Short Flights, by Meredith Nicholson—A Project Gutenberg eBook

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Short Flights, by Meredith Nicholson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Short Flights Author: Meredith Nicholson Release Date: December 06, 2020 [EBook #63973] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Library of Congress) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT FLIGHTS ***

HERE’S the path our feet shall press

To the land of happiness;

There are guide-posts by the way

That we may not go astray;

Spots there are where we may rest,

Of King Happiness the guest;

Basking in the sunshine’s glow,

While the joyous pilgrims go

Ever onward to the gates

Where the Queen of Joy awaits

Those recruits her king shall gain

On the way to his domain.

Such a joyous army this!

Banners leaping for a kiss

From the winds that sweep along

Beating songs that well belong

To a road whose glory lies

Always under sunny skies.

[45]

By this road no toll gate stands

With its ever-barring hands,

Yet of every passing soul

There is asked a certain toll.

It is this—that we shall share,

As we tread the thoroughfare,

All we have with those who lose

What they gain, or who refuse

To accept what is bestowed

By the master of the road.

What a simple engineer

Marked this path! It is so clear

That to miss it is to turn

And its cooling shadows spurn.

Any road our feet may press

Is a road to happiness,

And that land is anywhere

That we turn away from care

To the army of a king

Who is ever journeying

To the city, by whose gates,

His fair queen of Joy awaits.

[46]

GUARDING SHADOWS.

GRIM watchmen are the jealous trees

Above their moon-born shadows—Thus

May foolish men guard mysteries

Which they have made mysterious.

[47]

ART’S LESSON.

O glorious marble statue,

What gain I looking at you?

Your beauty is so old,

You are a form so cold

I can not understand you

Nor feel for him who planned you.

I easier lessons seek

Than those in chiseled Greek.

I turn to you my fragrant;

Bedewed and straggling vagrant,

You are a simple flower,

And scarce live out the hour

Here in the garden by-way

(That still is Nature’s highway!)

Yet utter from the grass

Lessons from Phidias!

[48]

IN THE SHADOW.

I WOULD not have thee otherwise,

O cloudy skies;

I would not change the night to day

Nor drive away

The shadows that are hanging o’er

My hearth and door.

There is some good that lurketh where

The lightnings flare;

There is a peace that bideth in

The fiercest din;

A vernal light doth look upon

Fields winter-won.

If God were not the Overheart,

Nor had a part

In all the wounds that hurt us so!

But He doth know

And doth in patience see and bless

In gentleness.

[49]

How sturdy and how great, O earth!

Within thy girth

Thou wieldst what passion and what pain

O’er man’s domain;

And yet within thy shadows blest

Is perfect rest.

Turn not unto the light too long

Friend, with thy song!

Thou hast not need to look afar

For hill or star;

Here in the shadow rest is found

Deep and profound.

[50]

“LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.”

“LEAD, kindly light,” I heard the glad bells ring,

And thought how God existeth everywhere.

’Twas in a city strange that, sweetest thing!

“Lead, kindly light,” I heard the glad bells ring,

And Summer stole into the early spring,

For where the kind light leadeth all is fair.

“Lead, kindly light,” I heard the glad bells ring,

And thought how God existeth everywhere.

[51]

SONG AND WORDS.

I.

THE songs you sing, the songs you sing,

They are such songs as need not words,

They are the songs that soar and ring

Like utterance of wildwood birds.

The ear is puzzled at the sound—

They are so far from common art

That what is best in them is found

By simply listening with the heart!

II.

The words you speak, the words you speak,

Have little of philosophy;

They voice not things that wise men seek,

They have no hint of poetry,

And yet each syllable that slips

Up from your soul and bubbles o’er

The yielding gateway of your lips

A gracious meaning holds in store.

[52]

III.

The songs you sing are simple songs,

Your words are words that children use

To tell of love, complain of wrongs;

You may the guiding notes confuse,

(If any notes e’er met your eyes!)

They rise, and live, and lingering,

Each song and word alternate dies

In words you speak, in songs you sing.

