LAST VERSES

LAST VERSES

Copyright, 1906,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
————
All rights reserved
Published October, 1906
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

SUSAN COOLIDGE

SARAH CHAUNCEY WOOLSEY (Susan Coolidge) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, January 29, 1835. Her father, John M. Woolsey, a New Yorker, had come to Cleveland to attend to property owned by his father, and had there met Jane Andrews, a charming and graceful girl from Connecticut, whom he made his wife.

Their home was on Euclid Avenue, and comprised about five acres in house-lot, garden, orchard, pasture, and woodland. Here came into the world a family of four girls and a boy,—all vigorous and active and full of life. Sarah was the eldest and the predestined leader of the little tribe. They grew up as children of that day did under similar conditions. There was the regular old-fashioned schooling, not too exacting or strenuous, and much wholesome out-of-door life. There were horses and dogs and cattle and birds for the children to care for and play with, and much climbing and romping were permitted in a place where no near neighbors could be disturbed. To the other children life was a joyous holiday, diversified with small disappointments and dismays; but to Sarah the sky and the earth held boundless anticipations and intentions, and the world was a place of enchantment.

She was always individual from the moment she first opened her big brown eyes—passionately loving and passionately wilful, with heroic intentions and desires, and with remorse and disappointments in proportion. Part of the woodland where the axe had not yet done its work of cutting and clipping was given to the children for a playground. They called it “Paradise,” and for all of them it was a place of rapture and mystery. To the others it was full of hiding places,—to little Sarah the hiding places were bowers. They looked for eggs and birds’ nests, and had thrilling encounters with furry wild creatures, which fled at their approach; but her intercourse was all with the fairies and elves and gnomes which peopled the place. After a time they felt the presence of the fairies too; but it was under the influence of her enthusiastic imagination, which controlled their own more mundane perceptions. With her for a leader they often passed into a new world of romance and adventure and high undertakings. They lived in battlemented castles, attended by knights and squires, with danger on all sides met by lofty courage; or they rode on elephants in India, always on dignified missions, attended by great pomp and ceremony; or they lived with fairies, whose gifts might crop up under every toadstool. To be sure, the elephant on which they made their proud progress might at other times, stripped of his trappings, be serviceable as a nursery table, and the fairy gifts were apt to bear a prosaic resemblance to certain well-known and well-worn nursery properties; but invested with the mystery and romance cast upon them by Sarah’s vivid imagination, the little band went, as she led them, into the land of dreams, and felt no incongruity.

Her education went on much as she chose. The best teachers available were employed, and to each in turn she became a favorite and interesting pupil; but though her quick intelligence enabled her to pass excellent examinations and gave her a foremost place in her classes, she really assimilated and retained only what she enjoyed. Mathematics she ignored entirely. All scientific problems fascinated her by their results; but she would not open her mind to the processes by which the results were reached. For languages she had no predilections, though she used her own with singular grace and precision, drawing her words from an apparently limitless vocabulary. Through life this charming use of language, combined with her keen humor and sympathetic appreciation of all that makes life stirring and vital, made her a most fascinating companion. Her delight in literature was her real education. From her early youth she revelled in books, reading so rapidly that it seemed impossible that she could remember what she read; but, in fact, remembering it all! To have looked over a poem two or three times was enough to make it a permanent possession. She devoured history, biography, romances, and poetry, and with intuitive judgment and taste revelled in what was really beautiful and interesting, and discarded the second-rate and commonplace. She began writing at a very early age,—fairy stories, verses, and romances,—but she never published anything until she had reached full maturity. Meantime she grew to vigorous, active womanhood, full of interests and friendships and delightful experiences of one sort and another. She was much loved, and gave such a wealth of self-forgetting, idolizing, ardent affection in return that her friends were all lovers. She drew a circle of loving admirers about her wherever she went, and was always totally unconscious of the charm she worked by her very sweet voice and manner, brilliant fun, and warm sympathy.

The Civil War broke out just as she passed from girlhood to young womanhood. It aroused in her a passion of enthusiasm and devotion, and she threw herself with all her heart and soul into work for the soldiers at home and afield. In the Soldiers’ Hospital at New Haven she was an enthusiastic helper, in the wards, or storeroom, or linen closet, wherever her energy was most needed. And her leisure was filled with knitting or sewing or preparing special diet for the sick and wounded. She was a tireless worker then and ever, and nature had endowed her with great practical gifts. She was an excellent cook and an expert needlewoman, both in plain sewing and the most dainty embroidery, and all work was done with such rapidity and perfection that it was a despair for the race of plodders even to watch her swift achievements.

From New Haven she went to the Convalescent Hospital established at Portsmouth Grove, and was one of a band of excellent workers there during the second year of the war. It was a very developing and vivid experience, and one which she counted among the greatest points of interest in her life.

