We can vision those fields in culture; And the beds once bright with flowers, Where a crow now sits like a vulture, And broods through the sunlit hours. While stark through the verdure risen Like the tides in the distant bay, Through a cleft in its leafy prison Peers the lilac over the way. Anon as the breezes bluster, Then die and are strangely mute, The echoing memories cluster Like strains from a far off lute. We can almost hear the fingers Strumming an elfin lay - For the soul of that home still lingers In the lilac over the way. FRIENDLY LIGHTS Welcome greetings through the dark From the lamp light burning clear In some lonely home, a spark Radiating warmth and cheer. Lighthouse darting from the lea Flaming lances o’er the foam, Wandering mariners at sea You are guiding safely home. Glow worm on a summer night Torch within an elfin hand, Marking by your zig zag flight Ways obscure to fairy land. Starry twinkle in the blue To illumine worlds on high Far off orb we share with you Friendliness of earth and sky. TO MY CHERRY BLOSSOM From old Japan beyond the sea A fairy vision beckons me, A vale where cool the shadows rest From Fujiyama’s towering crest, A ruined temple’s crumbling wall Lulled by a drowsy waterfall, A shrine in whose corroding bell Faint murmurs, long forgotten, dwell, And Buddha, brooding day by day Dreams the slow centuries away In old Japan. There might the careworn find release In calm Nirvana’s perfect peace. There might the traveler inhale The haunting sweetness of that vale, An incense from the flowery gloom Where clustering cherry blossoms bloom In petaled purity that glows Like Fujiyama’s drifting snows; The fragrance of a far off clime From some remote, forgotten time In old Japan. There might I roam in fancy free That Orient vale beyond the sea, By Nippon’s shores an Eden seek Neath Fujiyama’s storied peak. But here, - where happier far, I’d be A CHERRY BLOSSOM blooms for me. I glimpse within her starry eyes A nearer view of Paradise, My Shrine and Eden is our home, Nor need my wandering fancy roam To old Japan. GRAINS OF SAND Fine gleanings of the ledges, golden grains That ponderous glaciers reaped long, long ago From battlemented crags and furrowed plains Grinding and crushing with resistless flow, To mingle with the melting seas, and heap Their flinty harvestings in windrows; strew The granite kernels for the thunderous deep To winnow endlessly and grind anew.