The Chase

I have unleashed the hounds of my mind;
With a virile exultant bound—

Their noses wild for the ground-
They are off on the scent on the wind!

The hounds of my mind are out!

I know not which way nor what track;
The hounds of my mind are out—

And I cannot call them back!

-Hazel Hall.

A Mid-Victorian Aunt

Her creed is "Whatsoever Was Is Right,"
Her code is of the stern and rock bound kind,
Her bric-a-brac would win Comstock approval,
Her books but irritate a hungry mind.
Religion in her eyes, means close attendance
At stated meetings of the dull or sad,

She takes delight in dreary conversation,

And dance and show and picture play are "bad." She lives still in a former epoch,

Her eyes gaze back but never look before;
She greets you always with a formal manner,
But lays a "Welcome" mat before her door.

When duty stern prods me to cross her threshold
What pictures of a prim, unbending day
Are flashed from history's scarcely written pages
To contrast with our time, less strict, more gay!
The horse hair sofa and the red plush album,

The stiff wax flowers beneath their high glass cone, "A Yard of Pansies" in its frame of acorns

Hung by the chromo masterpiece "Alone;"

The what-not with its mirth provoking treasures,
The "Rogers Group" that charmed in days of yore!

Oh, let my eyes and feet not oft encounter

The "Welcome" mat that lies before her door!

-Clara Orwig.

When I Pass On

When I pass on, hang on my door
No flag of funeral hue as mourning.
No solemn dirges sing, no cortege slow,
No black robed figures hushed and still,
When I pass on.

When I pass on, oh crush me not

In flowers, wreaths, set pieces, fixed and stiff,

Nor water them with tears, which take all hope from living. A day is as a thousand years.

When I pass on.

When I pass on, I only shall be going

Into another room, 'tis you not I see Death,

And hug it to your anguished bosom, weeping.
I shall be most alive, when deemed most dead,
When I pass on.

When I pass on, the birds will keep on singing,

And flowers will grow and day will night succeed.

Then why should you be, best loved of God's creatures, The only one to hush His song,

When I pass on?

-Mabel A. Coan.

Over the Garden Wall

Look over the garden wall to see

The Gardens your neighbors grow,
Open your heart and give them a part
Of some rare seeds you sow.

Our hands and hearts raise every day
A crop of heaven or hell.

The soul engrossed in love of self

Grows only cockles well.

Marie Tello Phillips.

Evening

Night, with her frown and her inky gown,
Came, waving her black, black staff,
And hushing sweet Evening's laugh.
Evening, sipping her afternoon tea

Brewed with the falling dews on the lea,
From the pale gold rim of the new moon's cup
On the azure wall of her house hung up,—
Laughs, as she tosses a rosy kiss

To the dreaming hills, that flush with bliss.

Evening-frightened by Night's dark frown—
Fled; but she carried away

Wrapped in the folds of her crimson gown.
The blazing jewel of the red, red sun,

And she laughed, as she flung back one by one
The small, pale stars, for Night to wear

In the midnight cloud of her black, black hair; "Little I care for the stars," she said,

"When the red, red sun with me has fled."

Henrietta Jewett Keith.

Escape

Not quick-tripping music! Give slow songs,
As voice of wind from fir-dark hills forsaken,
Deep chaunts, male accents, from legato gongs....
Purple and amber lyrics... Ah, awaken

Pastoral cries, old ballads, rich-hued throngs

Of ancient dreams. These, as wind through bracken, Loose earth-pungence. There the folk-heart longs, Despairs, sheds blood and loves-by death is taken.

Then a far modern spirit finds a home.

Within the primal temple of the race,

Where birds and winds and rivers flung the "Yes!" Among the leaves that framed the sacred dome

Of glimpsed divinity. Dear faltering grace From last days' anguish of evolved guess.

-Louise Gebhard Cann

Chippewa Dream-Song

Walking Around the Sky
I am walking around the sky
In the wake of a soaring bird.
Lo, the great sun I draw nigh!

On earth is my glad song heard.
My head-feathers touch the sun,

The clouds whirl under my feet,
As my magic moccasins run

On the trail of my guide-bird fleet.
From my eyes the lightnings flash.

As arrow-swift I dart.

I laugh in the thunder's crash

For the storm winds sweep my heart.

I shout as the winds rush by

And my joy on earth is heard!

I am walking around the sky
In the wake of a soaring bird.

Resurgent

-Portia Martin.

There is a friendship that, like certain flowers,
Returns each year to the accustomed place
With sweet if rather wild and ragged grace;
And neither wind, nor drought, nor showers
Can tame, nor ever quite destroy its powers

To cling, and grow, and blossoming lift its face
Which looks so staunchly up asking no trace
Of tender care, since the initial hours.

For so my thoughts of you unheeded quite

Seem withered; tired and careless I assume
The flower lost. Between us then the lane
Is choked with weeds or snow, yet over night

With spring's astonished surge 'twill stir and bloom Like the black-purple pansy in the rain.

-Gladys Guthrie Evans.

Children of the Night

Night waits above the glare of blazing streets,
Denied her virtuous, God-appointed part,
Fain would she clasp in sleep, safe in her breast,
The little maids that course the city's heart.

Hold Night! Blame not these eager, cramped young souls;
Blame rather thy lean, irksome sister, Day.
These children see in thee but mad release;
Thou art indeed their only time for play.

Yea, children of the city's garish night,

We should to you for bitter wrongs atone.
Let him who hath no sin against you wrought-
Let such an one be first to cast a stone.

Ah, God! Thou markest well; Thou carest still.
With tears of Deity, the night is wet.

But Lord, are all Thy followers asleep?

Art Thou again on lonely Olivet?

Home

Eleanor Ingle Pilson.

Once home meant a lilac scented cottage

Back in Iowa. Roses, dewy-fragrant

Framing the brown door where your dear face

Smiled welcome! Home—

I've thought and dreamed 'till every nerve and heart-beat Throbbed with the sense of loss! In the dark mud

And blood of trench on saddened fields of France

I've thought of home until it grew and grew

To cover every spot from sea to sea,

In that loved land-America, my Home!

Oh ship ride fast! I've fought a fight of faith

And great is my reward-soon shall I see

The shores of Home; and nestling 'mongst the hills
Of Iowa, a little cottage, fragrant-sweet-

It is the heart of home-and You, it's soul!

Oh ship-my ship-ride fast!

-Jean Hickenlooper.