, that fair city, shining o'er the tide,
Thither we journey through the storm and night;
But soon shall we adown its still bay glide,
Soon will the city's gate gleam on our sight,
There with our own forever shall we be,
In that fair city rising from the sea.
THE WAGES OF SIN.
I am an outcast, sinful and vile I know,
But what are you, my lady, so fair, and proud, and high?
The fringe of your robe just touched me, me so low--
Your feet defiled, I saw the scorn in your eye,
And the jeweled hand, that drew back your garments fine.
What should you say if I told you to your face
Your robes are dyed with as deep a stain as mine,
The only difference is you are better paid for disgrace.
You loved a man, you promised to be his bride,
Strong vows you gave, you were in the sight of Heaven his wife,
And when you sold yourself for another's wealth, he died;
And what is that but murder? To take a life
That is a little beyond my guilt, I ween,
To murder the one you love is a crime of deeper grade
Than mine, yet in purple you walk on the earth a queen;
I think the wages of sin are very unequally paid.
For what did you receive when you sold yourself for his gold,
When with guilty loathing you plighted your white, false hand,
A palace in town and country, his name long centuries old,
A carriage with coachmen and footmen, wealth in broad tracts
of land,
Wealth in coffers and vaults, high station, the family gems,
For these you stood at God's altar and swore to a lie;
But smother your conscience to silence if it condemns,
With this you are liberally paid for your life of infamy.
What wages did I receive when I gave myself for his love,
So young, so weak, and loving him, loving him so--
What did I get for my sin, O merciful God above!
But the terrible, terrible wages--pain and want and woe;
The world's scorn, and my own contempt and disdain,
The hideous hue of guilt that stares in every eye.
Like you I cannot 'broider with gold my garments' stain,
You see, my lady, you get far better wages than I.
In your constancy to sin you far exceed my power,
Since that day marked with blackness from other days--
The day before your marriage--never since that hour
Have I heard his voice, have I looked upon his face;
For I threw his gold at his feet and stole away
Anywhere--anywhere--only out of his sight,
Longing to hide from the mocking glare of the day,
Longing to cover my eyes forever away from the light.
And long I strove to hate him, for I thought
I was so young, a friendless orphan left to his care,
It was a terrible sin that he had wrought,
And since I had the burden of guilt to bear
It was enough without the wild despair of love,
So I strove to reason my passionate love to hate.
Can we kneel with tears and bid the strong sun move
Away from the sky? It is vain to war with fate.
That a hard life I have lived since then, 'tis true,
My hands are unblackened by sinful wages since that day,
And my baby died, I was not fit, God knew
To guide a sinless soul, so He took my bird away;
And my heart was empty and lone as a robin's winter nest,
With the trusting eyes that never looked scornfully,
The head that nestled fearlessly on my guilty breast,
And the little constant hands that clung to me, even me.
But I knew it were best for God to unclasp her hand
From mine, while yet she clung to it in trust,
Than for her to draw it from me, live to understand,
Blush for her mother--had she lived she must.
And then she had her father's smile, and his soft, dark eyes,
Maybe she would have had his fair, false ways--his heart.
It is well that she passed through the starry gate of the skies
Though it closed and bars us forever and ever apart.
For I am a sinful woman, well I know,
And though by others' sins my own are not excused
Things seem so strange to me in this strange world of woe,
In a maze of doubt and wonder I get confused;
Whether a sin of impulse, born of a fatal love,
Is worse than deliberate bargain, a life of legal shame,
Legal below, I think in the courts above
The heavenly scribes will call a crime by its right name.
But we stand before the wise, wise judgment-seat
Of the world, and it calls you pure,
That in your pearl-gemmed breast all saintly virtues meet,
Holier than other holy women, higher, truer,
So sweet a creature an angel in woman's guise.
They would not wonder much, though much they might admire,
Should you be caught again up to your native skies
From an alien world in a chariot of fire.
