Long years! Long years! and now, I well know why Thine eyes, quick-filled with tears, were turned away.
First loved; first lost; my mother:--time must still Leave my soul's debt uncancelled. All that's best In me, and in my art, is thine:--Me-seems, Even now, we walk afield. Through good and ill, My sorrowing heart forgets not, and in dreams I see thee, in the sun-lands of the blest.
Frankfort, Kentucky, October 6, 1887.
WHEN EVENING COMETH ON
[From the same]
When evening cometh on, Slower and statelier in the mellowing sky The fane-like, purple-shadowed clouds arise; Cooler and balmier doth the soft wind sigh; Lovelier, lonelier to our wondering eyes The softening landscape seems. The swallows fly Swift through the radiant vault; the field-lark cries His thrilling, sweet farewell; and twilight bands Of misty silence cross the far-off lands When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Deeper and dreamier grows the slumbering dell, Darker and drearier spreads the bristling wold, Bluer and heavier roll the hills that swell In moveless waves against the shimmering gold.
Out from their haunts the insect hordes, that dwell Unseen by day, come thronging forth to hold Their fleeting hour of revel, and by the pool Soft pipings rise up from the grasses cool, When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Along their well-known paths with heavier tread The sad-eyed, loitering kine unurged return; The peaceful sheep, by unseen shepherds led, Wend bleating to the hills, so well they learn Where Nature's hand their wholesome couch hath spread; And through the purpling mist the moon doth yearn; Pale gentle radiance, dear recurring dream, Soft with the falling dew falls thy faint beam, When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Loosed from the day's long toil, the clanking teams, With halting steps, pass on their jostling ways, Their gearings glinted by the waning beams; Close by their heels the heedful collie strays; All slowly fading in a land of dreams, Transfigured specters of the shrouding haze.
Thus from life's field the heart's fond hope doth fade, Thus doth the weary spirit seek the shade, When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Across the dotted fields of gathered grain The soul of summer breathes a deep repose, Mysterious murmurings mingle on the plain, And from the blurred and blended brake there flows The undulating echoes of some strain Once heard in paradise, perchance--who knows?
But now the whispering memory sadly strays Along the dim rows of the rustling maize When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Anon there spreads upon the lingering air The musk of weedy slopes and grasses dank, And odors from far fields, unseen but fair, With scent of flowers from many a shadowy bank.
O lost Elysium, art thou hiding there?
Flows yet that crystal stream whereof I drank?
Ah, wild-eyed Memory, fly from night's despair; Thy strong wings droop with heavier weight of care When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, No sounding phrase can set the heart at rest.
The settling gloom that creeps by wood and stream, The bars that lie along the smouldering west, The tall and lonely, silent trees that seem To mock the groaning earth, and turn to jest This wavering flame, this agonizing dream, Ah, all bring sorrow as the clouds bring rain, And evermore life's struggle seemeth vain When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Anear doth Life stand by the great unknown, In darkness reaching out her sentient hands; Philosophies and creeds, alike, are thrown Beneath her feet, and questioning she stands, Close on the brink, unfearing and alone, And lists the dull wave breaking on the sands; Albeit her thoughtful eyes are filled with tears, So lonely and so sad the sound she hears When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Vain seems the world, and vainer wise men's thought.
All colors vanish when the sun goeth down.
Fame's purple mantle some proud soul hath caught No better seems than doth the earth-stained gown Worn by Content. All names shall be forgot.
Death plucks the stars to deck his sable crown.
The fair enchantment of the golden day Far through the vale of shadows melts away When evening cometh on.
When evening cometh on, Love, only love, can stay the sinking soul, And smooth thought's racking fever from the brow: The wounded heart Love only can console.
Whatever brings a balm for sorrow now, So must it be while this vexed earth shall roll; Take then the portion which the gods allow.
Dear heart, may I at last on thy warm breast Sink to forgetfulness and silent rest When evening cometh on?
FOOTNOTE:
[8] Copyright, 1887, by O. M. Dunham.
DANIEL HENRY HOLMES
Daniel Henry Holmes is, with the possible exceptions of Theodore O'Hara and Madison Cawein, the foremost lyric poet Kentucky can rightfully claim, although he happened to be born at New York City, July 16, 1851; and that single fact is the only flaw in Kentucky's fee simple title to his fame. His father, Daniel Henry Holmes, Senior, was a native of Indiana; his mother was an Englishwoman. Daniel Henry Holmes, Senior, settled at New Orleans when a young man as a merchant; but a year after the birth of Daniel Henry Junior--as the future poet always signed himself while his father lived--or in 1852, he purchased an old colonial house back of Covington, Kentucky, as a summer place for his family, and called it Holmesdale. So Daniel Henry Junior Holmes became a warm-weather Kentuckian when but one year old; and he spent the following nine summers at Holmesdale, returning each fall to New Orleans for the winter. When the Civil War began his father, whose sympathies were entirely Southern, removed his family to Europe, where eight years were spent in Tours and Paris. In 1869, at the age of eighteen years, Daniel Henry Junior, with his family, returned to the United States, and entered his father's business at New Orleans. His dislike for commercialism in any form became so great that his father wisely permitted him to return to Holmesdale, which was then in charge of an uncle, and to study law at Cincinnati. In the same year that he returned to Holmesdale (1869), the house was rebuilt; and it remains intact to-day. His family shortly afterwards joined him, and Holmesdale became the manor-place of his people for many years. Holmes was graduated in law in 1872, and he practiced in a desultory manner for some years. In 1883 he married Miss Rachel Gaff, of Cincinnati, daughter of one of the old and wealthy families of that city. He and his bride spent the year of their marriage at Holmesdale, and, in 1884, went abroad.
