poems of ebeeme

Orestes: a dramatic sketch and other poems - Page 85

Harry Lyman Koopman - 1888 -

EBEEME.

Bright is the broad Ebeeme as in the days gone by;

So little Nature sorrows when those that love her die.

The vast pine's benediction still greets the wakening year,

Still from the snow-bank's edges the pink-white Mayblooms peer,

With bowstring-twang the wild-fowl bend here their arrow-flight,

What time the full-moon lingers below the floor of night,

And long before the swart snow has left the shadiest glen,

The winter-starven partridge drums merrily again.

There is no southern hillside but coins itself in gold, And every violet's fingers their fill of heaven hold; Here, as in Junes aforetime, the shy, red strawberries,

strawn,

Blush to the water's redness that eyes the early dawn; And when the flowers of springtime have breathed

their light away, And August's blackened clover no more perfumes the

day,

Still flash the scarlet cardinals along Ebeeme's shore, Like elfin bale-fires mourning the blooms that are no

more.

Upon its heaving shallows the anchored lilies nod, Greeting the purple asters and plumy golden-rod;

Hushed are the summer's voices, its uproar and its song,

All but the picket challenge the shy crows pass along. With bowstring-twang the wild-fowl wing hence their

arrow-flight, What time the full-moon lingers above the floor of

night, While, last of summer's tokens, new-born to feebler

glow, Like love in old age quickened, the dandelions blow.

Oh! lovely is the springtime, with fragrance of newlife,

And lovely is the summer, with song and hue at strife, But blessings smile at parting, the year is then most

fair, When its low summons calls it, far whispering down

the air. 'Tis then on all Ebeeme comes down a wondrous

light, Faint golden mists by daytime, the golden moon by

night;

Then all Ebeeme's waters, on every wooded strand, Are drenched with light no sunset stole yet from

Elfin-Land. For now is Heaven nearer; through all the woodland

round, No bush but hath its angel, and burneth without

sound;

No sound there is, yet voices are haunting all the air, And some have said, who listened, that God spake

with them there.

And ah! of one I mind me, to whom indeed there

spake An aery voice that called him from mountain and

from lake. Since then two years have vanished, and still the

seasons keep Their round of life and slumber, and birth and life

and sleep. But vainly drear November may dye the mountains

blue, And stain the waves with color no June skies ever

knew, Something there was that is not, on mountain, wave

and shore, Since one, who knew and loved them, is met by them

no more.

PRINCE HENRY TO ELSIE.

(Golden Legend, 2; 912-917.)

Me life holds in such grip That death is doubly death. I should go forth, As the doomed culprit, yellow from his dungeon, Is dragged forth blinded to the glare of noon, Clutching and cursing. But to thee this life Is but a filmy cloud that veils the sun, From one that wanders over singing fields, And death the wind that lifts it.

EBEEME BOATING SONG.

Air— Trancadillo.

There are full many lakes,

Many ponds, too, there be,
But no one that takes

Such a hold upon me,

As the sweet lake, the fair lake, the pleasant Ebeeme,
With the light on the lilies, delicious and dreamy.

Here the wind in the pine,
And the wave on the strand,

As they meet and combine,

Make a melody grand, O'er, etc.

Oh ! sweet is the sound

From the high mountain side,

Whence our voices resound,
By the cliffs multiplied, O'er, etc.

'Neath the light of the moon

The canoe glides along,
While the call of the loon

Wakes anew at our song, On, etc.

Then Ebeeme, all hail!

In thy holiday dress;
May thy founts never fail,

Nor thy beauty be less. Oh ! etc.

Camp Crosby, West Pond, August, 1879.

THE POET'S TREASURE.

The sky is a mine of gold to-night,
And none of its wealth is hid, I ween;

For, stuffed with curdled nuggets bright,

Is the whole broad stretch of the heaven seen.

And men look heedless up, and say,

"The clouds are yellow and fair to see."

But the poet hears them not, for away,
Amid that shining drift is he.

His hand bears neither mattock nor spade,

Nor a bag to put his gettings in. From the spangled sky the bright clouds fade,

And the meadow mists rise gray and thin.

But the poet hath gotten him from the sky
Treasures that neither fade nor pall,

Which the gold of the rich man cannot buy;
For Heaven gives freely or not .at all.

UNTHRIFT.

I've a way,
To my sorrow,
To borrow
From to-morrow,
To pay
To-day.