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The Rose-Jar

Thomas S. Jones, Jr.

Author of The Path o’ Dreams, etc.

Clinton, New York

GEORGE WILLIAM BROWNING

Copyrighted 1906 by Thomas S. Jones, Jr.

The author desires to thank the editors of Appleton’s Magazine, Everybody’s Magazine, Lippincott’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Smart Set, and the other publications in which the verses in this collection originally appeared, for their kind permission to reprint.

This Edition of The Rose-Jar Printed by George William Browning at Clinton New York during the Summer of 1906 consists of Three Hundred copies on Deckle-Edged Paper, with Twelve additional copies on Imperial Japan Vellum (Insetsu Kioku).

NUMBER 258

To the Memory of My Mother

CONTENTS

1. [As in a Rose-Jar] [11]
2. [The Island] [12]
3. [You and I] [13]
4. [A Ballade of Old Romance] [14]
5. [A Voice from the Far Away] [16]
6. [April] [17]
7. [A Yesterday] [18]
8. [Violets] [19]
9. [A Song of Life] [20]
10. [As a Still Brook] [21]
11. [At the Window] [22]
12. [A Sea Spell] [23]
13. [The Silent Country] [24]
14. [The Sport of a God] [25]
15. [Remembrance] [26]
16. [In Days of Old] [27]
17. [We Once Built a House o’ Dreams] [28]
18. [A Song of the Way] [29]
19. [In Trinity Church-Yard at Sunset] [30]
20. [Where Cross-Roads Part] [31]
21. [Saida] [32]
22. [In Arcady] [33]
23. [The Summer Rain] [34]
24. [Impression] [35]
25. [Derelicts] [36]
26. [The End of the Day] [38]
27. [Tristesse] [39]
28. [Interlude] [40]
29. [To You, Dear Heart] [41]
30. [Twilight] [42]
31. [The Poet] [43]
32. [The Hunchback] [44]
33. [The Little Ghosts] [45]
34. [I Know a Quiet Vale] [46]
35. [Song] [47]
36. [Immutability] [48]
37. [In the Fall o’ Year] [49]
38. [Love’s Song] [50]
39. [The Golden Hour] [51]
40. [The Dream-Way] [52]
41. [The Spirit of Autumn] [53]
42. [On the Long Road] [54]
43. [A Postlude] [55]
44. [An Old Song] [56]
45. [Old Roses] [57]

The Rose-Jar

As in a Rose-Jar

As in a rose-jar filled with petals sweet

Blown long ago in some old garden place,

Mayhap, where you and I, a little space,

Drank deep of love and knew that love was fleet—

Or leaves once gathered from a lost retreat

By one who never will again retrace

Her silent footsteps—one, whose gentle face

Was fairer than the roses at her feet;

So, deep within the vase of memory,

I keep my dust of roses fresh and dear

As in the days before I knew the smart

Of time and death. Nor aught can take from me

The haunting fragrance that still lingers here—

As in a rose-jar, so within my heart!

The Island

There is an island in the silent sea,

Whose marge the wistful waves lap listlessly—

An isle of rest for those who used to be.

For ne’er an echo wakes that towering wall,

Whose blackened crags answer none other call

Save the lone ocean’s rhythmic rise and fall.

Only the song the sea sings as she laves

That sleep-bound shore with sad caressing waves,

The while the dead sleep sweeter in their graves.

’Tis oh! so still they sleep within each tomb,

Cool in long shadows of the cypress gloom,

Breathing in death the moon-flower’s rank perfume.

They know not when slow barges on the mere

Enter the portals of that place austere—

Enter and so forever disappear!

And in this island of a silent sea,

Whose marge e’er wistful waves lap listlessly,

Is rest,—is peace for all eternity.

You and I

Over the hills where the pine-trees grow,

With a laugh to answer the wind at play.

Why do I laugh? I do not know,

But you and I once passed this way.

Down in the hollow now white with snow

My heart is singing a song today.

Why do I sing? I do not know,

But you and I were here in May.