When the war was over, her old career of busy, never-slackening industry and purpose began again. It was full, as ever, of friendships which could not possibly claim more than she was willing to give. She naturally drew around her the cleverest men and women of her acquaintance, and her society was sought far and near.

But she did not really begin her life as an author until a few years later, when in a grove at Bethlehem, N. H., sitting on a fallen tree, she sketched the outline of “The New Year’s Bargain.” She had sent a few fugitive articles to certain magazines before this, but only now did she take up writing as a real work. That dainty little book, with its fantastic and graceful imaginings, was so well received by the public that she went on in a different vein, through the series of the “Katy Did” books, where fact and fiction, experience and fancy, were so blended that it was hardly possible to say in answer to the eager questionings of some of her little readers where the one ended and the other began. Katy found a large audience, and her biographer went on from children’s books to verses or historical studies, such as “Old Convent Days,” or mere editor’s work, like the condensations of those famous old diaries of Mrs. Delany and Miss Burney. She was consulting reader for Roberts Company in the days when the hall-mark of that firm was a proof of excellence. She was very industrious, but her literary work never seemed the most absorbing part of her life. This was partly because of her intense and vivid interest in the rest of life,—the journeys, the visits, and above all the friends,—and largely because she was absolutely devoid of literary vanity or self-consciousness. She seldom talked of her work or referred in any way to her success. Her verses found a warm welcome in many hearts whose owners were all unknown to her, and sometimes she acknowledged, with a sort of tender surprise, that it was a great reward to have been able to help and encourage others. But anything like flattery or mere compliment was very distasteful to her, and she sometimes owned impatiently that “Susan Coolidge” bored her to death, and she wished she had never heard of her!

While literature became the chief occupation of her life, her artistic temperament and love of the beautiful found expression in many other ways. She instinctively surrounded herself with beautiful objects and colors. Her taste was almost unerring, and harmony of design and softly shaded tints seemed to be her natural setting. She transformed every room she lived in, were it for a week only.

She thought little of her drawings in water color. They were all flower pieces studied from life, and she was conscious of the little instruction she had received and her ignorance of technique. But all the same these lovely panels were a joy to those who were fortunate enough to possess them. As was once said by one who was no mean artist himself, “She can do what many artists—adepts in technique—fail in. She gives us the flower in all its life and spirit.” Her china painting—necessarily more conventional—was still charming, holding something of her individuality.

This vivid life of purpose and energy and never-failing zest appeared to bubble up from such an inexhaustible fountain of vitality that it seemed as if it might go on for ever. But gradually a shadow stole over it—not a very dark one at first, but inexorable. She fought with it, played with it, defied it, but it was always there! She could not acknowledge defeat and was always planning for the future with gay self-confidence; but the shadow grew! By and by the narrowing limits shut her in her chamber, but even then she looked out upon the days to come with undaunted courage. The chamber was not like a sick room. It was bright with sunshine and the sparkle of fire, and scented and gay with the flowers she so dearly loved. Here she read and wrote and saw her many friends. From hence came words of rejoicing for all her dear ones who were happy, and words of truest sympathy for those who were sad. She was one of the few people to whom the joys and sorrows of others are of equal importance to their own. She pondered over the lives of her friends with never-ending interest, and gave at every turn and crisis the truest and most comprehending sympathy. No wonder that so many warmed hands and hearts by that generous flame!

Slowly the shadow deepened. She was disturbed by it, but still wrote happily of the future and filled it with plans and purposes. But one day, April 9, 1905, very gently, Death’s finger touched her. She was not conscious of pain or trouble, “only a new sensation,” but she closed her eyes, and without a word of farewell, was gone away from us.

It is hard to sum up such a life. It was a very full and happy one. She gave much, but received much. She loved beauty, and she was always surrounded by it. She loved friendship, and nobody had more or better friends. She gave them of her best, but she drew their best from them. Hers was an ideal companionship, so full of appreciative interest and sympathy, so illuminated by wit and humor. She was ardent and eager in her plans of life. Nothing could exceed the absorption and energy with which she carried them out. But she accepted disappointment, after a little struggle, with a gay insouciance. So when the final defeat came she seemed to resign herself without struggle to the inevitable, and to those of us who loved her best it seemed as if that sweet and brilliant and unwearied spirit had only folded its wings for a moment before taking a longer and surer flight.

E. D. W. G.

April, 1906.

CONTENTS

LAST VERSES

HELEN KELLER

BEHIND her triple prison-bars shut in

She sits, the whitest soul on earth to-day.

No shadowing stain, no whispered hint of sin,

Into that sanctuary finds the way.

There enters only clear and proven truth

Apportioned for her use by loving hands

And winnowed from all knowledge of all lands

To satisfy her ardent thirst of youth.

