ELEGY IN AUTUMN

  IN MEMORY OF
  FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN

  BY
  CLINTON SCOLLARD

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN
  MCMXVII




  Copyright, 1917, by
  Clinton Scollard




ELEGY IN AUTUMN


I

  Brother in song, you who have gone before
      Along far incommunicable ways,
  Leaving me here upon this mortal shore,
      A bondman to the tyrant nights and days,
            Across the distance, hail!
  Though Time may sever, and we meet no more,
            Yet what shall Time avail!


II

  ’Twas Autumn when we first set hand to hand,
      And eye to eye, in loyal comradeship;
  Drowsed with a draught of Beauty seemed the land,
      As it had raised a golden cup to lip;
            But you embodied Spring,
  Its harvest hopes, its deeds in joyance planned,
            Its brave adventuring.


III

  I can recall your buoyance,--can recall
      The star-sown hours beneath the Cambridge trees,
  When o’er us wheeled the bright processional
      Of bold Orion and the Pleiades,
            And how we strolled along
  Laughterful, and oblivious to all
            Save the sweet thrall of Song.


IV

  Youth has its visions and its fervors; yours
      Were lovingly enlinked with Poesy;
  You dreamed the dream that many an one allures,
      The vernal dream where life is harmony.
            And though the years estranged
  Your full allegiance, something still assures
            My heart you never changed.


V

  What merriment was ours those shut-in nights
      When Winter, clamorous at the casement, cried!
  What dear association, what delights
      As we in friendly emulation vied,
            While Aspiration’s cruse
  Was brimmed for us, beholding on dim heights
            The presence of the Muse!


VI

  And then there opened wider paths to tread
      When Love, with Song, beguiled you on and on,
  While Art around your feet unfaltering shed
      Its luminous light, irradiant as the dawn;
            Though you saw many part
  From deities long worshipped, you were wed
            Inalienably to Art.


VII

  What though the rigid chains of circumstance
      Oft held you in the trammels of the town,
  Your heart went woodward where the fairies dance
      What time the moon its silvery sheen sifts down.
            You loved the reeds and rills,
  The sea, the shore, their glamour and romance,
            And all the climbing hills.


VIII

  And when you made escape, and sensed the wild
      Aromas beat about you, when you fared
  By tracks unwonted, like an unleashed child
      You gleefully your gay abandon shared.
            Care from your shoulders thrown,
  You seemed an Ariel spirit, long exiled,
            Come back unto its own.


IX

  With gracious Memory again I go
      To tread with you where meads are green and gold,
  Where upland slopes are strewn with daisy-snow,
      And bee-balm torches light the flocks to fold,
            And willow branches wave
  Above Oriskany, singing far below
            Its liquid summer stave.


X

  Now south we sail where stormy currents meet
      Round the wind-harassed cape of Hatteras,
  Beyond whose beacons, when the tides retreat,
      The wide sea-mirror is like burnished glass;
            There, ’mid the drowsy calms,
  As Ponce de Leon did of yore, we greet
            The tall Floridian palms.


XI

  Here down the live-oak aisles ’tis ours to stray
      With wraiths of many a stern conquistador,
  Those vanished warriors of an elder day
      When gray San Marco bore the brunt of war;
            Here we in revery lean
  Upon the ramparts beetling o’er the bay,
            And watch the shifting scene;--


XII

  The boats that dip and dart like living things,
      Seeking the open sea beyond the bar;
  The graceful gulls with sunlight on their wings
      Up the Matanzas soaring fleet and far
            Where inlets deep beguile;
  And o’er the waters undulant shimmerings
            The low coquina isle.


XIII

  Then, at the drooping of the twilight hour,
      We wander in the ancient plaza where
  We breathe the attar of the jasmine flower
      Like incense on the altar of the air;
            And list, as music swells
  Down drifting from the old cathedral tower,
            The arpeggio of the bells.


XIV

  We linger by the sea-wall while the tide
      Below us murmurs like a sad refrain,
  Bearing from outer ocean reaches wide
      The lore and legend of the Spanish main,
            Nor leave that spot serene
  Till Sleep, as with the mantle of the bride,
            Wraps fair Saint Augustine.


XV

  Days dedicate to rapturous things were these;
      It was as though Youth came again, and brought
  Past aims, past ardors and past ecstasies,
      And toward the shrine of Beauty turned our thought.
            And there were after times
  Of exultation, prismic harmonies,
            When hours ran by in rhymes.


XVI

  Once, ’mid cathedral Carolinian pines,
      We saw the Springtide, at its radiant birth,
  Kindle to fragrant gold the coiling vines,
      And make a garden of the wakened earth;
            And every morning heard
  Within the treetops, melody linked with mirth,
            The hidden mocking-bird.


XVII

  And while the cardinal through the waving bredes
      Of pendulous moss swift flitted like a flame,
  Back flooded to our minds the illustrious deeds,
      Emblazoned on the honor-scroll of Fame,
            When Liberty was won,
  Hearkening the Ashley whisper to its reeds
            The name of Marion.


XVIII

  From Gloucester cliffs and brown Nantucket dunes
      The mountains lured you, and the mountain star;
  For us the Woodland sang its lyric runes
      Where’er we followed it, or near or far,
            In sun or shadow cool,
  Or loitered through long languorous afternoons
            By Dian’s darkling pool.


XIX

  Far up the valley Wittenberg’s vast form,
      Its summit beckoning, with you I view,
  And above sweeping slopes where wild bees swarm
      Glimpse timid deer at dawn and fall of dew;
            Through Panther Kill we roam,
  And mark the purple streamers of the storm
            Ascend behind the Dome.


XX

  And, too, in bookmen’s mines of dusty ore
      Ever shall I remember how we delved,
  Plucking from out the musty treasure-store
      Rich rarities within the darkness shelved,
            Elated if we found
  Leaves that some name we long had honored bore
            In frayed morocco bound.


XXI

  Thus, step by step, we trod adown the years,
      Thus, side by side, with ne’er a break between;
  We shared our laughter and we shared our tears,
      Nor deemed inexorable Fate might intervene
            To sever the strong cord
  That bound us, Fate with its “abhorrèd shears,”
            That is man’s over-lord.


XXII

  You that in Autumn came, in Autumn went;
      How vain to say the mourning word! how vain
  To beat the bars of that arbitrament
      That metes to mortals pleasurement or pain!
            How vain!--how vain!--and yet
  We beat upon them, and we only gain
            The poignance of regret!


XXIII

  Autumn again with all its loveliness;
      Autumn again that brought an end to joy,
  Despite the sight of earth in amber dress,
      And airs that bear the blitheness of a boy!
            Autumn, and leaves that toss
  In bright brief triumphing, while they express
            The brooding sense of loss.


XXIV

  Autumn again down every winding way
      That, in the days gone by, our footsteps pressed!--
  Instead of woven amaranth would I lay
      Above your dust--you gone by paths unguessed--
            Love’s deathless asphodel;
  Until some happier hour,--when, who shall say?--
            Brother in song, farewell!


  ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES
  PRIVATELY PRINTED ON ITALIAN HAND-MADE
  PAPER DURING OCTOBER MCMXVII




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:


  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
    public domain.