A Ballade of Old Romance

When April spreads her mantle green

Across the pasture-lands of snow,

And Spring’s first scarlet breasts are seen

Where treetops rustle to and fro;

Then come fair fragrant dreams as though

Our lightest fancy to entrance

And paint us what we fain would know

Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Anon, we see the golden sheen

Of burnished mail the sunbeams throw,

Flashing the poplars tall between,

As knights ride by to meet the foe;

Or, mayhap, shepherd lads who blow

On slender pipes, a pastoral dance—

Ah, strong were they in weal and woe

Adown the lanes of Old Romance!

But now the vast years intervene,

The fountain long has ceased its flow,

And silence rules the lone demesne

That once held such a goodly show;

Yet time, at least, does this bestow

Nor leave the best to fleeting chance—

They live again in fancy’s glow

Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

ENVOY

Sweet, still for us some blossoms grow

From out that dim and dear expanse—

Come, take my hand and we shall go

Adown the lanes of Old Romance!

A Voice From the Far Away

I heard a voice from the far away

Softly say this to me—

“You will find the heart of the world some day

And the why of the things that be;

You will see the grief of the yea and nay

And the price of frailty.

“And upon your lute you will weave a theme

Which the world will harken and know;

For every note of the song will teem

With a great soul’s overflow—

You will speak the meaning within a dream

And the pain in the afterglow.

“But for all of this there’s a price—

’Tis the price of minstrelsy—

You will never have of the things you play,

Sad singer of poetry,

And throughout your life you will go for aye,

Heart-hungry and silently!”

I heard a voice from the far away

Softly say this to me.

April

Throughout the vale again Narcissus cries

And Echo answers from her dark retreat,

While Zephyr heavy-laden with the sweet,

Fresh scent of blooms across the pasture hies;

Above, the blueness of the April skies,

Matched by the lure unto the wandering feet

That e’er must go ere Spring could be complete

To the green wood where laughing Eros lies.

O April lover, hear the pipes that call,

The pipes of Pan a-blowing lustily,

They call to you and me, and he who hears

Must ever after be Young April’s thrall—

So, faring thus together, we shall see

The Islands of the Blest between the Spheres!

A Yesterday

I held you in my arms—so happy I,

Who quite forgot the while that moments fly;

Nor ever dreamed that they could pass away,

Till it was yesterday.

Yet, just because that hour was long ago

And seems to me so near—well, this I know

That sometime I shall clasp your hand and say:

Was there a yesterday?

Violets

’Twas just at sundown, when the leaves were wet

With evening dew,

Far in the fields where sky and violet

Blend rifts of blue—

But for a moment, deep among the flowers

And rain-sweet grass,

I saw her—loved her—and as April showers

Beheld her pass.

O, the lone vastness of the afterglow,

Unknown before;

Shall e’er I see that face where violets grow,

Perchance, once more!

Yet no one comes save night, with wild regrets

And silent pain—

Only sometimes the scent of violets

On wind-blown rain.

A Song of Life

What if the song is sung, I say,

As long as the song was sung!

Did we not meet with the blood’s best play

The lash of the winds and the rain that stung,

And the tang of the salty spray?

Did we not drink the last drop that clung

To the golden bowl with its glowing fire,

Yet so cool to our burning tongue?

Did we not love with a love entire

That made up for all and a world of clay

In a moment of wild desire?

What if the song is sung, I say,

As long as the song was sung!

As a Still Brook

As a still brook within the woodland’s green

Sings softly to itself the live-long day,

Unconscious of its gentle roundelay,

Its open purity and silver sheen—

Knowing not how in all that wild demesne,

Its music is a strain the angels play

And its fair face a jewel amid the gray,

Beshadowed places that it flows between;

So your dear love, a simple forest stream,

Bearing the wealth of all that life can hold,—

Nor ever dreaming of the worth that lies

Deep in your heart—why, you have made it seem

That every empty hour is wrought of gold

And this tear-sodden world, a Paradise!

At the Window

I looked out of my window tall

And laughed to see the May,

For everything both great and small

Was on a holiday.

