The strain where first-love thrilled the bars
Beneath the priesthood of the stars;

The murmur of soft lullabies

Above dear unconsenting eyes;

The hymns where once her pure soul trod

The heights above the hills of God,

All on the quavering note awoke,

And in a silent passion broke,

And made that tender tune and word

The sweetest song I ever heard.

AT THE POTTER'S

From Titian's Garden and Other Poems. Copyright 1897, by Copeland & Day

The other could a thing more fair
Be made of clay? Blushed not so soft
The almond blossom in the light;

A lily's stem was not so slight

With lovely lines that lift aloft

Pure grace and perfectness full-blown;

And not beneath the finger tip

So smooth, or pressed upon the lip,

The velvet petal of a rose.

Less fair were some great flower that blows
In a king's garden, changed to stone!

King's gardens do not grow such flowers,—
In a dream garden was it blown!
Fine fancies, in long sunny hours,

Brought it to beauty all its own.
With silent song its shape was wrought
From dart of wing, from droop of spray,
From colors of the breaking day,

Transfigured in a poet's thought.

At last, the finished flower of art
The dream-flower on its slender stem
What fierce flames fused it to a gem!
A thousand times its weight in gold
A prince paid, ere its price was told;
Then set it on a shelf apart.

But through the market's gentle gloom,
Crying his ever-fragrant oil,
That should anoint the bride in bloom,

That should the passing soul assoil,
Later the man with attar came,

And tossed a penny down and poured

In the rude jar his precious hoard.

What perfume, like a subtile flame,

Sprang through its substance happy-starred!

Whole roses into blossom leapt,

Whole gardens in its warm heart slept!
Long afterwards, thrown down in haste,
The jar lay, shattered and made waste,
But sweet to its remotest shard!

EQUATIONS

From Titian's Garden and Other Poems. Copyright 1897, by Copeland & Day

you so sure the world is full of laughter,

You

Not a place in it for any sorrow,
Sunshine with no shadow to come after-
Wait, O mad one, wait until to-morrow!

You so sure the world is full of weeping,
Only gloom in all the colors seven,
Every wind across a new grave creeping —
Think, O sad one, yesterday was heaven!

*

YOUNG and strong I went along the highway,
Seeking Joy from happy sky to sky;

I met Sorrow coming down a byway-
What had she to do with such as I?

Sorrow with a slow detaining gesture

Waited for me on the widening way,
Threw aside her shrouding veil and vesture-
Joy had turned to Sorrow's self that day!

IF SOME great giver give me life,

And give me love, and give me double,
Shall I not also at his hand

Take trouble?

And if through awful gloom I see

The lightnings of his great will thrusting,
Shall I not, dying at his hand,

Die trusting?

"WHEN FIRST YOU WENT »

From Titian's Garden and Other Poems. Copyright 1897, by Copeland

& Day

HEN first you went, oh, desert was the day,

WH

The lonely day, and desert was the night;

And alien was the power that robbed from me

The white and starlike beauty of your face,

The white and starlike splendor of your soul!
Since you were all of life, I too had died,-
Died, not as you into the larger life,

---

But into nothingness, had not the thought
Of your bright being led outward, as a beam
Piercing the labyrinthine gloom shows light
Somewhere existing.

Like a golden lure

Bringing me to the open was the thought,-
For since I loved you still, you still must be,
And where you were, there I must follow you.
And follow, follow, follow, cried the winds,
And follow, follow, murmured all the tides,
And follow, sang the stars that wove the web
Of their white orbits far in shining space,
Where Sirius with his dark companion went.
Bound in the bands of Law they ranged the deep;
And Law, I said, means Will to utter Law;
And Will means One, indeed, to have the Will.

And having found that One, shall it not be
The One Supreme of all, whose power I prove,
Whose inconceivable intelligence

Faintly divine, and who perforce must dwell
Compact of love, that most supreme of all?
Had I found God, and should I not find you?

That love supreme will never mock my search.
That thought accordant in the infinite
The great flame of your spirit will not quench.
That power embattled through the universe

Needs in all firmaments your panoply

Of stainless purity, of crystal truth;
Your sympathy that melts into the pang,
Your blazing wrath with wrong, your tenderness
To every small or suffering thing, as sweet
As purple twilight touching throbbing eyes;
Your answer to great music when it breathes
Silver and secret speech from sphere to sphere;
Your thrill before the beauty of the earth;
Your passion for the sorrow of the race!
You who in the gray waste of night awoke
When clashing mill-bells frolicking in air
Called up the day, and sounded in your ear
Clank of enormous fetters that have bound
Labor in all lands; you whose pity went
Out on the long swell where the fisherman
Slides with his shining boat-load in the dark;
You whom the versed in statecraft paused to hear,
The sullen prisoner blest, the old man loved,
The little children ran along beside;

You who to women were the Knight of God.
Therefore as God lives, so I know do you.

And with that knowledge comes a keener joy
Than blushing, beating, folds young love about.
Again the sky burns azure, and the stars
Lean from their depths to tell me of your state.
Again the sea-line meets the line divine,
And the surge shatters in wide melody;
The unguessed hues that the soul swells to note
Haunting the rainbow's edges lead me on;
And all the dropping dews of summer nights
Keep measure with the music in my heart.
And still I climb where you have passed before,
Unchallenged spirit who inclosed my days
As in a jewel, walled about with light!
And far, far off, I seem to see you go
Familiar of unknown immensity,
And move, enlarged to all the rosy vast,
And boon companion of the dawn beyond.

MADAME DE STAËL

(1766-1817)

N THE very interesting and admirable notice of Madame de Staël by her cousin, Madame Necker de Saussure, it is said: "The works of Madame de Staël seem to belong to the future. They indicate, as they also tend to produce, a new epoch in society and in letters; an age of strong, generous, living thought,-of emotions springing from the heart:" and there follows a description of the sort of literature to which Madame de Staël's writings belong, - a literature "more spoken than written," a literature of spontaneous, informal expression, which appeals to us more intimately and more powerfully than any elaborate and studied composition. This appeal is especially intimate and powerful in Madame de Staël's pages, because she may be called, perhaps, the first "modern woman." She had in many respects a tone of mind resembling our Own more than it resembled that of the greater number of even the noteworthy men and women of her own day. There is a much greater moral distance between her and her immediate predecessors in society and in literature, than between her and her immediate successors-whether in France or elsewhere. This kinship with the last half of the nineteenth century, and with other modes of thought than those of her own country, is partly due to her Protestant form of faith. She cared little for dogmas, but the fibre of her being had been fed by liberal Protestant thought. From this cause chiefly, though there were others also, arose a striking contrast between the tone of her mind and that of her great contemporary Châteaubriand. Their opinions on all subjects were affected and colored by their religious opinions. He is now remote from us, he is read as "a classic": she comes close to us, and inspires us with friendly emotions.

MADAME DE STAËL

To be in advance of one's age, if one is a genius, is to tread a sure path to immortality; but if, like Madame de Staël, one is only the possessor of intellectual ability, it is the straight road to forgetfulness. Those who come after us take little interest in hearing