[53]

FOR A NEW YEAR’S MORN.

LIKE some tired reader who has put aside

His book a little while, sick of the tale,

Careless a moment how the plot may run,

Indifferent to the part he has perused,

Then with new interest going back to find

How fared it with the story’s people, so

Here at the gate of this new year I stand.

Weary we grew long since, my Comrade soul!

So tired we are of all our eyes have found,

So strong our yearning for new sights and sounds!

Yet on this morn the world is fair again,—

Ah, very fair, and full of light and joy;

And holding forth new hope that comes of faith,

And adding to our faith that lies in God.

Now, like some traveler in a desert lost,

Straining his eyes across the wastes of sand,

Then, sudden, finding tracks but freshly made

That give new courage to the wanderer,—

So now, my Comrade soul, we turn away

From dreary wastes, we see the tracks that show

Where others have gone on and found the way

As we can find it. Come, old Comrade,—friend!

Give me your hand, we must march on again!

[54]

THREE FRIENDS.

[Paul Hamilton Hayne, Sidney Lanier and Robert Burns Wilson]

THREE noble friends the South has given me,

Two biding now beyond the farthest gate,

One living still, great-hearted, soul elate,

From trammeling passions free.

The twain now unbeholden to our eyes,

Were soldiers for a cause they thought was right—

They were such men as set the torch alight

That marks our destinies;

Yet, with a song that rings above the din

Of battle, and with brows where there might rest

The victor’s crown, or singer’s wreath, more blest,

Through hymns of peace to win.

I read one morning, in a day long gone,

The songs of Hayne, all odorous of the pines;

The heart of Nature throbbed along the lines—

Her joy was in his dawn.

[55]

The hills and streams to him were never dumb,

They gave their secrets to his own heart’s keeping;

Grand music in the oaks and pines was sleeping

Waiting for him to come!

And you, Lanier, cut down like some tall tree

By an insidious foe—upright and strong

Until the last, and with your parting song

From Deathland floating free!

Sweet dawns were yours, bright noons and starry nights;

Your heart lay on the bosoms of the hills—

Clear was your soul as dew that God distills

Upon His sacred heights!

And you are gone, and only one remains

Of the three Southern singers loved so well;

To-night the wind in sympathy would quell

The grief of woods and plains—

Saying: “They were our friends, they understood

The messages we spoke into their ears;

Now they have passed beyond our hopes and fears

Unto a higher Good.”

[56]

But he who still is here, he well has caught

The spirit that is Nature’s, and is hers

Only for her most loved interpreters—

Ah, nobly he has wrought!

And Southern winds that to the northward roam,

And misty stars that shine above us dim,

Each evening bring me utterance of him

To my far Northern home!

[57]

A RHYME OF LITTLE GIRLS.

PRITHE tell me, don’t you think

Little girls are dearest

With their cheeks of tempting pink,

And their eyes the clearest?

Don’t you know that they are best

And of all the loveliest?

Of all girls with roguish ways

They are surely truest;

Sunshine gleams through all their days,

They see skies the bluest,

And they wear a diadem

Summer has bestowed on them.

Lydia doesn’t care a cent

For the newest dances;

She is not on flirting bent,

Has no killing glances,

But without the slightest art

She has captured many a heart.

[58]

Older sisters cut you dead,

Little sisters never;

They don’t giggle when they’ve said

Something very clever,—

They just get behind a chair,

Frowning, smiling at you there.

Florence, Lydia, Margaret

Or a gentle Mary,

They form friendships that, once set,

Never more can vary,—

Stanch young friends they are and true

Always clinging close to you.

Buds must into blossoms blow,

(Morn so early leaves us!)

Maids must into women grow,

(There’s the thing that grieves us!)

Psyche knots of flying curls,

That’s good-bye to little girls!

[59]

THE BATTLES GRANDSIRE MISSED.

COME, boy, and sit upon my knee,

And turn to me your eyes,

That I, down in their depths may see

A hint of those blue skies

Beneath which once my father fought

(Your grandsire! and I am not old!)

