SYLVIA
NEW YORK PRIVATELY PRINTED MCMXII
COPYRIGHT, 1912 BY ADELINE ADAMS
DEDICATION
TO ELEANOR
Oft has the Old World traveler seen, In ashes of Pompeii pressed, Immortal, beautiful, serene, A maiden’s shoulder and young breast.
Yet whoso sees aye walks apart, At footfall of the passer-by; With something welling in his heart, Because she too, she too, should die;
And oft thereafter, that same day, As people fresh from dreams will do, In dream-continuance, he will say, “The others--nay, but not she too!”
Oh, if those hostile tongues of fire A tale so tender-true might bring, May not perchance a loving lyre Likewise its dear remembrance sing?
And if the constant lava hold The body’s fairness--ah, no less These singing leaves would fain unfold To tell the spirit’s loveliness!
PAGE Dedication ix
A MOTHER’S HEART
Ad te, Domine 3
Love’s Memorial 4
Loveliness 5
O Rose-Tree 7
Remembering Thee 8
Ballad 10
Not Here, but Risen 13
A Little Brother’s Thought 14
The Soul’s Opportunity 15
SYLVAN LEAVES
The Sylvan Sparkle 19
The Sylvan Magazine 20
Riding Song 23
A Sylvan Saying 24
The Wanderer 28
O Busy Pine 29
Some One is Coming 30
The Dryad 32
SEVEN SONNETS
In His Own Image 37
Revelation 38
Like as a Father 39
Companionship at Twilight 40
The Changed Garden 41
Ascutney 42
To-day 43
LYRICS FROM SYLVIA’S MASQUE TO-MORROW LAND
Closed Eyes 47
Call o’ the Rain 49
Call o’ the Wee People 51
The Silver Knight 54
Slumber Song 55
Travel Song 56
Chipmunk Ahoy 57
Lady Robin 58
Song Sparrow 60
Hermit Thrush 61
Poplar Tree 62
THE IVORY PORTRAIT AND OTHER VERSES
The Ivory Portrait 65
Betsinda 79
To Sylvia’s Eyes 81
The Fairer Flower 82
Vision of Childhood 83
They that Mourn 84
Of Little Things 85
The Blue Mantle 87
ENVOY
Sylvan Voices 93
A MOTHER’S HEART
AD TE, DOMINE
She stood before the olden maze Each soul must tread alone; She knew these were the unseen ways That lead to things unknown:
She knew hers was a road apart, No one of us had trod; Then unafraid, and strong of heart, A little girl sought God.
LOVE’S MEMORIAL
Whether my Love be near, Or whether, the vision gone, My faltering feet shall fear The road that stretches on;
Whether with throngs I pace The street, the busy mart, Or hide me for a space In my most secret heart;
Matins, in one shrin’d room; At pensive evensong; In gladness as in gloom; Or brief my task, or long;
Lord, order now my days, That all my living shall, In living, loving ways, Build Love’s Memorial!
LOVELINESS
Duty was ne’er so sweetly dight For me, blue sky was ne’er so near, And Beauty ne’er has bloomed so bright As now, in this my sorrowing year.
Fair daffodils, and singing brooks, And children, rosy from their play Have never given me starrier looks Than now, on this my saddest day.
The Godward hymn of hermit thrush Now thrills, beyond my past belief; Lovely the lilac, leaf and flush, In this the Springtime of my grief.
Gray things are golden now and grand; No blight is here that may not bless; And tasks low-lying ’neath my hand Transfigured are to holiness.
Now that her wing must mourning go,-- O miracle,--my struggling soul Is grown more swift and strong to know Which thing is stain, which aureole.
Since thou didst see the thorns entwirled, O Mary, o’er that shining Head, Hath not each rose-heart in the world For thee, a deeper fragrance shed?
O ROSE-TREE
O rose-tree, like a person, thou Whose pulsing presence at my gate Oft startles me to wonder now If thou be one for whom I wait,
The Westwind flings thy shade a-dance Oft, oft across my echoing floor, And all my heart cries out, “Perchance--” And leaps to open wide the door!
What if, we being unaware That miracles once more might be, An angel-shape were standing there, And no one, no one turned to see--
What if a little golden head Looked lonely ’gainst the far blue sky, And shining steps, uncomforted And all unwatched, went wandering by!
O Rose-tree, that is why I start, Whene’er thy shadows flit and pass To dance a moment on my heart, Then vanish through the window glass.
REMEMBERING THEE
Remembering thee, my life’s clear song, Psalm of my soul, my heart’s full roundelay, Remembering thee, alway!
Ever with love I list, when cometh Spring, All birds that sing; But when yon sparrowy one, with chant divine, Brings her small spray, her secret nest to twine, Beside my door, and lingers long As fearing hurt or wrong, I pine, I pine, Remembering thee!
Remembering thee, my life’s fair flower, Thou lily of my soul, rose of my heart, Remembering thee, apart!
No less I love all blossoms of the earth Where thou hadst birth; But when I see the orange wreath adorn Pure foreheads even as thine, mine own firstborn, In that brave consecrated hour Of ring and marriage bower, I mourn, I mourn, Remembering thee!
Remembering thee, my roundelay, my psalm, My rose that was, my lily wholly star-- Nay, but how sadder far
Were thy forgetting! Days, how darker yet, Could I forget! What sobbing moonlights, what heartbreaking dawns Would then steal far, over these lovely lawns That now await, in dayspring’s balm, At noon, at curfew calm, A footfall like the fawn’s, Remembering thee!
BALLAD
A wind went wailing through the wood, Went wailing without tears, As one who in that same hour should Face hostile ghosts of years:
And if a wind may clasp the trees, Nor bring them gift of rain, In change for their sweet listening ease, Where shall I ease my pain?