So we stand before the tender judgment-seat
Of the world, and it calls me vile,
So low that it is a wonder God will let
His joyous sunshine gild my guilty head with its smiles,
An outcast barred beyond the pale of hope,
Beyond the lamp of their mercy's flickering light,
They would scarcely wonder if the earth should ope
And swallow up the wretch from their vexed sight.
Before another judgment-seat one day we will stand
You and I, my lady, and he by our side,
He who won my heart, who held my life in his hand,
He who bought you with gold to be his bride;
Before an assembled world we shall stand, we three,
To meet from the merciful Judge our doom of weal or woe,
He holds His righteous balance true and evenly,
And which is the vilest sinner we then shall know.
ISABELLE AND I.
Isabelle has gold, and lands,
Fate gave her a fair lot;
Like the white lilies of the field
Her soft hands toil not.
I gaze upon her splendor
Without an envious sigh;
I have no wealth in lands and gold,
And yet sweet peace have I.
I know the blue sky smiles as bright
On the low field violet,
As on the proud crest of the pine
On loftiest mountain set.
I am content--God loveth all,
And if He tenderly
The sparrow guides, He knoweth best
The place where I should be.
Her violet velvet curtains trail
Down to the floor,
But brightly God's rich sunshine streams
Into my cottage door;
And not a picture on her walls,
Hath beauty unto me,
Like that which from my window frame
I daily lean to see.
She has known such pomp, she careth not,
For any humble sight;
Flowers bending o'er the brook's green edge,
To her give no delight;
She tends her costly eastern bird
With gold upon its wing;
But her wild roses bloom for me,
For me her wild birds sing.
She tires of home, and fain would see
The brightest clime of earth,
And so she sails for summer lands
With friends to share her mirth;
She waves her jewelled hand to me
The opal spray-clouds fly;
She leaves me with the fading shore--
Do I envy her? not I.
She will see the sailor's hardened palms
Curbing the toiling sails,
She will faint beneath the tropic calms
And face the angry gales.
She will labor for her happiness
While I've no need to speak,
But on a lotus leaf I float,
Unto the land they seek.
There, like a dream from out the wave,
I see a city rise,
I stand entranced, as by a spell,
Upon the Bridge of Sighs.
The low and measured dip of oars
Falls softly on my ear
Blent with the tender evening song,
Of some swart gondolier.
And down from marble terraces
Veiled ladies slowly pass,
And, entering antique barges,
Glide down the streets of glass;
And eyes filled with the dew and fire
Of their own midnight sky,
Gleam full on me, as silently
The gondolas float by.
The sunset burns, and turns the wave
To an enchanted stream,
And far up on the shadowy steeps
The white walled convents gleam,
The music of their bells float out--
The sweet wind bears it by,
Adown the warm and sunny slopes,
Where purple vineyards lie.
And I stand in old cathedrals,
By tombs of buried kings,
White angels bend above them--
Mute guard with folded wings.
Far down the aisle the organ peals,
The priests are knelt in prayer
And memories flood its ancient walls,
As the music fills the air.
I may not see that blessed land,
But she roams o'er the sod
The Lord's pure eyes have hallowed,
Where once His feet have trod.
Yet He in mercy has drawn near,
He has me comforted--
So near He seemed I almost felt
His hand upon my head.
And I with slow and reverent steps
Through ancient cities roam,
Treading o'er crumbling columns,
The dust of spire and dome;
The tall and shattered arches
Their flickering shadows cast,
Like bent and hoary spectres,
Low murmuring of the past.
And Isabelle toils o'er the Alps,
Through fields of ice and snow,
To see the lofty glaciers
Flash in the sun's red glow.
I feel no cold, and yet on high
Their shining spires I see.
Why should I envy Isabelle?
Why should she pity me?
Why should I envy Isabelle
When thus so easily,
Upon a tropic flower's perfume
I float across the sea?
GOOD-BY.
Again I see that May moon shine,
Dost thou remember, soul of mine?
I held your hand in mine, you know,
And as I bent to whisper low,
A tender light was in your eye,
"Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by."
There came a time my lips were white
Beneath the pale and cold moonlight,
And burning words I might not speak,
You read, love, in my ashen cheek,
As my whole heart breathed in this one cry,
"Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by."