What time our banner’s stars were caught

In treason’s eager hold.

A boy, as you are now a boy,

I did not understand

That traitors could their flag destroy

And cut in twain their land;

I heard the tramp of marching men,

So long ago that seems!

You can not know what times were then

Though you may guess, in dreams.

And then my father went away;

How would it be if I

Should leave you, boy of mine, to-day—

Should leave you and should die?

[60]

Your eyes are wet; O closer come!

There is no more of war;

Peace long has shown that there are some

Kind things to struggle for.

You “wonder whether grandpa got

In all the fights?” Well, lad,

It was Bull Run where he was shot,

The first big fight they had!

But let us, you and I, insist

That this of him be said:

The only battles that he missed

Were fought when he was dead.

“He would have fought, had he been there?”

You ask of me, my child;

He never would have ceased to dare

Those who our flag defiled.

And always, in the spring, keep tryst

With Memory by the head

Of one who not a battle missed

Except when he was dead.

[61]

BARRED.

ONE cheerless night when winter winds were sowing

Over the world their cold, white seeds of snow,

While from my window pane the fire was throwing

Taunts to the elements with its bright glow,

A poor, storm-driven bird, its lost way winging,

Paused when it saw the flame’s reflected light;

Unto the window for a moment clinging,

Then downward fell, forever lost to sight.

And so it is, I thought, that poor hearts yearning

For more of life, charmed by its outward sheen,

Must backward fall, the truth too quickly learning,

That death, cold and unyielding, stands between.

[62]

A SLUMBER SONG.

BABY, you stand by a gate that leads

Into a land of dreams;

There’s a drowsy watchman here who heeds

Never the straggling gleams

Of light that stray from the far-off sun—

Always for him it’s twilight begun—

And we stand by the gate,

And watch and wait,

And watch—and wait!

Little one, hear what the stream sings of,

Here in this quiet land;

It sings of the joy of mother love—

Sings to birds in the sand—

To the strange, tall birds with dreamy eyes,

That look at you, dear, in mute surprise,

While we stand by the gate,

And watch and wait,

And watch—and wait!

[63]

If you open the gate, no one will know;

The guard will never guess.

You must open it gently, slowly—so!

No one has heard, unless

Those dreamful birds, or the dreamland sheep,

Heard you stealing through their land of sleep

While I stood by the gate,

To watch and wait,

And watch—and wait!

Oh, strange are the birds and the sheep that dwell

Here in the land of dreams!

But you must not see, and you must not tell,

However strange it seems,

Or they’ll never let you in again,

And it would not please you, baby, then,

Just to stand by the gate,

And watch, and wait,

And watch—and wait!

[64]

BEFORE THE FIRE.

THE winds go riding down the wold,

And back the forest legions throw;

A winter day the hours has told

On rosaries of drops of snow.

Through close-drawn blinds the lamplight falls,

And on a drifted whiteness lies,

Here within these cottage walls

The flames make stars of baby’s eyes.

Rude fingers tap upon the pane

And entrance at the door demand;

The storm king and his lusty train

Go rushing o’er the land;

But homes where love a vigil keeps

Know not that summer ever dies,

Know not that summer even sleeps,

When flames make stars of baby’s eyes.

[65]

The father to the mother reads,

The mother busy at his side;

He reads a tale of noble deeds,

Of men who for a nation died,

But oft they turn and fondly look

Upon the hero whom they prize

Beyond the people of the book,

Where flames make stars of baby’s eyes.

Fierce winds may ride across the night,

And storms prevail o’er flood and field,

But where one lamp throws out its light,

A happy picture is revealed

Of two, who by the fireside sit,

And watch the glowing flames, while rise

Quick shadows that around them flit

And mock the stars in baby’s eyes.

[66]

OCTOBER.

THE year is getting older, day by day;

Last night I heard a fierce wind riding by,

Rattling my western window, and no ray

Of moon or star illumined the black sky.

Older the year has grown; the wind that came

Across the changing world last night to ride,

Passed here a year ago; it is the same

That rose before and summer’s strength defied.

