Songs at the Start

Songs at the Start

BY
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY

“And we sail on, away, afar,

Without a course, without a star,

But by the instinct of sweet music driven.”

Shelley: Prometheus Unbound.

BOSTON
CUPPLES, UPHAM AND COMPANY
1884

Copyright,
By Louise Imogen Guiney,
1884.
C. J. PETERS AND SON,
STEREOTYPERS AND ELECTROTYPERS,
145 High Street.

ERRATA.

Page 10. Third line: read haunt for haunts.

Page 26. Tenth and eleventh lines: omit the word no.

[Transcriber’s Note: These changes have been made to the text.]

THIS
FIRST SLIGHT OUTCOME OF TASTES TRANSMITTED BY
MY FATHER,
Is Inscribed to His Friend and Mine,
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.

CONTENTS.

Songs at the Start.

GLOUCESTER HARBOR.

North from the beautiful islands,

North from the headlands and highlands,

The long sea-wall,

The white ships flee with the swallow;

The day-beams follow and follow,

Glitter and fall.

The brown ruddy children that fear not,

Lean over the quay, and they hear not

Warnings of lips;

For their hearts go a-sailing, a-sailing,

Out from the wharves and the wailing

After the ships.

Nothing to them is the golden

Curve of the sands, or the olden

Haunt of the town;

Little they reck of the peaceful

Chiming of bells, or the easeful

Sport on the down:

The orchards no longer are cherished;

The charm of the meadow has perished:

Dearer, ay me!

The solitude vast, unbefriended,

The magical voice and the splendid

Fierce will of the sea.

Beyond them, by ridges and narrows

The silver prows speed like the arrows

Sudden and fair;

Like the hoofs of Al Borak the wondrous,

Lost in the blue and the thund’rous

Depths of the air;

On to the central Atlantic,

Where passionate, hurrying, frantic

Elements meet;

To the play and the calm and commotion

Of the treacherous, glorious ocean,

Cruel and sweet.

In the hearts of the children forever

She fashions their growing endeavor,

The pitiless sea;

Their sires in her caverns she stayeth,

The spirits that love her she slayeth,

And laughs in her glee.

Woe, woe, for the old fascination!

The women make deep lamentation

In starts and in slips;

Here always is hope unavailing,

Here always the dreamers are sailing

After the ships!

LEONORE.

You scarce can mark her flying feet

Or bear her eyelids’ flash a space;

Her passing by is like the sweet

Blown odor of some tropic place;

She has a voice, a smile sincere,

The blitheness of the nascent year,

April’s growth and grace;

All youth, all force, all fire and stress

In her impassioned gentleness,

Half exhortation, half caress.

A thing of peace and of delight,—

A fountain sparkling in the sun,

Reflecting heavenly shapes by night,—

Her moods thro’ ordered beauty run.

Light be the storm that she must know,

And branches greener after snow

For hope to build upon;

Late may the tear of memory start,

And Love, who is her counterpart,

Be tender with that lily-heart!

A BALLAD OF METZ.

Léon went to the wars,

True soul without a stain;

First at the trumpet-call,

Thy son, Lorraine!

Never a mighty host

Thrilled so with one desire;

Never a past Crusade

Lit nobler fire.

And he, among the rest,

Smote foemen in the van,—

No braver blood than his

Since time began.

And mild and fond was he,

And sensitive as a leaf;—

Just Heaven! that he was this,

Is half my grief!

We followed where the last

Detachment led away,

At Metz, an evil-starred

And bitter day.

Some of us had been hurt

In the first hot assault,

Yet wills were slackened not,

Nor feet at fault.

We hurried on to the front;

Our banners were soiled and rent;

Grim riflemen, gallants all,

Our captain sent.

A Prussian lay by a tree

Rigid as ice, and pale,

And sheltered out of the reach

Of battle-hail.

His cheek was hollow and white,

Parched was his purpled lip;

Tho’ bullets had fastened on

Their leaden grip,

Tho’ ever he gasped and called,

Called faintly from the rear,

What of it? And all in scorn

I closed mine ear.

The very colors he wore,

They burnt and bruised my sight;

The greater his anguish, so

Was my delight.

We laughed a savage laugh,

Who loved our land too well,

Giving its enemies hate

Unspeakable:

But Léon, kind heart, poor heart,

Clutched me around the arm;

“He faints for water!” he said,

“It were no harm

To soothe a wounded man

Already on death’s rack.”

He seized his brimming gourd,

And hurried back.

