John Charles McNeill

        A soaking sedge,
        A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,

        Low clouds and rain,
        And loneliness and languor worse than pain.

        Mottled with moss,
        Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.

        Shrill streaks of light
        Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,

        And low between,
        The sombre cedar and the ivy green.

        Upon the stone
        Of each in turn who called this land his own

        The gray rain beats
        And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,

        And at my eaves
        A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and grieves.

        Cows in the stall and sheep in the fold;
        Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold;
            A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere;
            The twitter of killdees keen in the air;
        The noise of a wagon that jolts through the gloam
            On the last load home.

        There are lights in the windows; a blue spire of smoke
        Climbs from the grange grove of elm and oak.
            The smell of the Earth, where the night pours to her
            Its dewy libation, is sweeter than myrrh,
        And an incense to Toil is the smell of the loam
            On the last load home.

        The little loves and sorrows are my song:
            The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
            Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
        O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
        The little cares and carols that belong
            To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
            And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
        Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

        If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
            And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
        Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
            Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
        More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
        Time, looking back at last, should count my ...

        When in the Scorpion circles low
            The sun with fainter, dreamier light,
        And at a far-off hint of snow
            The giddy swallows take to flight,
        And droning insects sadly know
            That cooler falls the autumn night;

        When airs breathe drowsily and sweet,
            Charming the woods to colors gay,
        And distant pastures send the bleat
            Of hungry lambs at break of day,
        Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet,
            And, good-by, home!    I'm called away!

        There on the hills should I behold,
            Sitting upon an old gray stone
        That humps its back up through the mold,
            And piping in a monotone,
        Pan, as he sat in days of old,
 ...

        When first I stood before you,
                Isabel,
        I stood there to adore you,
                In your spell;
        For all that grace composes,
        And all that beauty knows is
        Your face above the roses,
                Isabel.

        You knew the charm of flowers,
                Isabel,
        Which, like incarnate hours,
                Rose and fell
        At your bosom, glowed and gloried,
        White and pale and pink and florid,
        And you touched them with your forehead,
                Isabel.

        Amid the jest and laughter,
                Isabel,
        I saw you, and thereafter,
                Ill or well,
        There was nothing else worth seeing,
        Wor...

        If I have had some merry times
            In roaming up and down the earth,
        Have made some happy-hearted rhymes
            And had my brimming share of mirth,
        And if this song should live in fame
            When my brief day is dead and gone,
        Let it recall with mine the name
            Of old man Jesse Covington.

        Let it recall his waggish heart--
            Yeke-hey, yeke-hey, hey-diddle-diddle--
        When, while the fire-logs fell apart,
            He snatched the bow across his fiddle,
        And looked on, with his eyes half shut,
            Which meant his soul was wild with fun,
        At our mad capers through the hut
            Of old man Jesse Covington.

        For all the thrilling tale...

        God willed, who never needed speech,
                "Let all things be:"
        And, lo, the starry firmament
                And land and sea
        And his first thought of life that lives
                In you and me.

        His circle of eternity
                We see in part;
        Our spirits are his breath, our hearts
                Beat from his heart;
        Hence we have played as little gods
                And called it art.

        Lacking his power, we shared his dream
                Of perfect things;
        Between the tents of hope and sweet
                Rememberings
        Have sat in ashes, but our souls
                Went forth on wings.

        Where life fell short of some desire
...

        To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray
        Above this page to-day,
        Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,
        Grows year by year more fair,

        Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,
        That haply passing time
        May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay
        When we have gone our way;

        And, to strange men, weary of field and street,
        Should this, my song, seem sweet,
        Yours be the joy, for all that made it so
        You know, dear heart, you know.

        Oh, I can jest with Margaret
            And laugh a gay good-night,
        But when I take my Helen's hand
            I dare not clasp it tight.

        I dare not hold her dear white hand
            More than a quivering space,
        And I should bless a breeze that blew
            Her hair into my face.

        'T is Margaret I call sweet names:
            Helen is too, too dear
        For me to stammer little words
            Of love into her ear.

        So now, good-night, fair Margaret,
            And kiss me e'er we part!
        But one dumb touch of Helen's hand,
            And, oh, my heart, my heart!

(Died October 8, 1904)



        For him, who in a hundred battles stood
            Scorning the cannon's mouth,
        Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood,
            For thy sweet sake, O South;

        Who, wise as brave, yielded his conquered sword
            At a vain war's surcease,
        And spoke, thy champion still, the statesman's word
            In the calm halls of peace;

        Who pressed the ruddy wine to thy faint lips,
            Where thy torn body lay,
        And saw afar time's white in-sailing ships
            Bringing a happier day:

        Oh, mourn for him, dear land that gave him birth!
            Bow low thy sorrowing head!
        Let thy seared leaves fall silent on the earth
  ...

