Somewhere is joy, tho' 't is not thine; Thou wouldst not with the world be one "AH, NEAR, DEAR FRIEND" Ан, near, dear friend of many and many years! All these have been like music to my soul; These, having fashioned me, should I extol, O Light of all my days! Thy smiles, thy tears, thy exquisite sad words - Thy lonely silences. MUSIC IN DARKNESS Ar the dim end of day I heard the great musician play: Saw her white hands now slow, now swiftly pass; Where gleamed the polished wood, as in a glass, MUSIC IN DARKNESS The shadow hands repeating every motion. Or singing birds made music so intense, So intimate of happiness or sorrow, I scarce could courage borrow To hear those strains: well-nigh I hurried thence To escape the intolerable weight 329 That on my spirit fell when sobbed the music: late, too late, too late! While slow withdrew the light And, on the lyric tide, came in the night. II So grew the dark, enshrouding all the room. In a melodious gloom, Her face growing viewless; line by line That swaying form did momently decline And was in darkness lost. Then white hands ghostly turned, tho' still they tost From tone to tone; pauseless and sure as if in perfect light; With blind, instinctive, most miraculous sight, On, on they sounded in that world of night. III Ah, dearest one; was this thy thought, as mine, As still the music stayed? "So shall the loved ones fade, Feature by feature, line on lovely line; For all our love, alas, From twilight into darkness shall they pass! We in that dark shall see them nevermore, But from our spirits they shall not be banished; That was the soul of them, the loved, the vanished; THE ANGER OF BEETHOVEN THIS night the enchanting musicians rendered a trio of Beethoven Light and lovely, or solemn, as in a Tuscan tower The walls with gracious tapestries gleam, and the deepcut windows Give on landscapes gigantic, framing the four-square world When sudden the music turned to anger, as nature's murmur Sometimes to anger turns, speaking, in voice infuriate, Cruel, quick, implacable; inhuman, savage, resistlessAnd I thought of that sensitive spirit flinging back in scorn tempestuous And in art supreme, immortal, the infamous arrows of fortune. MOTHER AND CHILD MOTHER and Child! There is no holier sight The world learns Worship here; it kneels in awe, MOTHER OF HEROES Here Good doth dwell, but never baneful Doubt, Here would a new Evangel come to pass; 331 Out from the dark a rose-leaf hand would leap, ALICE FREEMAN PALMER WHEN fell, to-day, the word that she had gone, - So fares she forth with smiling, Godward face; "MOTHER OF HEROES" SARAH BLAKE SHAW MOTHER of heroes, she-of them who gave Their lives to lift the lowly, free the slave. Her, through long years, two master passions bound: Love of our free land; and of all sweet sound. 'T was praising her to praise this land of grace; And when I think on music-lo, her face! THE GREAT CITIZEN ABRAM STEVENS HEWITT MOURN for his death, but for his life rejoice, Who was the city's heart, the city's voice. Dauntless in youth, impetuous in age, Talents and wealth to him were but a trust To lift his hapless brother from the dust; This his chief aim: to wake, in every man, He saw the evil, as the wise must see, Following the truth, he led his fellow-menThrough years and virtues the great citizen! By being great, he made the city great; So shall the city win a purer fame Led by the living splendor of his name. ON READING OF A POET'S DEATH I READ that, in his sleep, the poet died In a new dawn, as rose earth's crimson tide, |