The foeman grasped it quick

With wild eyes, ’neath whose lid

A coiled and viper-like look

Glittered and hid.

He raised his shattered frame

Up from the grassy ground,

And drank with the loud, mad haste

Of a thirsty hound.

Léon knelt by his side,

One hand beneath his head;

Not kinder the water than

The words he said.

He rose and left him so,

Stretched on the grassy plot,

The viper-like flame in his eyes

Alas! forgot.

Léon with easy gait

Strode on; he bared his hair,

Swinging his army cap,

Humming an air.

Just as he neared the troops,

Over there by the stream—

Good God! a sudden snap

And a lurid gleam.

I wrenched my bandaged arm

With the horror of the start:

Léon was low at my feet,

Shot thro’ the heart.

Do you think an angel told

Whose hands the deed had done?

To the Prussian we dashed back,

Mute, every one.

Do you think we stopped to curse,

Or wailing feebly, stood?

Do you think we spared who shed

A friend’s sweet blood?

Ha! vengeance on the fiend:

We smote him as if hired;

I most of them, and more

When they had tired.

I saw the deep eye lose

Its dastard, steely blue:

I saw the trait’rous breast

Pierced thro’ and thro’.

His musket, smoking yet,

Unhanded, lay beside;

Three times three thousand deaths

That Prussian died.

And he, my brother, Léon,

Lies, too, upon the plain:

O teach no more Christ’s mercy,

Thy sons, Lorraine!

[This incident actually befell a private in a Massachusetts volunteer regiment, belonging to the Fifth Corps, at the battle of Malvern Hill.]

PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

You were a haughty beauty, Polly,

(That was in the play,)

I was the lover melancholy;

(That was in the play.)

And when your fan and you receded,

And all my passion lay unheeded,

If still with tenderer words I pleaded,

That was in the play!

I met my rival at the gateway,

(That was in the play,)

And so we fought a duel straightway;

(That was in the play.)

But when Jack hurt my arm unduly,

And you rushed over, softened newly,

And kissed me, Polly! truly, truly,

Was that in the play?

DIVINATION BY AN EASTER LILY.

Out of the Lenten gloom it springs,

Out of the wintry land,

White victor-flower with breath of myrrh,

Joy’s oracle and harbinger;

I take it in my hand,

I fold it to my lips, and know

That death is overpast,

That blessèd is thy glad release,

And thou with Christ art full of peace,

Dear heart in Heaven! at last.

THE RIVAL SINGERS.

Two marvellous singers of old had the city of Florence,—

She that is loadstar of pilgrims, Florence the beautiful,—

Who sang but thro’ bitterest envy their exquisite music,

Each for o’ercoming the other, as fierce as the seraphs

At the dread battle pre-mundane, together down-wrestling.

And once when the younger, surpassing the best at a festival,

Thrilled the impetuous people, O singing so rarely!

That up on their shoulders they raised him, and carried him straightway

Over the threshold, ’mid ringing of belfries and shouting,

Till into his pale cheek mounted a color like morning

(For he was Saxon in blood) that made more resplendent

The gold of his hair for an aureole round and above him,

Seeing which, called his adorers aloud, thanking Heaven

That sent down an angel to sing for them, taking their homage;—

While this came to pass in the city, one marked it, and harbored

A purpose which followed endlessly on, like his shadow.

Therefore at night, as a vine that aye clambering stealthily

Slips by the stones to an opening, came the assassin,

And left the deep sleeper by moonlight, the Saxon hair dabbled

With red, and the brave voice smitten to death in his bosom.

Now this was the end of the hate and the striving and singing.

But the Italian thro’ Florence, his city familiar,

Fared happily ever, none knowing the crime and the passion,

Winning honor and guerdon in peaceful and prosperous decades,

Supreme over all, and rejoiced with the cheers and the clanging.

Carissima! what? and you wonder the world did not loathe him?

Child, he lived long, and was lauded, and died very famous.

AFTER THE STORM.

I.

Now that the wind is tamed and broken,

And day gleams over the lea,

Row, row, for the one you love

Was out on the raging sea:

Row, row, row,

Sturdy and brave o’er the treacherous wave,

Hope like a beacon before,

Row, sailor, row

Out to the sea from the shore!

II.

O, the oar that was once so merry,

O, but the mournful oar!

Row, row; God steady your arm

To the dark and desolate shore:

Row, row, row,

With your own love dead, and her wet gold head

Laid there at last on your knee,

Row, sailor, row,

Back to the shore from the sea!