General Books

High Noon Time's finger on the dial of my lifePoints to high noon! and yet the half-spent dayLeaves less than half remaining, for the dark,Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end. To those who burn the candle to the stick,The sputtering socket yields but little light.Long life is sadder than an early death.We cannot count on raveled threads of ageWhereof to weave a fabric. We must useThe warp... more...

As theEmperor Mothsat one evening in May,Fanned by numberless wings in the moon’s silver ray,[p6]While around him the zephyrs breathed sweetest perfume,Thus he spoke to his dwarf with theRagged white plume:“That vain Butterfly’s Ball, I hear, was most splendid,And, as the world says, very fully attended,Though she never asked us, but assigned as a cause,We were all much too heavy to gallope and... more...

THE RED FLOWER June 1914 In the pleasant time of Pentecost,  By the little river Kyll,I followed the angler's winding path  Or waded the stream at will.And the friendly fertile German land  Lay round me green and still. But all day long on the eastern bank  Of the river cool and clear,Where the curving track of the double rails  Was hardly seen though near,The endless trains of German... more...

NOTE The motif of the story embodied in the following poem was crudely outlined in a brief sketch printed in an early collection of the authors verse, and subsequently cancelled for a purpose not until now accomplished. Wyndham Towers is not to be confused with this discarded sketch, the text of which has furnished only a phrase, or an indirect suggestion, here and there. That the writer's method,... more...

SONG FOR THE CENTENARY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 1. Five years beyond an hundred years have seenTheir winters, white as faith's and age's hue,Melt, smiling through brief tears that broke between,And hope's young conquering colours reared anew,Since, on the day whose edge for kings made keenSmote sharper once than ever storm-wind blew,A head predestined for the girdling greenThat laughs at... more...

O what is this you've done to me,Or what have I done,That bare should be our fair roof-tree,And I all alone?'Tis worse than widow I becomeMore than desolate,To face a worse than empty homeWithout child or mate.'Twas not my strife askt him his lifeWhen it was but begun,Nor mine, I was a new-made wifeAnd now I am none;Nor mine that many a sapless ghostWails in sorrow-fare—But this does... more...

INTRODUCTION. All civilized nations possessing a history which they contemplate with pride endeavour to present that history in an epic form. In their initial stages of culture the vehicles of expression are ballads like the constituents of the Spanish Romanceros and chronicles like Joinville’s and Froissart’s. With literary refinement comes the distinct literary purpose, and the poet appears who... more...

SONG THE FIRST. Up Riber’s street the dance they ply,   The Castle’s won, the Castle’s won!There dance the knights most merrily,   For young King Erik Erikson. On Riber’s bridge the dance it goes,   The Castle’s won, the Castle’s won!There dance the knights in scollop’d shoes,   For young King Erik Erikson. ’Twas Riber Wolf the dance who led,   The Castle’s won, the... more...

MORNING IN KANSAS There are lands beyond the ocean which are gray beneath their years, where a hundred generations learned to sow and reap and spin; where the sons of Shem and Japhet wet the furrow with their tears—and the noontide is departed, and the night is closing in. Long ago the shadows lengthened in the lands across the sea, and the dusk is now enshrouding regions nearer home, alas! There are... more...

GENESIS A I. Ours is a great duty—to praise in word and love atheart the heavens' Ruler, the glorious King of Hosts:He is the substance of all power, the head of all highthings, the Lord Almighty. Origin or beginning was5never made for Him, nor shall an end ever come to theeternal God: but, on the contrary, He is for ever supremeby His high puissance over the heavenly kingdoms;just and mighty,... more...