Produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
by
[Illustration: JESSAMINE]
Upon the enchanted ladder of his rhymes,
Round after round and patiently
The poet ever upward climbs.
I need give my verse no hint as to whom it sings for. The rose,knowing her own right, makes servitors of the light-rays to carry hercolor. So every line here shall in some sense breathe of thee, and inits very face bear record of her whom, however unworthily, it seeks toserve and honor.
FIRST GLANCE
"THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES"
"WHEN, LOOKING DEEPLY IN THY FACE"
WITHIN A YEAR
THE SINGING WIRE
MOODS OF LOVE:
I. In Absence
II. Heart's Fountain
III. South-Wind Song
IV. The Lover's Year
V. New Worlds
VI. Wedding-Night
LOVE'S DEFEAT
MAY AND MARRIAGE
THE FISHER OF THE CAPE
SAILOR'S SONG
JESSAMINE
GRIEF'S HERO
A FACE IN THE STREET
THE BATHER
HELEN AT THE LOOM
"O WHOLESOME DEATH"
BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER
ARISE, AMERICAN!
THE SILENT TIDE
O wayward rose, why dost thou wreathe so high,
Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy?
"The pulses of the wind my life uplift,
And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift;
"And all my fibres, in a quick consent
Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent.
"I feel the shaking of the far-off sea,
And all things growing blend their life with me:
"When men and women on me look, there glows
Within my veins a life not of the rose.
"Then let me grow, until I touch the sky,
And let me grow and grow until I die!"
So, every year, the sweet rose shooteth higher,
And scales the roof upon its wings of fire,
And pricks the air, in lovely discontent,
With thorns that question still of its intent.
But when it reached the roof-tree, there it clung,
Nor ever farther up its blossoms flung.
O wayward rose, why hast thou ceased to climb?
Hast thou forgot the ardor of thy prime?
"O hearken!"—thus the rose-spray, listening,—
"With what weird music sweet these full hearts ring!
"What mazy ripples of deep, eddying sound,