Time's waves that roll so swift and fleet
Have borne you far from me, my sweet,
Have borne you to a sunny bay,
Where brightest sunshine gilds your way,
Do these words ever dim your sky--
Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by?
I cannot tell, but this I know
They go with me where'er I go,
I hear them in the crowded mart,
At midnight lone, they chill my heart--
They dim for me the earth and sky,
Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart good-by.
And in that hour of mystery,
When loved ones shall bend over me,
Near ones to kiss my lips and weep,
As nearer steals the dreamless sleep,
From all I'll turn with this last sigh,
"Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by."
THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S WOOING.
Put the crown of your love on my forehead,
Its sweet links clasped with a kiss,
And all the great monarchs of England
Never wore such a gem as this.
Give me your hand, little maiden,
That sceptre so pearly white,
And I'll envy not the kingliest wand
That ever waved in might.
I know 'tis like asking a morning cloud
With a grim old mountain to stay,
But your love would soften its ruggedness,
And melt its roughness away.
I have seen a delicate rosy cloud,
A rough, gray cliff enfold,
Till his heart was warmed by its loveliness,
And his brow was tinged with its gold.
Oh, poor and mean does my life show
Compared with the beauty of thine,
Like a diamond embedded in granite
Your life would be set in mine;
But a faithful love should guard you,
And shelter you from life's storm,
The rock must be shivered to atoms
Ere its treasure should come to harm.
How your sweet face has shone on me
From the tropics' midnight sea,
When the sailors slept, and I kept watch
Alone with my God and thee.
I know your heart is relenting,
The tender look in your eyes
Seems like that sky's soft splendor
When the sun was beginning to rise.
You need not veil their glorious light
With your eyelids' cloud of snow,
A tell-tale bird with a crimson wing
On your cheek flies to and fro;
And whispers to me such blissful hope
That my foolish tears will start,
Ah, little bird! your fluttering wing
Is folded on my heart.
IONE.
I might strive as well to melt to softness the soulless breast
Of some fair and saintly image, carven out of stone,
With my smile, as to stir you heart from its icy rest,
Or win a tender glance from your royal eyes, Ione;
But your sad smile lures me on, as toward some fatal rock
Is the fond wave drawn, but to break with passionate moan.
Break! to be spurned from its cold feet with a stony shock,
As you would spurn my suppliant heart from your feet, Ione.
Ione, there is a grave in the churchyard under the hill,
The villagers shun like the unblest haunt of a ghost,
Dropped there out of a dark spring night, I remember still,
For a foreign ship had anchored that night on the coast;
On the gray stone tablet is written this one word "Rest."
Did he who sleeps underneath seek for it vainly here?
What is the secret hidden there in the buried breast,
The secret deeper sunken by dripping rains each year.
When autumn's bending boughs and harvests burdened the ground
An early laborer, chancing to pass that way alone,
Saw a small glove gleaming whitely upon the mound,
And into the delicate wrist was woven "Ione,"
And he said as he dropped it again his eye did mark--
For this unknown, unhallowed grave had been shunned by all--
A narrow footpath winding through to the lofty wall,
That guards the wild grandeur and gloom of your father's park.
'Tis well to put small faith in a simple rustic's eye,
This story your father heard, and haughtily denied,
The grass waves rankly now, and gives the fellow the lie,
How many secrets the tall, deceitful grasses hide,
Patting the turf that covers a maiden's innocent rest,
And creeping and winding old haunted ruins among,
As silently smooth's the mould above the murdered breast,
Smothering down to deeper silence a buried wrong.
In your father's gallery once, I saw your pictured face,
Ione you were not always so sad and pale as this,
No beauty in all the long line of your noble race
Had eyes so softly bathed in bright bewitchment of bliss,
You were just nineteen, they said--it was painted in Spain
The year before you came--it was on your foreign tour,
By an artist too low to be reached by your disdain,
A delicate, passionate-hearted boy, proud and poor.
