As restless as the desert winds,
Yet here he stands like carven stone,
His raven locks by breezes moved
And backward o'er his shoulders blown;
Silent, yet watchful as he waits
Robed in his strange, barbaric guise,
While here and there go searchingly
The cat-like wanderings of his eyes.
The eagle feather on his head
Is dull with many a bloody stain,
While darkly on his lowering brow
Forever rests the mark of Cain.
Have you but seen a tiger caged
And sullen through his barriers glare?
Mark well his human prototype,
The fierce Apache fettered there.
I FEAR NO POWER A WOMAN
WIELDS
I FEAR no power a woman wields
While I can have the woods and fields,
With comradeship alone of gun,
Gray marsh-wastes and the burning sun.
O THORN-CROWNED Sorrow, pitiless and stern,
I sit alone with broken heart, my head
Low bowed, keeping long vigil with my dead.
My soul, unutterably sad, doth yearn
Beyond relief in tears they only burn
My aching eyelids to fall back unshed
Upon the throbbing brain like molten lead,
Making it frenzied. Shall I ever learn
To face you fearlessly, as by my door
You stand with haunting eyes and death-
damp hair,
Through the night-watches, whispering solemnly,
"Behold, I am thy guest forevermore." It chills my soul to know that you are there. Great God, have mercy on my misery!
O POWER of Love, O wondrous mystery!
How is my dark illumined by thy light,
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation! yea, I see
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright,
To-day's proportion to Eternity.
Through thee, my faith in God is made
My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;
The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings
Through thee become more easy to endure. Love-strong I mount, and Heaven's high summit scale;
Through thee, my soul has spread her folded wings.
My little one begins his feet to try,
A tottering, feeble, inconsistent way;
Pleased with the effort, he forgets his play,
And leaves his infant baubles where they
lie.
Laughing and proud his mother flutters nigh,
Turning to go, yet joy-compelled to stay, And, bird-like, singing what her heart would say;
But not so certain of my bliss am I.
For I bethink me of the days in store
Wherein those feet must traverse realms
unknown,
And half forget the pathway to our door.
And I recall that in the seasons flown
We were his all as he was all our own
But never can be quite so any more.
SPIRIT of "fire and dew,"
Whither hast fled?
Thy soul they never knew
Who call thee dead.
Deep thoughts of why and how
Shadowed thine eyes:
Thou hast the answers now
Straight from the skies.
Thrilled with a double power, Nature and Art,
Dowered with a double dower, Reason and heart,
Not souls like thine, in vain
God fashioneth;
Leadeth them forth again,
Gently, by death.
ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL
WERE I transported to some distant
"The sun doth rise and set, hail and farewell."
But comfort ye your heart where'er ye stray,
For those who through this little day do
When even cometh on shall all fare home. LUCY EVANGELINE TILLEY
THE STATUE OF LORENZO DE' | They loosed his tight-swathed arms and
Unwound the cashmere turban, sweet
With spice and attar, stripped the vest
Of gold and crimson from his breast,
And laid his broad, brown bosom bare
To scimeter and desert air.
He stood as moulded statues stand,
With sightless eye and nerveless hand:
As moulded statues stand, but through
The dark skin, at each breath he drew,
The wild heart's wilder beating showed.
Then on the sand he kneeled, and bowed
His head to meet the ready stroke;
The headsman threw aside his cloak,
The curved steel circled in the sun-
Ahmed was dead, and justice done.
JAMES BERRY BENSEL
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