Songs from the Granite Hills

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES SONGS FROM THE GRANITE HILLS BY CLARK B. COCHRANE BOSTON THE GORHAM PRESS MCMXVIII COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY CLARK B. COCHRANE All Rights Reserved Made in the United States of America The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. fs CONTENTS PAGE Love Lives Forever: A Medley .... 7 If? 35 On a Picture Set in Gold ...... 36 The Days of Long Ago 40 A Battle Call. 1862 46 Fredericksburg 48 Noon by Lake Sunapee 50 The Builders 52 The Plaint of the Pessimist 54 The Star of the Optimist 57 The Voice of Love Divine 59 A Tryst 62 New England 63 Our Angels 65 Crosses 67 For Don, My Dog 68 A Farewell to Joe English 70 Anabel 75 To Susie 78 The Light Men Use 79 A Reverie 81 The Sweetest Word 83 A Plea for a Heart 84 3 626070 4 Contents PAGE Sonnets 86 The Tryst of the Pilot 95 The White Ticket 97 On the Shore 99 A Plea for Love . 101 SONGS FROM THE GRANITE HILLS LOVE LIVES FOREVER: A MEDLEY Prelude JOVE and Juno, Oberon, From the fields of time have fled; All the gods but Love are gone Realmless, hopeless, listless, dead! When Jehovah claimed His own And the old gods fled away, Love was kindred to His throne And the Master bade him stay. Thor and Odin, Neptune, Pan Not one could the test endure; Love, the dreamer, lives for man Only that his heart was pure. Slaves may rise at Freedom's call, Freemen bound as slaves may be, Empires wax and kingdoms fall, Deserts smile with blade and tree Seas and rivers may dry up, Cities stand where now are seas, Still this god will dine and sup In their cots and palaces! He shall touch the hearts of men With the fire that burns on high, Which if quenched will burn again In the soul that cannot die. 7 8 Songs from the Granite Hills And his careful feet shall go Where we laugh or weep or plod, Till the thoughts of men shall grow Something like a thought of God; Till is set the last fair sun Mortal eyes shall look upon; Till the moon and stars have run Their last courses, and are gone; Till the heavens overhead Like a scroll are rolled away Then shall Love indeed be dead, And his reign have had its day. No! Beyond the stars and sun, On a fair and peaceful shore, His immortal reign begun, Love will live forevermore! Since Love first dreamed his sweet, immortal dream Where radiant Eve, ungarmented as dawn, Toyed with the tempter for the bitter fruit Of sweat and tears and everlasting moil, His lips, that press the fond heart of the rose With eager joy, have chanced the bitter thorn; And men have ever since that sorry slip Pursuing substance, to a shadow knelt, Or hopeless beauty wept its bloom away, Or flung its heart against a barbed scorn Indifferent as death. So runs the world, And ever some bewildered heart will grieve In Night's dumb ear, or to the homeless winds That moan about the windows and the eaves On stormy autumn nights, or sigh forlorn O'er stubble fields and through the leafless wood, For Summer gone with all its golden days. Love Lives Forever: A Medley 9 I had a friend in the bright days of youth, When life was joy and all the earth was fair: Arthur his name a friend with whom I built Youth's airy castles, happy not to know They stood upon the shifting sands of life Or that rude winds would lay them at our feet. Companions, playmates, all in all to each, We grew like foster brothers side by side, Our thoughts, our joys, our loves and hates alike. I loved him as a brother or a friend In youth's hot blood can love, because I knew, By that fine instinct with which children choose, And women know their friends, and dogs their foes, He could no more play truant to my need Than God could be unjust, or falsehood true. Alas for me, who from the barren years Have beaten out this truth: that friendship true, Firm as the hills, unswerving as a star, Unselfish as the ministry of love Where grim death revels and misfortune falls, Is the most precious jewel of the earth, The one thing likest God. And yet so rare So clothed upon with Satan's livery So covered and concealed in earthly grime, Men seek it as the Pilgrims sought the Grail And go to find it on the shore of Night. Friendship that waits on fortune's gilded smile And flatters thrift, but far from misery flies, Is not the white-winged child of Paradise With balm of healing in his finger tips, But just a bastard bantling of the world, With baser thoughts to baser uses born. IO Songs from the Granite Hills O, rare true natures! they could not be false; False