So said the rumors floating to us across the sea,
You had only an invalid mother with you there,
I fancy that then you set your heart's pure feelings free
For the first time, far from your proud old father's care,
For you used to wander down the shaded garden ways,
Your slight hand closely clasped by the fair-haired
English youth,
His blue eyes bent on your blushing face, so rumor says,
Though such light birds are not to be trusted much in truth.
Your face is not the face that looked from the antique frame,
Ione, and even that is gone from the oaken wall;
That picture that never was painted for gold or fame,
So vowed the artist friend who went with me to the hall;
But the pain on your white brow sits regally I ween,
The smile on your perfect lips is perilously sweet,
My slavish glances crown you my love, my fate, my queen,
As you pass in peerless beauty adown the village street.
SUMMER DAYS.
Like emerald lakes the meadows lie,
And daisies dot the main;
The sunbeams from the deep blue sky
Drop down in golden rain,
And gild the lily's silver bell,
And coax buds apart,
But I miss the sunshine of my youth,
The summer of my heart.
The wild birds sing the same glad song
They sang in days of yore;
The laughing rivulet glides along,
Low whispering to the shore,
And its mystic water turns to gold
The sunbeam's quivering dart,
But I miss the sunshine of my youth,
The summer of my heart.
The south wind murmurs tenderly
To the complaining leaves;
The Flower Queen gorgeous tapestry
Of rose and purple weaves.
Yes, Nature's smile, the wary while,
Wears all its olden truth,
But I miss the sunshine of my heart,
The summer of my youth.
THE LADY CECILE.
Sitting alone in the windy tower,
While the waves leap high, or are low at rest,
What does she think of, hour by hour,
With her strange eyes bent on the distant west,
And a fresh white rose on her withered breast,
What does she think of, hour by hour?
The Lady Cecile.
Low under the lattice, day by day,
White homeward sails like swallows come,
But the sad eyes look afar and away,
And the sailors' songs as they near their home,
No glance may win, for she sitteth dumb,
With her sad eyes looking afar and away,
The Lady Cecile.
Just forty years has she dwelt alone
With an ancient servant, grim and gray,
Sat alone under sun and moon;
But once each year, on the third of June,
She treads the creaking staircase down,
But back in her tower with the dying day,
Is the Lady Cecile.
Beneath the tower of the lonesome hall,
Stone stairs creep down where the slow tide flows,
There, out of a niche in the mouldering wall,
Low leaneth a royal tropical rose:
Who set it there none cares, nor knows,
Long years ago in the mouldering wall,
But the Lady Cecile.
But each third of June as the sun dips low,
She descends the stairs to the water's verge,
And plucks a rose from the lowest bough
Which the lapping waves almost submerge,
And what forms out of the deep, resurge
To vex her, maybe, with mournful brow,
Knows the Lady Cecile.
Her locks are sown with silver hairs,
And the face they shroud is pale and wan;
Once it was sweet as the rose she wears,
Though the perfect lips wore a proud disdain!
But the rose-face paled by time and pain,
No new springs know, like the flower she wears,
The Lady Cecile.
Why does she set the fresh white rose
So faithfully over her silent breast?
And what her thoughts are nobody knows,
She sits with her secret hid, unguessed,
With her strange eyes bent on the distant west,
So the slow years come, and the slow year goes,
O'er the Lady Cecile.
Forty years! and June the third
Came with a storm--loud the winds did blow--
And up in her tower the lady heard
The deep waves calling her far below;
Wild they leaped and surged, wild the winds did blow,
And, listening alone, she thought she heard
"Cecile! Cecile!"
And, wrapping her cloak round her withered form,
She crept down the stairs of crumbling stone;
Higher and fiercer raged the storm
As she bent and plucked the rose--but one
Had the tempest spared--and the winds did moan,
And she thought that she heard o'er the voice of the storm,
"Cecile! Cecile!"
She placed the rose on her bloodless breast,
And dizzy and faint she reached the tower,
And her strange eyes looked out again on the west,
And a wave dashed up, as she looked from the tower,
Like a hand, and lifted the roots of the flower,
And swept it--carried it out to the west,
From the Lady Cecile.
