Produced by Al Haines

A LONELY FLUTE

BY

ODELL SHEPARD

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

_The Riverside Press Cambridge_

1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ODELL SHEPARD

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published April 1917_

TO

M. F. S.

_And now 't was like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song That makes the Heavens be mute._

COLERIDGE.

CONTENTS

PROEM LAUS MARIAE RECOLLECTION NIGHTFALL A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH BIRDS OF PASSAGE WASTE THE WATCHER IN THE SKY HOUSEMATES POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE THE HIDDEN WEAVER VANITAS SPENSER'S "FAERIE QUEENE" MORNING ROAD SONG EVENING ROAD SONG WINDY MORNING THE GRAVE OF THOREAU EARTH-BORN "WHENCE COMETH MY HELP" UNITY VISTAS A NUN LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER CERTAIN AMERICAN POETS THE SINGER'S QUEST DEAD MAGDALEN THE ADVENTURER THE GOLDFINCH ORIOLES BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM APRIL A CHAPEL BY THE SEA EPHEMEROS WANDERLUST THE IDEAL THE FIRST CHRISTIAN

A LONELY FLUTE

PROEM

Beyond the pearly portal, Beyond the last dim star, Pale, perfect, and immortal, The eternal visions are, That never any rapture Of sorrow or of mirth Of any song shall capture To dwell with men on earth.

Many a strange and tragic Old sorrow still is mute And melodies of magic Still slumber in the flute, Many a mighty vision Has caught my yearning eye And swept with calm derision In robes of splendor by.

The rushing susurration Of some eternal wing Beats mighty variation Through all the song I sing; The vague, deep-mouthed commotion From its ancestral home Booms like the shout of ocean Across the crumbling foam; And these low lyric whispers Make answer wistfully As sea-shells ... dreaming lispers Beside the eternal sea.

LAUS MARIAE

There is a name like some deep melody Hallowed by sundown, delicate as the plash Of lonely waves on solitary lakes And rounded as the sudden-bursting bloom Of bold, deep-throated notes in a midnight cloud When shadowy belfries far away roll out Across the dark their avalanche of sound.

It is a wild voice lost in the wail of the wind; The silvery-twinkling plectrum of the rain Plays in the poplar tree no other tune And pines intone it softly as a prayer In leafy litanies. The name is raised Even to God's ear from ancient arches dim With caverned twilight and dull altar smoke Where tapers weave athwart the azure haze Innumerable pageantries of dusk.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: A Lonely Flute by Odell Shepard
• 2: And dark against the glow Firing the west
• 3: That lonely star calling to a star
• 4: O lonely hearts remembering in the midnight
• 5: They only lay and looked up at the stars
• 6: Wrought in the web of eternity
• 7: But beauty waned and smouldered
• 8: The air bites chill on the windy hill
• 9: Worship with asters and be whole
• 10: LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER If you dare
• 11: Trolling out His great blithe hearted tune
• 12: Lightly he sways on the pendulous stem
• 13: Your elder comrade in the night
• 14: Pity not our wars Of frail spun flesh
• 15: The cattle stall outside Jerusalem
• 16: The godlike strength In his supreme capacity for pain