Like a strange alabaster mask her face,

Rayless and sightless, set in patience dumb,

Until like quick electric currents come

The signals of life into her lonely place;

Then, like a lamp just lit, an inward gleam

Flashes within the mask’s opacity,

The features glow and dimple suddenly,

And fun and tenderness and sparkle seem

To irradiate the lines once dull and blind,

While the white slender fingers reach and cling

With quick imploring gestures, questioning

The mysteries and the meanings:—to her mind

The world is not the sordid world we know;

It is a happy and benignant spot

Where kindness reigns, and jealousy is not,

And men move softly, dropping as they go

The golden fruit of knowledge for all to share.

And Love is King, and Heaven is very near,

And God to whom each separate soul is dear

Makes fatherly answer to each whispered prayer.

Ah, little stainless soul, shut in so close,

May never hint of doubt creep in to be

A shadow on the calm security

Which wraps thee, as its fragrance wraps a rose.

“A CLOUD OF WITNESSES”

ON Calais sands the breakers roar

In fierce and foaming track;

The screaming sea-gulls dip and soar,

White seen against the black;

And shuddering wind and furling sail

Are making ready for the gale.

Ho, keeper of the Calais Light!

See that your lamps burn free;

For, if they should go out to-night,

There will be wrecks at sea.

Fill them and trim them with due care,

For there is tempest in the air.

“Go out? My lamps go out, you say?

What words are on your lips?

There, in the offing far away,

Are sailing countless ships,

Beyond my ken, beyond my sight,

But all are watching Calais Light.

“If but a single lamp should fail,

A single flame burn dim,

How could they ride the gathering gale,

Or justly steer and trim?

To right, to left, would equal be,

There are no road-marks in the sea.

“I should not hear their drowning cry,

Or see the ship go down,

And weeks and months might pass us by,

Ere came to Calais town

The word—‘A ship was lost one night,

And all for want of Calais Light.’

“Here in my tower, my lamps in row,

I sit the long hours through;

There is no soul to mark or know

If I my duty do;

Yet oftentimes I seem to see

A world of eyes all bent on me!

“Go out! My lamps go out! alas!

It were a woeful day

If ever it should come to pass

That I must live to say,

A ship went down in storm and night,

Because there failed it Calais Light.”

Ah, Christian, in your watch-tower set,

Fill all your lamps and trim;

For though there seem no watchers, yet

Far in the darkness dim,

Where souls are tossing out of view,

A hundred eyes are fixed on you!

COR CORDIUM

ALL diamonded with glittering stars

The vast blue arch of air;

Pent in behind these mortal bars

We strain our eyes to where,

Oh noblest heart, thou walkest apart

Amid thy heavenly kin.

Though blinded with the veils of sense,

We may not look within.

Oh eyes so tender with command!

Oh eloquent lips and true,

Whose speech fell like a quickening fire,

Fell like a healing dew!

Oh zeal so strong to right the wrong,

Oh rich, abounding heart!

Oh stintless, tireless, kindest hand,—

God bless thee where thou art!

Not thine the common fate to live

Through life’s long weary days,

And give all that thou had’st to give

Uncheered by love and praise.

Men did not wait to call thee great

Till death had sealed thy brow.

They crowned thy living head with bays;

What does it matter now?

Thy grave mound is a shrinèd place,

Where pilgrim hearts may go,

With loving thoughts and thankful prayers,

Soft passing to and fro.

Seldom with word the air is stirred,

Seldom with sob or sigh;

All silently and ceaselessly

The march of hearts goes by.

Now half our lives seems lived on earth,

And half in heaven with thee.

Our heart-beats measure out the road

To where we fain would be,—

Beyond this strife of mortal life,

This lonely ache and pain,

Where we who miss and mourn thee so

May find thee once again.

MARTHA

HOT on the pavement burns the summer sun,

In the deep shadow of the ilex tree

The Master rests, while gathering one by one

The neighbors enter, crowding silently

To hear His words, which drop like honey-dew;

I may not hear, there is too much to do.

How can I pause? I seem the only one

To take a thought about this multitude

Who, the day past and all the preaching done,

Will need to be refreshed with wine and food;

We cannot send the people home unfed—

What words were those? “I am the living bread.”

There is my sister sitting the day long

Close to His side, serene and free from care,

Helping me not; and surely it is wrong

To leave to me the task that she should share.

Master, rebuke her, just and true Thou art—

What do I hear? “She hath the better part.”

If all chose thus then all would go unfed—

Souls hunger, yes! but bodies have their need.

Some one must grind and mix the daily bread,

Some one wake early that the rest may feed,

Some one bear burdens, face the summer sun—

But must I always, always be the one?