And like death was her face, when suddenly,
Strangely--a tremulous golden gleam
Pierced the pile of clouds, high-massed and gray,
And the shining, quivering, golden beam
Seemed a bridge of light--a gold highway
Thrown o'er the wild waves of the bay;
And the Lady Cecile
Did eagerly out of her lattice lean
With her glad eyes bent on that bridge gold-bright,
As if some form by her rapt eyes seen,
Were beckoning her down that path of light,
That quivering, shining, led from sight,
Ending afar in the sunset sheen.
And the Lady Cecile
Cried with her lips that erst were dumb
"See! am I not true? your flower I wore,"
And her thin hand eagerly touched the flower,
"He is smiling upon me! yes, love, I come."
And a pleasant light, like the light of home,
Lit her eyes, and life and pain were o'er
To the Lady Cecile.
HOME.
A spirit is out to-night!
His steeds are the winds; oh, list,
How he madly sweeps o'er the clouds,
And scatters the driving mist.
We will let the curtains fall
Between us and the storm;
Wheel the sofa up to the hearth,
Where the fire is glowing warm.
Little student, leave your book,
And come and sit by my side;
If you dote on Tennyson so,
I'll be jealous of him, my bride.
There, now I can call you my own!
Let me push back the curls from your brow,
And look in your dark eyes and see
What my bird is thinking of now.
Is she thinking of some high perch
Of freedom, and lofty flight?
You smile; oh, little wild bird,
You are hopelessly bound to-night!
You are bound with a golden ring,
And your captor, like some grim knight,
Will lock you up in the deepest cell
Of his heart, and hide you from sight.
Sweetheart, sweetheart, do you hear far away
The mournful voice of the sea?
It is telling me of the time
When I thought you were lost to me.
Nay, love, do not look so sad;
It is over, the doubt and the pain;
Hark! sweet, to the song of the fire,
And the whisper of the rain.
STEPS WE CLIMB.
I.
Like idle clouds our lives move on,
By change and chance as idly blown;
Our hopes like netted sparrows fly,
And vainly beat their wings and die.
Fate conquers all with stony will,
Oh, heart, be still--be still!
II.
No! change and chance are slaves that wait
On Him who guides the clouds, not fate,
But the High King rules seas and sun,
He conquers, He, the Mighty One.
So powerless, 'neath that changeless will,
Oh, heart, be still--be still!
III.
As a young bird fallen from its nest
Beats wildly the kind hand against
That lifts it up, so tremblingly
Our hearts lie in God's hand, as He
Uplifts them by His loving will,
Oh, heart, be still--be still!
IV.
Uplifts them to a perfect peace,
A rest beyond all earthly ease,
'Neath the white shadow of the throne--
Low nest forever overshone
By tenderest love, our Lord's dear will;
Oh, heart, be still--be still!
SQUIRE PERCY'S PRIDE.
The Squire was none of your common men
Whose ancestors nobody knows,
But visible was his lineage
In the lines of his Roman nose,
That turned in the true patrician curve--
In the curl of his princely lips,
In his slightly insolent eyelids,
In his pointed finger-tips.
Very erect and grand looked the Squire
As he walked o'er his broad estate,
For he felt that the earth was honored
In bearing his honorable weight;
Proudly he strolled through his wooded park
Deer-haunted and gloomily grand,
Or gazed from his pillared porticoes
On his far-outlying land.
In a tiny whitewashed cottage,
Half-covered with roses wild,
His cheerful-faced old gardener dwelt
Alone with his motherless child;
The Squire owned the very floor he trod,
The grass in his garden lot,
The poor man had only this one little lamb
Yet he envied the rich man not.
Poor was the gardener, yet rich withal
In this priceless pearl of a girl,
So perfect a form, so faultless a face
Never brightened the halls of an Earl;
Her eyes were two fathomless stars of light,
And they shone on the Squire day by day,
Till their warm and perilous splendor
So melted his pride away,