        Her brown hair knew no royal crest,
            No gems nor jeweled charms,
        No roses her bright cheek caressed,
            No lilies kissed her arms.
        In simple, modest womanhood
            Clad, as was meet, in white,
        The fairest flower of all, she stood
            Amid the softest light.

        It had been worth a perilous quest
            To see the court she drew,--
        My rose, my gem, my royal crest,
            My lily moist with dew;
        Worth heaven, when, with farewells from each
            The gay throng let us be,
        To see her turn at last and reach
            Her white hands out to me.

        Green moss will creep
        Along the shady graves where we shall sleep.

        Each year will bring
        Another brood of birds to nest and sing.

        At dawn will go
        New ploughmen to the fields we used to know.

        Night will call home
        The hunter from the hills we loved to roam.

        She will not ask,
        The milkmaid, singing softly at her task,

        Nor will she care
        To know if I were brave or you were fair.

        No one will think
        What chalice life had offered us to drink,

        When from our clay
        The sun comes back to kiss the snow away.

        The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
        O, month of memories!
        Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
        Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

        I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
        To cast down at thy feet
        The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
        And on thy cheek a tear.

        Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
        To blind the eyes of grief;
        Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
        That sorrow may be mute;

        A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,
        Ere the gray dusk may creep
        Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,
        Like a lone nun, who prays;

        High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;<...

        A horror of great darkness over them,
        No cloud of fire to guide and cover them,
        Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread,
        They crouch on alien soil among their dead.

        "Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward,"
        This was thine ancient covenant, O Lord,
        Which, sealed with mirth, these many thousand years
        Is black with blood and blotted out with tears.

        Have these not toiled through Egypt's burning sun,
        And wept beside the streams of Babylon,
        Led from thy wilderness of hill and glen
        Into a wider wilderness of men?

        Life bore them ever less of gain than loss,
        Before and since Golgotha's piteous Cross,
        And surely, now, their sorrow hath...

        Love, should I set my heart upon a crown,
            Squander my years, and gain it,
        What recompense of pleasure could I own?
            For youth's red drops would stain it.

        Much have I thought on what our lives may mean,
            And what their best endeavor,
        Seeing we may not come again to glean,
            But, losing, lose forever.

        Seeing how zealots, making choice of pain,
            From home and country parted,
        Have thought it life to leave their fellows slain,
            Their women broken-hearted;

        How teasing truth a thousand faces claims,
            As in a broken mirror,
        And what a father died for in the flames
            His own son scorns as error;

 ...

        Give over now; forbear.    The moonlight steeps
        In silver silence towered castle-keeps
            And cottage crofts, where apples bend the bough.
        Peace guards us round, and many a tired heart sleeps.
            Let me brush back the shadow from your brow.
            Give over now.

        On such a night, how sweet, how sweet is life,
        Even to the insect piper with his fife!
            And must your troubled face still bear the blight
        Of strength that runs itself to waste in strife?
            For love's own heart should throb through all the light
            Of such a night.

        A century of silent suns
            Have set since he was laid on sleep,
        And now they bear with booming guns
            And streaming banners o'er the deep
        A withered skin and clammy hair
            Upon a frame of human bones:
        Whose corse?    We neither know nor care,
            Content to name it John Paul Jones.

        His dust were as another's dust;
            His bones--what boots it where they lie?
        What matter where his sword is rust,
            Or where, now dark, his eagle eye?
        No foe need fear his arm again,
            Nor love, nor praise can make him whole;
        But o'er the farthest sons of men
            Will brood the glory of his soul.

        Careless though cenotaph or to...

        Oh, I am weary, weary, weary
            Of Pan and oaten quills
        And little songs that, from the dictionary,
            Learn lore of streams and hills,
        Of studied laughter, mocking what is merry,
            And calculated thrills!

        Are we grown old and past the time of singing?
            Is ardor quenched in art
        Till art is but a formal figure, bringing
            A money-measured heart,
        Procrustean cut, and, with old echoes, ringing
            Its bells about the mart?

        The race moves on, and leaves no wildernesses
            Where rugged voices cry;
        It reads its prayer, and with set phrase it blesses
            The souls of men who die,
        And step by even step its rank p...