Poems

Excerpt

MY "PROMENADE SOLITAIRE"

Up and down in my garden fair,
Under the trellis where grapes will bloom,
With the breath of violets in the air,
As pallid Winter for Spring makes room,
I walk and ponder, free from care,
In my beautiful Promenade Solitaire.

Back and forth in the checkered shade
Traced by the lattice that holds the vine,
With the glory of snow-capped crests displayed
On the sapphire sky in a billowy line,
I stroll, and ask what can compare
With the charm of my Promenade Solitaire.

To and fro 'neath the nascent green
Which clambers over its slender frame,
With white peaks lighting up the scene,
As snowfields glow with the sunset flame,
I saunter, halting here and there
For the view from my Promenade Solitaire.

In and out through the silence sweet,
Plash of fountain and song of bird
Are the only sounds in my lov'd retreat
By which the air is ever stirred;
It is like a long-drawn aisle of prayer,
So hushed is my Promenade Solitaire.

Onward rushes the world without,
But the breeze which over my garden steals
Brings from it merely a distant shout
Or the echo light of passing wheels;
In its din and drive I have now no share,
As I muse in my Promenade Solitaire.

Am I dead to the world, that I thus disdain
Its moil and toil in the prime of life,
When perhaps a score of years remain
To win more gold in its selfish strife?
Am I foolish to choose the purer air
Of my glorious Promenade Solitaire?

Ah no! From my mountain-girdled height
I watch the game of the world go on,
And note the course of the bitter fight,
And what is lost and what is won;
And I judge of it better here than there,
As I gaze from my Promenade Solitaire.

It is ever the same old tale of greed,
Of robbing and killing the weaker race,
Of the word proved false by the cruel deed,
Of the slanderous tongue with the friendly face;
'Tis enough to make one's heart despair
Even here in my Promenade Solitaire.

They cheer, and struggle, and beat the air
With many a stroke and thrust intense,
And urge each other to do and dare,
To gain some good they deem immense;
But they look like ants contending there
From the height of my Promenade Solitaire.

Backward and forward they run and crawl,
Houses and treasures they heap up high,
Hither and thither their booty haul, …
Then suddenly drop in their tracks and die!
For few are wise enough to repair
In time to a Promenade Solitaire.

Meantime the Earth speeds on through space,
As the sun for a million years hath steered,
And, an eon hence, the entire race
Will have played its part and disappeared;
But what will the lifeless planet care,
As it follows its Promenade Solitaire?

I know not how, I know not where,
But from my own heart's mystic lore
I feel that I have breathed this air,
And walked this earth before;

And that in this, its latest form
My old-time spirit once more strives,
As it has fought through many a storm
In past, forgotten lives.

Not inexperienced did my soul
This incarnation's threshold tread;
Not recordless has proved the scroll
It brought back from the dead....