Then Love came by and laughed at me,

And I forgot the Spring—

Only I knew the ecstasy

Of madly listening.

And now the branches all again

Are red with vernal May,

But tears have dimmed the window-pane—

And no one comes my way.

A Sea Spell

The sunset sea—a goblet thick inlaid

With jewels wrought in golden filigree,

An opal from some elfin treasury

Burning with fire and flashing every shade;

While round the dim horizon, wide displayed

The clouds pile up their largess tenderly

As if to clothe the beauty of the sea

In filmy gossamer and soft brocade.

And far away I think I almost hear

A horn’s faint echo through the dusk-hour’s veil

As in the happy, golden days of yore—

Mayhap, e’en now upon this magic mere

Frail shallops will flit by and mermaids pale

Will lure us back to fairy-land once more!

The Silent Country

Wave, wave sweet blooms of May and on your wings

Bear me away with drowsy winnowings

To some far twilight land where steals a stream

From out the cool and soundless groves of Dream.

For in the Spring is such a bitter smart

Even the thought of it will break my heart,

So take me softly to a leafy bed

Where I shall dream and dream you are not dead!

The Sport of a God

Though they say Jove laughs at the lover’s vow—

At the lover’s vow that must break some day—

Still we smiled as we loved in a distant May

When the blooms were heavy upon the bough.

O, the mocking difference of then and now!

It isn’t a thought that will make one gay,

Though they say Jove laughs at the lover’s vow—

At the lover’s vow that must break some day.

Yet, perhaps, the god knows the best way how

To carry a mask when the feet are clay;

So I too shall laugh at the merry play,

For down in his heart there’s a knife, I trow,

Though they say Jove laughs at the lover’s vow.

Remembrance

Sweet rosemary within the lane

The while the day is warm and clear,

And ne’er a thought of bitter rain

Or the road-side sere.

But there are flowers more dear to me

That time can never set apart—

The fragrant blooms of memory

That grow within the heart.

In Days of Old

Of all the ages’ gain, the ages’ loss,

A wealth of wonders and so much away—

When now hears one the woodland elves at play,

Or angry dryads where tall tree-tops toss.

No more they lightly tread the dewy moss

As danced they through cool haunts in ecstasy;

But rank and lost the paths in lone decay

Where fairy footsteps once were wont to cross.

O, happy Greeks, who knew the gods so well,

To you I burn my sacrificial fire!

Again reveal the mystic hidden rune

Whereby to find the slopes of asphodel—

Ah, then to hear Apollo charm his lyre

And see Diana ’neath the sickle moon.

We Once Built a House o’ Dreams

We once built a house o’ dreams

At the break o’ day

Made from out the first gold beams

On the sward astray.

Little did we think or care

’Twas not safe nor strong;

We were very happy there

And the day was long.

Now we leave our house o’ dreams,

Why, we do not know;

Only this—so strange it seems

And so hard to go!

A Song of the Way

Give me the road, the great broad road,

That wanders over the hill;

Give me a heart without a care

And a free, unfettered will—

Ah, thus to journey, thus to fare,

With only the skies to frown,

And happy I, if the ways but lie

Away, away from the town.

Give me the path, the wild-wood path

That wanders deep in a dell,

Where silence sleeps and sunbeams fain

Would waken the slumber spell—

For there the gods find the world again,

Immortals of ancient lore,

And time is gone, and a mad-glad faun

Knows the glades of Greece once more.

In Trinity Church-Yard at Sunset

How still they sleep within the city moil

In their old church-yard with its sighing trees,

Where sometimes through the din a twilight breeze

Makes one forget the busy streets of toil;

But they have little thought of worldly spoil

Or the great gain of mortal victories,

Their hopes, their dreams, are cold and dead as these

Quaint, time-worn gravestones crumbling on the soil.

Yet they once lived and struggled years ago;

Their hearts beat madly as these hearts of ours—

And now is all undone in dreamless rest?

See, a great city stands against the glow—

Their city, they who here beneath the flowers