Ah, it is you, my old, familiar friend

October, come to pitch your tents awhile,

Madly descending from the earth’s far end

Over the farthest seas for many a mile.

Yet your fierce advent and your winds severe

Are but the bluster of a friend we love;

Though you are winter’s neighbor you bring here

Rich gifts, and hang your bluest skies above.

[67]

To-morrow you will tame your restless steeds

And drive the water-freighted clouds away;

Then you will scatter far the wild-flower’s seeds

At intervals throughout a peaceful day.

Still, though your skies may be the summer’s own,

Of all your moods I like the wildest best;

I love the wind and its mad, warring tone,

Its anger, and its yearning and unrest;

For in man’s soul there is an answering mood,

A passionate storm with wind and driving rain

All through a night—love by dull pain pursued,

Then days when skies are kind and blue again,—

Blue, but they shed their bitter, biting frost,

And the sun burns with but a mocking heat,

While ghost-like zephyrs seek for something lost,

Like followers in the summer’s slow retreat.

[68]

“IN WINTER I WAS BORN.”

IN winter I was born,

So all my years I’ve loved the frost and snow

And the strong tireless winds that, passing, blow

A battle note forlorn.

I love the year’s long night.

The tumult of great storms, the biting air

Make my heart’s summer time, when days are fair

And yield me true delight.

In winter I was born,

And as I came so let me pass away,

Out from the world on a December day

When the delaying morn

In the far East shall creep

Last time for me; then let the winds I love

Come from their far-off homes and play above

The place where I shall sleep.

[69]

GOOD NIGHT AND PLEASANT DREAMS.

GOOD-NIGHT and pleasant dreams!

Forgotten all that play-day world of yours,

Kind angels lead you now by distant shores;

Dear childish hands clasped lightly o’er your breast,

Dear eyes with lids that keep the dark away,

What sweet content is now by you possessed!

I feel your breath against my cheek and say

Good-night, good-night!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!

The children’s lives so different are from ours,

Is there not made for them a land of flowers,—

A childhood’s land of sleep where they are taken,—

Where dreams are only dreams of childish toys

And only sounds of childish voices waken

The quiet ways, and say to girls and boys

Good-night, good-night!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!

[70]

Good-night and pleasant dreams!

Go to your quiet land of sleep and dreaming,

Beyond the darkness, passed the stars a-gleaming.

The plains of your sleep-land are green and fair;

Out of the night they make a land of morning

From which is banished even childish care;

Stay on, sleep on, dear child, the night world scorning,—

Good-night, good-night!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!

Good-bye, and gentle angels guard your sleep,

Good-night, and angels watch above you keep.

Ah, if we could our childish days prolong—

If sleep would always come as sweet as this,

Shielding us from the world of dark and wrong,

Just by the magic of a mother’s kiss,

And her good-night!

Good-night and pleasant dreams!

[71]

WHERE LOVE WAS NOT.

ONCE in a dream I saw a blackened world

Hung high in space, by bitter winds o’erblown;

And there no forests were, no flowers grew,

No river flowed, but all was sad and drear.

And on that smoke-encircled sphere there were

No cities full of life; no children spent

Glad hours in play; there, laughter ne’er was heard,

And day was endless day, and night ne’er came

With tired husband seeking home and wife,

And “home” was but a mocking echo there.

And walking o’er that world I met a man,

Or ghost of what was man, wan, staring-eyed,

And bowed as though with age, albeit his locks

Were fair, and seeming youthful was his face;

And unto him I said in question: “Why

This waste and desolation, and where are

The people that once dwelt upon this world?”

And slow he made reply: “But yesterday

Did Love remove his court from this drear globe,

[72]

Which was as fair a world as ever came

From the Creator’s hand, and now, so soon,

That Love is flown has come this awful change—

The cheerlessness, the people dead and gone.”

He turned from me, it seemed, and I awoke—

Back in a world that is controlled by Love.

[73]

DOWN THE AISLES.

LONE here in vague cathedral gloom I sit,

Far from the busy city’s noise and jar.

