MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
THE CAMEO PRESS NEW YORK 1915
Copyright, 1915, by ROSE de VAUX-ROYER
This edition is limited to Five Hundred copies of which this is Number
For permission to reprint most of the poems in this volume thanks aremade to the various magazines and periodicals in which they firstappeared.
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
TO MY GOOD FRIEND
W. T. H. HOWE
Friend, for the sake of loves we hold in common, The love of books, of paintings, rhyme and fiction; And for the sake of that divine affliction, The love of art, passing the love of woman;— By which all life's made nobler, superhuman, Lifting the soul above, and, without friction Of Time, that puts failure in his prediction,— Works to some end through hearts that dreams illumine: To you I pour this Cup of Dreams—a striver, And dreamer too in this sad world,—unwitting Of that you do, the help that still assureth,— Lifts up the heart, struck down by that dark driver, Despair, who, on Life's pack-horse—effort—sitting, Rides down Ambition through whom Art endureth.
THRENODY IN MAY
(In memory of Madison Cawein.)
Again the earth, miraculous with May, Unfolds its vernal arras. Yesteryear We strolled together 'neath the greening trees, And heard the robin tune its flute note clear, And watched above the white cloud squadrons veer. And saw their shifting shadows drift away Adown the Hudson, as ships seek the seas. The scene is still the same. The violet Unlids its virgin eye; its amber ore The dandelion shows, and yet, and yet, He comes no more, no more!
He of the open and the generous heart, The soul that sensed all flowerful loveliness, The nature as the nature of a child; Who found some rapture in the wind's caress. Beauty in humble weed and mint and cress. And sang, with his incomparable art, The magic wonder of the wood and wild. The little people of the reeds and grass Murmur their blithe, companionable lore, The rills renew their minstrelsy. Alas, He comes no more, no more!
And yet it seems as though he needs must come, Albeit he has cast off mortality, Such was his passion for the bourgeoning time, Such to his spirit was the ecstas