Holmes's first and finest book of poems, written at Covington, was entitled _Under a Fool's Cap: Songs_ (London, 1884), and contained one hundred and forty-four pages in an edition that did not exceed five hundred copies. The poet whimsically placed his boyhood name of "Daniel Henry Junior" upon the title-page. This little volume is one of the most unique things ever done by an American hand. Holmes took twenty-four old familiar nursery jingles, which are printed in black-face type at the top of the lyrics relating to them, and he worked them over and turned them over and did everything but parody them; and in only one of them--_Margery Daw_--did he discard the original metres. He employed "three methods of dealing with his nursery rhymes; he either made them the basis of a story, or he took them as an allegory and gave the 'modern instance,' or he simply continued and amplified. The last method is, perhaps, the most effective and successful of all," the poems done in this manner being far and away the finest in the book. Holmes spent the seven years subsequent to the appearance of _Under a Fool's Cap_, in France, Italy, and Germany. In 1890 his father gave him Holmesdale. He returned to Kentucky, and the remaining years of his life were spent at Covington, save several winters abroad.
Holmes's second book of lyrics, _A Pedlar's Pack_ (New York, 1906), which was largely written at Holmesdale, contained many exceedingly clever and charming poems, but, with the exception of some fine sonnets, _A Pedlar's Pack_ is verse, while _Under a Fool's Cap_ is genuine poetry. Holmes was an accomplished musician, and his _Hempen Homespun Songs_ (Cincinnati, 1906), mostly written in Dresden, contained fourteen songs set to music, of which four had words by the poet. Of the other ten songs, three were by W. M. Thackeray, two by Alfred de Musset, and Austin Dobson, Henri Chenevers, W. E. Henley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Tennyson were represented by having one of their songs set to music. This was his only publication in the field of music, and his third and final book. Holmes's last years were spent at the old house in Covington, devoted to arranging his large library, collected from the bookshops of the world, and to his music. His life was one of endless ease, the universal pursuit of wealth being neither necessary nor engaging. He had lived parts of more than forty years of his life at Holmesdale when he left it for the last time in the fall of 1908 to spend the winter at Hot Springs, Virginia, where he died suddenly on December 14, 1908. He had hardly found his grave at Cincinnati before lovers of poetry on both sides of the Atlantic arose and demanded word of his life and works. This demand has been in part supplied by Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, the Maine publisher, who has exquisitely reprinted _Under a Fool's Cap_, and written this beautiful tribute to the poet's memory:
"One vital point of interest should be restated: the man who took these old tags of nursery rhymes and fashioned out of them some of the tenderest lyrics ever written was an American by birth and in the doing of this unique thing did it perfectly. That he never repeated these first fine careless raptures is nothing to his discredit. That he _did_ accomplish what he set himself to do with an originality and a proper regard to the quality of his work rather than its quantity is the essential fact; and in his ability to touch a vibrating chord in the hearts of all who have come across these lyrics we feel that the mission of Daniel Henry Holmes was fulfilled both in letter and in spirit."
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Hesperian Tree_, edited by J. J. Piatt (Cincinnati, 1900); _The Cornhill Magazine_ (August, 1909), review of _Under a Fool's Cap_, by Norman Roe; _The Bibelot_ (May, 1910); _Under a Fool's Cap_ (Portland, Maine, 1910; 1911), lovely reprints of the 1884 edition, with Mr. Roe's review and foreword by Mr. Mosher; letters from Mrs. Holmes, the poet's widow, who has recently reopened Holmesdale.
BELL HORSES
[From _Under a Fool's Cap_ (London, 1884)]
Bell horses, Bell horses, What time of day?
One o'clock! Two o'clock!
Three! and away.
I shall wait by the gate To see you pass, Closely press'd, three abreast, Clanking with brass:
With your smart red mail-cart Hard at your heels, Scarlet ground, fleck'd around With the Queen's seals.
Up the hills, down the hills, Till the cart shrink To a faint dab of paint On the sky-brink,
Never stop till you drop, On to the town, Bearing great news of state To Lords and Crown.
And down deep in the keep Of your mail-cart, There's a note that I wrote To my sweetheart.
I had no words that glow, No penman's skill, And high-born maids would scorn Spelling so ill;
But what if it be stiff Of hand and thought, And ink-blots mark the spots Where kisses caught,
He will read without heed Of phrases' worth, That I love him above All things on earth.
I must wait here, till late Past Evensong, Ere you come tearing home-- Days are so long!--
But I'll watch, till I catch Your bell's chime clear ...
If you'll bring _me_ something-- Won't you please, dear?
MY LADY'S GARDEN
[From the same]
How does my Lady's garden grow?