Such calm! It seems God might just now have writ

A new, sweet song of peace and whispered it

From star to star.

I almost hear a sacred anthem pealing,

As o’er the quiet aisles I turn my eyes;

It seems I hear soft prayers to heaven stealing

Up rays that lead unto the Light-revealing

In Paradise.

I think: “How oft have feet of mourners led

Down these long aisles where perfect silence reigns!

How oft have heart-uniting words been said

There at the altar, whither flowers were spread

From Love’s fair plains!”

Yes, Death and Love have hither come and gone,

With slow, sad songs, with anthems glad and free;

And still, without, the world treads on and on

In aisles that lead to darkness—or the Dawn,

O God, and Thee!

[74]

RUIN.

THE slowly crumbling wall, the broken gate,

O’er which soft silvery threads of Time are spun;

Through turrets tall, once grim and stern as Fate,

Now unresisted steals the changeless sun.

The eager vines close clasp the pillars round,

As though to hide the signs of their decay;

The cheerless chambers echo with each sound

That enters in where Silence holds her sway.

Upon the ground, with torn and riven crust,

There rests the cuirass of some daring knight,

Enfolding but the cold, unspeaking dust

Of him who nevermore shall lead the fight.

And here the chariot-furrowed roadway lies,

Once trod by armies rich in valorous deeds,

Now haunted by the lonely wind which sighs

And creeps among the dead and tangled weeds.

[75]

Ruin and ruins everywhere, but yet,

In fancy, see the myriad castles tall

Whereon the banners fair of Hope are set,

Then watch the wreck and ruin of it all!

Forsaken cities far beyond the sea

Hold not such claim to pity as do those

Grand dwellings youth rears in such majesty

To crumble and form sepulchres for woes.

O memory! keep and guard your treasures well;

Contented rest, and, what the past endears,

Unto the ever hopeful future tell,

And voice your glories through the coming years.

[76]

HALF FLIGHTS.

I think it were better that lips should forever be mute

Than flattering the voice should sound, or the speech irresolute.

And better that arrows fly far past the mark, over-shot,

Than but timidly sent they should droop and transfix it not.

The race should be vigorously pushed, though uneven the start,

And always, wherever assigned, let us act well the part,

Let firm be the footstep to tally with firm beat of heart.

But more willing am I forever to steadily plod,

Inspired by a thought that my soul is not linked to a clod,

Than failing in flight, to fall, stricken again to the sod,

And stumble along in the pathway that leads me to God.

[77]

A KIND OF MAN.

I like a man who all mean things despises,

A man who has a purpose firm and true;

Who faces every doubt as it arises,

And murmurs not at what he finds to do.

I like a man who shows the noble spirit

Displayed by knights of Arthur’s table round;

Who, face to face with life, proves his real merit,

Who has a soul that dwells above the ground;

And yet, one who can understand the worry

Of some chance brother fallen in the road,

And speak to him a kind word ’mid the hurry,

Or lay an easing hand upon his load.

Large hearted, brave-souled men to-day are needed,

Men ready when occasion’s doors swing wide;

Grand men to speak the counsel that is heeded,

And men in whom a nation may confide.

The world is wide, and broad its starry arches,

But lagging malcontents it cannot hold;

The way of life to him who upright marches,

Has ending in a far-off street of gold.

[78]

TRANSFIGURED.

“A cold, hard man I said,” as day by day

I saw him pass the door, or, brooding, sit

Before his cottage, watching children play

The summer’s lingering twilight hours away—

Ever uncouth and grim, with brows close knit.

Until, one day, a wondrous change took place;

Upon the door the sign of mourning, and

His child lay dead! But, by what heavenly grace

Did all the hardened lines fade from his face,

Leaving of former self no slightest trace,

As with sweet Grief he journeyed, hand in hand?

[Lines naming a landscape painted by Mr. Theodore C. Steele, owned by Mr. Louis C. Gibson.]

