The Mothers.

Beyond the tumult and the proud acclaim,
    Beyond the circle where the glory beats
    With withering light upon the mighty seats,
They hear the far-resounding trump of fame;
On other lips they hear the one-loved name
    In vaunting or derision, and they weep
    To know that they shall never lull to sleep
Those tired heads, crowned with desolating flame.
Beyond the hot arena's baleful glow,
    Beyond the towering pomp they dimly see,
They sit and watch the fateful pageants go
    Through war's red arch, or up to Calvary,
The First Love still within their hearts impearled--
Mothers of all the masters of the world!

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

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Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Midsummer Noon.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

The Snow Man.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

Columbus' Last Voyage.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

The Tornado.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

English

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Mothers

    Through the vigils deep of the sable night
        A mother sits in grief alone,
    For her sons have gone to the battle front
        And left on the hearth a crushing stone.
    Beyond the stars that burn at night
        She sees God's arm in pity reach;
    It counsels patience, love and faith,
        Heroic hearts and souls to teach.

    The blue is spann'd and the tide goes out.
        And the stars rain down a kindlier cheer;
    And the mother turns from this throne of grief
        To pierce the years with a joyous tear;
    For duty born of a mother's heart
        Fills all the rounds of our common day -
    Yea, sheds its joy in the darkest night,
        And fills with light each hidden way.

    For Miss Ina Coolbrith.

Thomas O'Hagan

Down To The Mothers

Linger no more, my beloved, by abbey and cell and cathedral;
Mourn not for holy ones mourning of old them who knew not the Father,
Weeping with fast and scourge, when the bridegroom was taken from them.
Drop back awhile through the years, to the warm rich youth of the nations,
Childlike in virtue and faith, though childlike in passion and pleasure,
Childlike still, and still near to their God, while the day-spring of Eden
Lingered in rose-red rays on the peaks of Ionian mountains.
Down to the mothers, as Faust went, I go, to the roots of our manhood,
Mothers of us in our cradles; of us once more in our glory.
New-born, body and soul, in the great pure world which shall be
In the renewing of all things, when man shall return to his Eden
Conquering evil, and death, and shame, and the sl...

Charles Kingsley

Quatrains.

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

In The Night.

The Child.

I hear you weeping, mother, dear,--
    I hear you wake and weep;
What brings the tears into your eyes
    When you should be asleep?
I hear my name upon your lips;
    What is it that you say
Of one who broke a trusting heart,
    But now is far away?


The Mother.

I weep for you, my pretty lass,
    Frail flower of love unblessed,
Because I can not always hold
    You close unto my breast;
I weep that you some day must go
    Alone your way to find,
For, oh, you have your mother's eyes,
    And men are seldom kind!

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Centennial.

A hundred times the bells of Brown
    Have rung to sleep the idle summers,
And still to-day clangs clamouring down
    A greeting to the welcome comers.

And far, like waves of morning, pours
    Her call, in airy ripples breaking,
And wanders to the farthest shores,
    Her children's drowsy hearts awaking.

The wild vibration floats along,
    O'er heart-strings tense its magic plying,
And wakes in every breast its song
    Of love and gratitude undying.

My heart to meet the summons leaps
    At limit of its straining tether,
Where the fresh western sunlight steeps
    In golden flame the prairie heather.

And others, happier, rise and fare
    To pass within the hallowed portal,
And see the glory shining there
    Shrine...

John Hay

Matri Dilectissimae - I.M. - In The Waste Hour

In the waste hour
Between to-day and yesterday
We watched, while on my arm -
Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone -
Dabbled in sweat the sacred head
Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange:
Till the dear face turned dead,
And to a sound of lamentation
The good, heroic soul with all its wealth -
Its sixty years of love and sacrifice,
Suffering and passionate faith - was reabsorbed
In the inexorable Peace,
And life was changed to us for evermore.

Was nothing left of her but tears
Like blood-drops from the heart?
Nought save remorse
For duty unfulfilled, justice undone,
And charity ignored?    Nothing but love,
Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth,
But for this passing
Into the unimaginable abyss
These things ha...

William Ernest Henley