“Cumbered with serving,” thus the Master spake;

But ’twas to serve Him that I worked so hard

(And I would serve the year long for His sake).

I dare not take the rest which is reward

Lest He should suffer while I stay my hand.

How hard it is, how hard to understand!

What does a voice say? “He whose power divine

Could feed the thousands on the mountain side

Needeth no fretting, puny aid like thine.

One thing is needful, trust him to provide;

The Heavenly Chance comes once nor tarries long”—

Master, forgive me, teach me, I was wrong!

CAEN
1894

IN the quaint Norman city, far apart,

A width of humming distance set between,

They rest who once lived closely heart to heart,

William the conquering Duke and his fair Queen.

Too near of kin to wed, the Church averred,

And barred the way which joy was fain to tread;

But hearts spoke louder than the priestly word,

And youth and love o’erleaped the barrier dread.

No will of wax had England’s future King;

With iron hand he brushed the curse aside,

As ’twere a slight and disregarded thing,

And asking leave of no man, claimed his bride.

And they were happy, spite of ban and blame,

Rich in renown, estate, in valiant deed;

And the sweet Duchess at her broidery frame

Wrought her lord’s victories for all men to read.

But as the years of wedlock ebbed and flowed,

And still the Church averted her stern face,

The royal pair grew weary of the load

Of unrepented sin and long disgrace,

And bought a peace from late relenting Rome.

Two stately abbeys built they, and endowed,

With carven pinnacle and tower and dome,

And soaring spire and bell-chimes pealing loud.

Within the crypt of one they buried her,

True wife and queen, when her time came to die;

And when strong death conquered the Conqueror,

He slept beneath the other’s altar high.

Was it of love’s devising that to-day,

With all the wide-grown city space to bar,

Across the roofs and towers from far away

St. Etienne looks upon La Trinita?

Was it some subtle prescience of the heart,

Which laid on time and change resistless spell,

Forbidding both to hide or hold apart

The resting-place of those who loved so well?

For still defying distance, day and night

The spires like beckoning fingers seem to rise,

The bells to call, as perished voices might,

“Love is not dead, Beloved; love never dies!”

TEMPERAMENTS

JACOB BOEHME, Sage and Mystic, wert thou right or wert thou wrong,

In believing and upholding that all human souls belong

To some elemental structure, be they weak or be they strong?

That each separate spirit made is of one element, and shows,

By its power or by its weakness, its unrest or its repose,

Whether earth, air, fire, or water is the Source from which it flows?

’Tis a difficult conclusion; but, as in the jewel’s blue,

Red and rose and green and amber flash and leap and sparkle through,

Through your speculative fancy seems to scintillate the true.

For the variance of the creature whom we call our fellow-man,

Framed alike in needs and passions, on the self-same human plan,

Grows more wide, more past believing, as we study it and scan.

Ah, the temperaments, the fateful, how they front us and surprise,

Looking with bewildering distance out of wistful, alien eyes,

Never drawing any nearer, or to hate or sympathize.

Eager, dominant, all unresting are the spirits born of Fire,

Burning with a fitful fever, ever reaching high and higher,

Shrivelling weaker wills before them in the heat of their desire.

Cool, elusive, fluctuating, hard to fix and strangely fair

Are the difficult, grievous, grieving souls which born of Water are—

Ours to-day, not ours to-morrow; never ours to hold and wear.

Vainly love and passion battle ’gainst their unresisting chill,

Like the oar-stroke in the water which the drops make haste to fill,

The impression melts and wavers, the cool surface fronts us still.

But the souls of Air! ah, sweetest, rarest of the human kind,

They the poets are, the singers, making music for the mind,

Lifting up the weight of living like a fresh and rushing wind.

And the souls of Earth, dear, steadfast, firm of root and sure of stay,

Not disdaining commonplaces, not afraid of every day,

Taking from the air and water and the sunshine what they may.

Theirs the dower of happy giving, theirs the heritage of Fate

Which, when faith has grown to fulness, and the little is made great,

Brings to love its true rewarding, harvested or soon or late.

Jacob Boehme, by-gone mystic, gifted with a strange insight,

As I read your yellowed pages, which in former times were white,

And review my men and women, half I deem that you were right.

THE HOLY NAME

’TIS said when pious Moslem walk abroad,

If on the path they spy a floating bit

Of paper, reverently they turn aside

And shun the scrap, nor set a foot on it,

Lest haply thereupon the awful name

Of mighty Allah should by chance be writ.

We smile at the vain dread; but blind and dull

The soul that only smiles, and cannot see

A thought of perfect beauty folded in

The zealot’s reverent fear, as in some free

And flaunting flower-cup may be hived and held

One drop of precious honey for the bee.

Small wind-blown things there are, which any day

Float by in air or on our pathway lie,