THE AFTER-ECHO How long the echoes love to play  Around the shore of silence, as a wave  Retreating circles down the sand!  One after one, with sweet delay,The mellow sounds that cliff and island gave,  Have lingered in the crescent bay,  Until, by lightest breezes fanned,They float far off beyond the dying day      And leave it still as death.        But... more...

There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightman mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently applied. Standing on a corner of the Avenue no longer fashionable for residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an expression of complacency and half-disdain. The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight front of chocolate-colored... more...

THE POVERTY OF HERMAS "COME down, Hermas, come down! The night is past. It is time to be stirring. Christ is born to-day. Peace be with you in His name. Make haste and come down!" A little group of young men were standing in a street of Antioch, in the dusk of early morning, fifteen hundred years ago. It was a class of candidates who had nearly finished their two years of training for the... more...

ACT I SCENE I Night, in the garden of NAAMAN at Damascus. At the left, on a slightly raised terrace, the palace, with softly gleaming lights and music coming from the open latticed windows. The garden is full of oleanders, roses, pomegranates, abundance of crimson flowers; the air is heavy with their fragrance: a fountain at the right is plashing gently: behind it is an arbour covered with vines. Near... more...

THEday before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722. Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where the glow of the setting sun still lingered upon them; an arch of clearest, faintest azure bending overhead; in the center of the aerial landscape of the massive walls of the cloister of Pfalzel, gray to the east, purple to the... more...

LONG the old Roman road that crosses the rolling hills from the upper waters of the Marne to the Meuse, a soldier of France was passing in the night. In the broader pools of summer moonlight he showed as a hale and husky fellow of about thirty years, with dark hair and eyes and a handsome, downcast face. His uniform was faded and dusty; not a trace of the horizon-blue was left; only a gray shadow. He... more...

THE BLUE FLOWER The parents were abed and sleeping. The clock on the wall ticked loudly and lazily, as if it had time to spare. Outside the rattling windows there was a restless, whispering wind. The room grew light, and dark, and wondrous light again, as the moon played hide-and-seek through the clouds. The boy, wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was thinking of the Stranger and his stories. "It was... more...

Hard is the task of the man who at this late day attempts to say anything new about Washington. But perhaps it may be possible to unsay some of the things which have been said, and which, though they were at one time new, have never at any time been strictly true. The character of Washington, emerging splendid from the dust and tumult of those great conflicts in which he played the leading part, has... more...

OF BIRDS AND FLOWERS The VeeryThe Song-SparrowThe Maryland Yellow-ThroatThe Whip-Poor-WillWings of a DoveThe Hermit ThrushSea-Gulls of ManhattanThe Ruby-Crowned KingletThe Angler's ReveilleA November DaisyThe Lily of Yorrow II OF SKIES AND SEASONS If All the SkiesThe After-EchoDulcioraMatinsThe Parting and the Coming GuestWhen Tulips BloomSpring in the NorthSpring in the SouthHow Spring Comes to... more...

PREFACE For a long time, in the hopefulness and confidence of youth, I dreamed of going to Palestine. But that dream was denied, for want of money and leisure. Then, for a long time, in the hardening strain of early manhood, I was afraid to go to Palestine, lest the journey should prove a disenchantment, and some of my religious beliefs be rudely shaken, perhaps destroyed. But that fear was removed by... more...