Therefore it was my flowers I sought, For look or word from them; The evening’s tears a broidery wrought On my sad garment’s hem;
But like the wind, I could not weep-- No tears came to my eyes, Save in some strange and snatchèd sleep My soul they might surprise.
O all ye kindred growing things, If roses, or if rue, Show me the blessed sign that brings To earth, the holy dew!
Or pale in pall of purity, Or glowing from your moss, Ye make no sign at all to me Of sorrow, or the cross?
And will ye not by any spell That’s in your bud or leaf, A sorrowing soul a moment tell What ye may know of grief?
All silent, all so calm to see, And radiant, dry-eyed! Nay, now, one turning spake to me, And of the Crucified.
Of the four flowerets she bore, One westward waned, one east; And one, sky-pointing, looked her lore Of the Ascension feast.
And even as she looked, I heard-- (Nay, who spake, if not she?) As to the wind, one only word, Saying, Gethsemane.
Far in the deep and shadowy wood, Hark, hark, the tender rain: O Wind, for thee and me it could Perchance bring ease again!
NOT HERE, BUT RISEN
“Not here, but risen,” so reply The Shining Ones, still standing by The holy place where God was laid, And holy women, unafraid, Seek Him whom men did crucify.
So are the nestlings I could spy Once in this nest, now bare, awry, And very silent in the shade!-- Not here, but risen.
Home of my heart, where often I Shall list her footsteps, sometimes nigh, Yet sometimes--oh, how far they fade!-- Will not the music once they made Send back in echo, one soft sigh, “Not here, but risen?”
A LITTLE BROTHER’S THOUGHT
Oh, she who was so good and glad Would never take from us the cheer, The lovely pleasantness we had While she was here.
And it would hurt her heart to know That no one sings here any more; We must not all too stilly go By her dear door.
Since it would grieve her overmuch To think of us as otherwise Than valiant, let us then be such, And lift our eyes.
But oh, we know that she will guess How sorrowful and strange we are, Around the fire, with one chair less, And one child far!
THE SOUL’S OPPORTUNITY
Father, when from the deeps thy children call, In grief resigning all, We touch once more thy hand, O Infinite, And haply take from it, To wear, a little space, Infinity, Which as a wing shall be:
For Grief shall rise on exaltation’s wing, When in her throbbing Spring, No less than Joy. O’er daily things of earth, Grief soars aloft at birth; The stricken heart, quickened with heavenly power, Rebounds from earth’s dark hour.
But when the changing year is fully sped, With Spring and Summer fled, With gold and purple of October heaths Hidden in silver wreaths; When the white snow-drift shall dissolve its snows Into the Whitsun rose;
When once again from the flush bough is heard The oriole’s promised word; When once again gay garlands are begun, Blithe tasks for all save one; When festal footsteps to the dance are pressed Once more, save those loved best;
Ah, then Grief’s pinion, from that ether far, Droops, as a falling star To earth. The soul shall doff her wings, those days, Yet not her glory rays, To walk, with children of the earth, their road, To dwell in their abode;
Days dark and difficult to share with them, Trailing her starry hem In lowlier confines, realms less seeming-fair Than those of upper air. And if to earth returning Summer’s feet May bring a message sweet,
No less, O Soul, may thy returning pace Hallow this dwelling-place With something of the love and light that glow Where lately thou didst go; O Soul, in thy returning, thou shalt see Glad opportunity!
SYLVAN LEAVES
THE SYLVAN SPARKLE
“Let not the immemorial May-Day mirth Of jocund Pan desert the needy earth--” Is there a rumour of it?
Behold now Sylvia’s eyebrow, firm and fine, Lift up at will its merry mountain line, For that’s the humour of it--
And sweetly risen, lo, that line shall then Return to lovely gravity again, As ’twere in choosing of it,
The while a sylvan sparkle, underneath, Flashes unbidden from the eyelid’s sheath, In plain refusing of it!
THE SYLVAN MAGAZINE
Sylvia Brown-Eyes, Sylvia Blue-Eyes, Editresses wise (not too wise) Will offer shortly, in the sweet o’ the year, The promised literary treat o’ the year, Something quite new and unforeseen, The Sylvan Magazine!
The bright romance, the timely article Will there be found, without a particle Of overweening would-be-greatness, Or yet of prune-and-prism sedateness; Halfway ’twixt saucy and serene Is the Sylvan Magazine!
The pine boughs, in their style seigniorial, Will chant for us an editorial; Our printer’s devil is a rabbit Far-noted for his clerkly habit; The hermit thrush will be our dean, In the Sylvan Magazine.
Out of the pens of babes and sucklings Is food for thought and pensive chucklings; Our essays on “Advice to Mothers” Are widely known; then there are others, As, “When Should Parents Intervene?” In the Sylvan Magazine.
We print a serial, thrilling, forceful, On “Janet Olyphant,” resourceful Heroine of rides on trolleys; A ballad called “Louise’s Follies;” “The Porter Diamond” sheds a sheen On the Sylvan Magazine.
Also, we serve for your refection. In continuity collection, R. P.’s “Adventures of a Cowboy:” We have a “Poem on a Plowboy,” And there’ll be limericks on the green, In the Sylvan Magazine.
Our hand-wrought types, our ample marges Are given you at lowest charges Consistent with our great initial Expense--something quite sacrificial! It offers lines to read between, The Sylvan Magazine!
We sell no copies; we’ve consented One fair copy may be rented, Weekly, for a dime and nickel; We wish no clients false or fickle, Or who have hands at all unclean, For the Sylvan Magazine.
The proceeds go to help a movement Now on foot, our own improvement, Often mentioned to the heedful As something lacking, yet most needful: A fact we hope you will not glean From the Sylvan Magazine.
RIDING SONG