NIGHT OF LOVE

  The moon has left the sky, love,
    The stars are hiding now,
  And frowning on the world, love,
    Night bares her sable brow. 
  The snow is on the ground, love,
    And cold and keen the air is. 
  I ’m singing here to you, love;
    You ’re dreaming there in Paris.

  But this is Nature’s law, love,
    Though just it may not seem,
  That men should wake to sing, love,
    While maidens sleep and dream. 
  Them care may not molest, love,
    Nor stir them from their slumbers,
  Though midnight find the swain, love,
    Still halting o’er his numbers.

  I watch the rosy dawn, love,
    Come stealing up the east,
  While all things round rejoice, love,
    That Night her reign has ceased. 
  The lark will soon be heard, love,
    And on his way be winging;
  When Nature’s poets wake, love,
    Why should a man be singing?

COLUMBIAN ODE

I

  Four hundred years ago a tangled waste
    Lay sleeping on the west Atlantic’s side;
  Their devious ways the Old World’s millions traced
    Content, and loved, and labored, dared and died,
  While students still believed the charts they conned,
    And revelled in their thriftless ignorance,
  Nor dreamed of other lands that lay beyond
    Old Ocean’s dense, indefinite expanse.

II

  But deep within her heart old Nature knew
    That she had once arrayed, at Earth’s behest,
  Another offspring, fine and fair to view,—­
    The chosen suckling of the mother’s breast. 
  The child was wrapped in vestments soft and fine,
    Each fold a work of Nature’s matchless art;
  The mother looked on it with love divine,
    And strained the loved one closely to her heart. 
  And there it lay, and with the warmth grew strong
    And hearty, by the salt sea breezes fanned,
  Till Time with mellowing touches passed along,
    And changed the infant to a mighty land.

III

  But men knew naught of this, till there arose
    That mighty mariner, the Genoese,
  Who dared to try, in spite of fears and foes,
    The unknown fortunes of unsounded seas. 
  O noblest of Italia’s sons, thy bark
  Went not alone into that shrouding night! 
  O dauntless darer of the rayless dark,
    The world sailed with thee to eternal light! 
  The deer-haunts that with game were crowded then
    To-day are tilled and cultivated lands;
  The schoolhouse tow’rs where Bruin had his den,
    And where the wigwam stood the chapel stands;
  The place that nurtured men of savage mien
    Now teems with men of Nature’s noblest types;
  Where moved the forest-foliage banner green,
    Now flutters in the breeze the stars and stripes!