natures cannot, if they will, be true. We played together by the wide elm tree, Or chased along green fields and running streams Not shadows, but true joys. O then, we thought Our little circle was the happy world, The blithesome, happy world that knew not grief. The noisy squirrels and the birds unscared Were our companions in that blissful time, And our domain, by the same fee, was theirs, For Nature is a mother, and she gives To tree and flower and every living thing The foison of her breast in equal share, And in her soft caress there is no pain Nor any touch of sorrow in her face. We read together from the same worn book The old familiar tales that never die, And Daniel cowed the lions yet again, And Joseph ruled fair Egypt and the Nile; And, ever when the happy day was done, We said, as to a Father that we knew, "Thy name be hallowed and Thy kingdom come." Immortal voice from love-crowned Olivet, Out of the wilderness of woe and death, The soul's strong plea a cry without a creed, And most acceptable to Him who made The tenderness of its divine appeal, When, by far Galilee, He talked with men, And told them of Himself, and how this prayer, In all the ages to the end of time, Love Lives Forever: A Medley II Should voice their needs and reach the ear of God. And so it rises when the morning breaks In sunrise, leaping from the crystal hills, And when the shadows of the night draw near The Angelus is sounded, and we pray! From brilliant lips that wear the bloom of youth, From lips that glow with manhood's lusty strength, From pale, thin lips that falter and grow dumb, From dying lips that speak no more to earth, It riseth like the smoke of sacrifice, Moving to pity the great heart of Christ! So fared we on with youth's slow-pacing years, While childhood's supple limbs grew strong and lithe, And all our thoughts grew wider, as the rills Grow broader, deeper toward the larger stream. The were our first love and there woods ; we heard The brook's low speech, the voices of the winds. We climbed the mountain at the day's decline, And from beneath the gnarled and dying oak, Where oft the Indian maiden plighted love With some tall son of nature, pure and free, We watched the sun, slow sinking in the west As ships upon the ocean disappear, Gathering afar his robes of shadowy flame That trail forever round the rolling world, Fringing the garments of the night with gold. Anon the blind owl from his hemlock tree, Disconsolate, began to hail his mate in the dark still Far wood ; and quickly mocked " By his insulting echo "Whoo, Whoo-o-o Gloomy and dismal, shouted louder still 12 Songs from the Granite Hills With weird, untuneful voice "tuwhoo, tuwhoo!" So on we fared to manhood's opening years, Where faith and hope stand, eager, hand in hand, Upon the threshold of a larger world. He loved a maiden of the fair green wood, A father's pride, a princess of the fields, Like some tall wildflower, by a stream, she grew, Untaught by art, to unrestricted grace; The winds of summer tangled her dark hair In her face riotous beauty round happy ; The ardent sun had kissed her unabashed To beauty's hue, and thenceforth stood at gaze. And thus she grew to perfect maidenhood As fair as any that in olden days Have worn with honor as a priceless gem The perfect name which is itself a prayer. As Jephtha's daughter, the pure Gileadite, From Mizpeh's gate, with vine wreath and with song, She might have gone to sacrifice and fame, Or posed, as Innocence, for Raphael And thus adorned the cottage and the hall, Beloved forever and forever fair. Ave Mary! O, sweetest, dearest name That ever trembled on a human tongue! Ave Mary! with the Babe immortal Close folded in the cradle of thy breast, In Joseph's tent beneath Judaea's palms! Ave Mary! through ages dark and long, In marble orisons lifting thy calm eyes, Of still compassion, and in pictured prayer, Love Lives Forever: A Medley 13 Pleading forever for the souls of men, Wretched, unfortunate, despairing, lost In the wide wilderness of sin or shame ! Small marvel, then, the loveliest of earth, The pure and beautiful are called for thee, O Mother of the Morning Star of men ! At first she loved him, and she loved him not, A little fitful, like an April day, Cloud, sunshine, tears, a crocus, and then spring; But as a tender plant, by slow degrees, Grows vigorous in the luscious airs of June, So grew her love, until a maiden kiss, That speaks a language that was never writ, Betrayed her heart.

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