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INVOCATION—To the Seasons	xi
Sat Est Vixisse	1
Song	3
’Tis Never Night in Love’s Domain	5
Estranged	7
When Friends are Parted	8
Whereaway	9
A Secret	11
Disappointment	13
Striving	14
An Idolater	16
Love’s Midas Touch	17
In Ether Spaces	18
My Paddle Gleamed	20
Faithless	21
Grape Bloom	22
Ill-Starred	23
The Soldier Heart	25
An Unwritten Letter	27
My Lady of the Golden Heart	28
Dreams	30
Cardinal Newman	31
On the Mediterranean	32
Watching the World Go By	34[vi]
Righteous Wrath	36
Sunset	37
Rondeau of Eventide	38
A Prince’s Treasure	39
Dieu Vous Garde	41
Sweetheart Time	42
The Road to Happiness	44
Guarding Shadows	46
Art’s Lesson	47
In the Shadow	48
“Lead, Kindly Light”	50
Songs and Words	51
For a New Year’s Morn	53
Three Friends	54
A Rhyme of Little Girls	57
The Battles Grandsire Missed	59
Barred	61
A Slumber Song	62
Before the Fire	64
October	66
In Winter I was Born	68
Good Night and Pleasant Dreams	69
Where Love Was Not	71
Down the Aisles	73
Ruin	74
Half Flights	76
A Kind of Man	77
Transfigured	78
Love’s Power	79[vii]
Fire-Hunting	80
Heartache	81
Friendship’s Sacrament	83
Omar Khayyam	84
A Discovery	86

SONNETS
A Modern Puritan	89
The Law of Life	90
To Eugene Field in England	91
Dependence	92
By Sheridan’s Grave	93
Viking	94
Violin	95
What the Babies Say	96
Secrets	97
Blind	98
A Fancy	99
Thoreau	100

SHORT FLIGHTS

CONTENTS

TO THE SEASONS.

SAT EST VIXISSE.

I.

II.

III.

SONG.

’TIS NEVER NIGHT IN LOVE’S DOMAIN.

ESTRANGED.

WHEN FRIENDS ARE PARTED.

WHEREAWAY.

A SECRET.

DISAPPOINTMENT.

STRIVING.

AN IDOLATER.

LOVE’S MIDAS TOUCH.

IN ETHER SPACES.

MY PADDLE GLEAMED.

FAITHLESS.

GRAPE BLOOM.

ILL-STARRED.

THE SOLDIER HEART.

AN UNWRITTEN LETTER.

MY LADY OF THE GOLDEN HEART.

DREAMS.

CARDINAL NEWMAN.

ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.

THE GREEK GIRL’S SONG.

THE SHEPHERD’S SONG.

WATCHING THE WORLD GO BY.

RIGHTEOUS WRATH.

SUNSET.

RONDEAU OF EVENTIDE.

A PRINCE’S TREASURE.

DIEU VOUS GARDE.

SWEETHEART TIME.

I.

II.

THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS.

GUARDING SHADOWS.

ART’S LESSON.

IN THE SHADOW.

“LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.”

SONG AND WORDS.

I.

II.

III.

FOR A NEW YEAR’S MORN.

THREE FRIENDS.

A RHYME OF LITTLE GIRLS.

THE BATTLES GRANDSIRE MISSED.

BARRED.

A SLUMBER SONG.

BEFORE THE FIRE.

OCTOBER.

“IN WINTER I WAS BORN.”

GOOD NIGHT AND PLEASANT DREAMS.

WHERE LOVE WAS NOT.

DOWN THE AISLES.

RUIN.

HALF FLIGHTS.

A KIND OF MAN.

TRANSFIGURED.

LOVE’S POWER.

FIRE-HUNTING.

“HEARTACHE.”

FRIENDSHIP’S SACRAMENT.

OMAR KHAYYAM.

A DISCOVERY.

SONNETS

A MODERN PURITAN.

THE LAW OF LIFE.

TO EUGENE FIELD IN ENGLAND.

DEPENDENCE.

BY SHERIDAN’S GRAVE.

VIKING.

VIOLIN.

WHAT THE BABIES SAY.

SECRETS.