With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.
A power was his beyond the touch of art

Or armèd strength — his pure and mighty heart.

THE PRESIDENT

(WRITTEN DURING THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT CLEVELAND)

Nor his to guide the ship while tempests blow,
War's billows burst, and glorious thunders beat;
Not his the joy to see an alien foe

Fly down the dreadful valley of defeat;
Not his the fame of that great soul and tried,
Who conquered civil peace by arms and love;
Nor his the emprize of one who lately died
Hand-claspt with foes, who weep his tomb above.
But this his task,- all passionless, unsplendid,
To teach, in public place, a nobler creed;
To build a wall, — alone or well befriended,
'Gainst the base partizan's ignoble greed.

Or will he fail, or triumph? History lays

A moment down her pen. A nation waits- and prays.

PART IV

ESSIPOFF

I

WHAT is her playing like?

I ask while dreaming here under her music's power. 'Tis like the leaves of the dark passion-flower

Which grows on a strong vine whose roots, O, deep they

sink,

Deep in the ground, that flower's pure life to drink.

ADELE AUS DER OHE

119

II

What is her playing like?

'T is like a bird

Who, singing in a wild wood, never knows

That its lone melody is heard

By wandering mortal, who forgets his heavy woes.

ADELE AUS DER OHE

(LISZT)

WHAT is her playing like?

I

"T is like the wind in wintry northern valleys.

A dream-pause; then it rallies

And once more bends the pine-tops, suddenly shatters

The ice-crags, whitely scatters

The spray along the paths of avalanches,

Startles the blood, and every visage blanches.

II

Half-sleeps the wind above a swirling pool
That holds the trembling shadow of the trees;
Where waves too wildly rush to freeze

Tho' all the air is cool;

And hear, O, hear, while musically call

With nearer tinkling sounds, or distant roar,
Voices of fall on fall;

And now a swelling blast, that dies; and now

no more,

no more.

(CHOPIN)

Ан, what celestial art!

And can sweet thoughts become pure tone and float,

All music, note by note,

Into the tranced mind and quivering heart!

Her hand scarce stirs the singing, wiry metal
Hear from the wild-rose fall each perfect petal!

And can we have, on earth, of heaven the whole, Or be to heaven upcaught,

Hearing the soul of inexpressible thought,

Roses of sound

That strew melodious leaves upon the silent ground;
And music that is music's very soul,

Without one touch of earth,

Too tender, even, for sorrow, and too bright for mirth!

MODJESKA

THERE are four sisters known to mortals well,
Whose names are Joy and Sorrow, Death and Love;
This last it was who did my footsteps move
To where the other deep-eyed sisters dwell.
To-night, or ere yon painted curtain fell,

These, one by one, before my eyes did rove
Through the brave mimic world that Shakespeare wove.
Lady! thy art, thy passion were the spell

That held me, and still holds; for thou dost show,
With those most high each in his sovereign art,-
Shakespeare supreme, and Tuscan Angelo,—
Great art and passion are one. Thine too the part
To prove, that still for him the laurels grow
Who reaches through the mind to pluck the heart.

THE DRAMA

(SUPPOSED TO BE FROM THE POLISH)

I SAT in the crowded theater. The first notes of the orchestra wandered in the air; then the full harmony burst forth; then ceased.

THE DRAMA

121

The conductor, secretly pleased with the loud applause, waited a moment, then played again; but as he struck upon his desk for the third time, the bell sounded, the just-beginning tones of the wind-instruments and the violins husht suddenly, and the curtain was rolled to the ceiling.

Then appeared a wonderful vision, which shall not soon be forgotten by me.

For know that I am one who loves all things beautiful. Did you find the figure of a man lying solitary upon the wind-fashioned hills of sand, watching the large sun rise from the ocean? That was I.

It was I who, lonely, walked at evening through the woods of autumn, beholding the sun's level light strike through the unfallen red and golden foliage,

Whose heart trembled when he saw the fire that rapidly consumed the dead leaves lying upon the hillside, and spread a robe of black that throbbed with crimson jewels under the wind of the rushing flame.

Know, also, that the august forms wrought in marble by the ancient sculptors have power upon me, also the imaginative works of the incomparable painters; and that the voices of the early poets are modern and familiar to me.

What vision was it, then, that I beheld; what art was it that made my heart tremble and filled me with joy that was like pain?

Was it the art of the poet; was it of a truth poetry made visible in human attitudes and motions?

Was it the art of the painter- which Raphael knew so well when he created those most gracious shapes that yet live on the walls of the Vatican?

Or was it the severe and marvelous art of the sculptor, in which antique Phidias excelled, and which Michael Angelo indued with new and mighty power?

Or, haply, it was that enchanting myth, made real of the insensate marble warmed to life

before our eyes

beneath the passionate gaze of the sculptor!

No, no; it was not this miracle, of which the bards have so often sung; nor was it the art of the poet, nor of the painter, nor of the musician (tho' often I thought of music), nor of the sculptor. It was none of these that moved my heart, and the hearts of all who beheld, and yet it was all of these,

For it was the ancient and noble art of the drama, that art which includes all other arts, and she who was

the mistress of it was the divine Modjeska.

FOR AN ALBUM

(TO BE READ ONE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER)

A CENTURY'S summer breezes shook
The maple shadows on the grass

Since she who owned this ancient book
From the green world to heaven did pass.

Beside a northern lake she grew,

A wild-flower on its craggy walls;

Her eyes were mingled gray and blue,
Like waves where summer sunlight falls.

Cheerful from morn to evening-close,
No humblest work, no prayer forgot!
Yet who of woman born but knows
The sorrows of our mortal lot!

And she too suffered, tho' the wound
Was hidden from the general gaze,

And most from those who thus had found
An added burden for their days.