Debris by Madge Morris Wagner (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📕

it wells.

It is not charm of form or face,
Nor is it long contact of years
That wins this mutual soul response,
This spirit sympathy endears.
A theory by time engraved
Fro life, one mad impulse may sweep--
A glance may into being start
Vain hopes that nevermore may sleep.

The quiet touch when hands are clasped
Would seemingly no sense impart,
Yet may it wake a deathless theme
And send it quivering to the heart.
And thus may kindred spirits feel,
Though tone of voice be never heard,
The sweet impassioned eloquence,
The magic of unspoken words.


O! TAKE AWAY YOUR FLOWERS.

O! take your pale camellias back;
Their soft leaves, waxen white
And odorless, too ill accord
With my dark mood to-night.

I do not want your hot-house flowers,
They're like the love you give--
A something tame and passionless
That breaths but does not live.

You take my hand as though you feared
Your clasp were over-bold,
Your kiss falls light at flake of snow,
And just as calm and cold.

I'd rather have your hatred
Than this lifeless loving claim,
If your heart beat one throb faster
At mention of my name.

Leave me, and bind those soulless leaves
A calmer brow above;
I cannot wear your flowers to-night--
I do not want your love.


RAIN.

Drop! drop! drop!
With a ceaseless patter fall,
With a sobbing sound on the sodden ground,
And the gray clouds over all.
Dost weep of the parted summer,
O, spirit of the rain?
For the vanished hours and the faded flowers
That never can come again?

The farmer smiles at they weeping,
Hushing the whispering leaves,
And dreams of days in the Autumn haze
And the gathered golden sheaves.
There's a voice of hope, a promise,
In the sound of thy refrain,
And as bright the hours and as fair the flowers
That will come to thee again.

And yet in our lives, though knowing
That we hold a scepter's sway,
How oft we turn with the thoughts that burn,
To weep on Autumn day.
Turn from the hopeful future
To weep in grief and pain,
For the vanished hours and the faded flowers
That never can come again.


I LOVE HIM FOR HIS EYES.

They praised the baby's dimpled hands,
His brow so broad and fair,
They kiss the dainty rose-bud mouth,
Caress the sunny hair.
His lisping words, his tottling steps,
His smiles they praise and prize,
They love him for his cunning ways,
I love him for his eyes.

The wealth of golden tinted curls
Old Time will streak with snow;
The rose-bud mouth so dainty curved
To sterner lines will grow.
The fleeting years will mark with change
Each feature now they prize,
Save only the sweet eyes I love--
I love him for his eyes.

Those wondrous, wondrous soulful eyes,
How strange the spell they fling
Unconsciously around my heart;
What memories they bring!
What buried hours come thronging back--
A distant, dearer clime--
Another pair of love-lit eyes,
Another summer time.

Oh, baby, take your eyes away:
They burn into my heart!
I'll kiss you once, and say good-by,
And hid the tears that start;
But through the years to come and go,
The changeful scenes to rise,
I'll love the little baby boy--
I love him for his eyes.


* * * * *


ONLY.

Only a sentence earnest spoke,
With never a thought to word it,
Fell like balm from the sea of calm,
On the aching heart that heard it.

Only a glance, a scornful smile,
A wavering purpose altered,
Goaded a hand the crime to do
At which before it faltered.

Only a kiss, a love caress,
Tender and trustful given,
Banished a cloud from brow of care,
Made home a woman's Heaven.

Only a secret, chance disclosed,
Whence secret should be never,
A doubt crept into the heart that loved
And its light went out forever.

Only a prayer, a wrong confessed,
By suppliant lowly kneeling,
Opened the gate where the angels wait,
Life's Eden field revealing.

Careful then scatter the little things,
They make life drear and lonely,
Or strew its way with flowers gay,--
We live by trifles only.


SOMEBODY'S BABY'S DEAD.

A hearse all draped in mourning,
With white plumes overhead,
Bearing a little coffin--
Somebody's baby's dead.

Upon the velvet cover
Some hand has placed a wreath,
White as the waxen features
Of the baby that lies beneath.

Out in the graveyard making
A rest for a shining head,
Somebody's heart is breaking,
Somebody's baby's dead.

Over a baby's coffin,
Heaping a mound of clay,
Somebody's hopes are buried
In that little grave to-day.

Somebody's home is dreary,
Somebody's sunshine fled,
Somebody's sad and weary,
Somebody's baby's dead.


THE WITHERED ROSEBUD.

I gathered you, sweet little rosebud,
With a dew crown encircling your head;
Now, out of the window I toss you,
Shriveled, and scentless, and dead.
You had opened to wondrous perfection,
Had only my hand let you pass;
Yet here you have perished for water--
I forgot to put some in the glass.

Ah! poor little withered, dead rosebud,
How many a weak human heart,
Too like you, has famishing perished,
When life had but only a start?
Yes, many a heart, little rosebud,
Loving, and tender, and true,
For water has faded and withered,
And died in its beauty like you,
Not because there was dearth of life's fountain,
Nor the blessing to all might not pass,
But because the strong hand which it clung to
Forgot to put some in its glass.


MY SHIPS HAVE COME FROM SEA.

You are watching a ship, O, maiden fair,
With parted lips and wistful air,
The ship that out from the sheltered bay
With white sails spread moves slow away;
And I know, my girl, the thoughts that burn
In your heart are of ship's return.
Ah! I know so well how your pulses beat,
With the great sea sobbing at your feet;
And the yellow stars in southern skies
Are brighter not than your love-bright eyes.
I, too, have stood on the sea-wet sand
And tearful waved a farewell hand,
And watched with many a longing prayer.
My face, like yours, was young and fair,
And my eyes were bright as the diamond's glow;
They've lost their sparkle--long ago.
I stand along on the beach to-day,
Watching the ships that sail away;
But never a sail from over the sea
The flowing tide will bring to me,
My ships have come from sea.

The first was builded with childish hand,
It floated away a castle grand--
A beautiful bubble with rainbow hues,
Lined with the crystal of morning dews;
To break at my feet by the sunny sea,
A beautiful bubble came back to me--
Came back from my ship at sea.

I fashioned another in gladsome way
And sent it forth on a Summer day.
I see it yet, a fairer craft,
Never at danger mocking laughed;
Its shrouds were the sheen of happy hours,
Its helm a wreath of orange flowrs;
And I freighted it down with love and truth,
The golden hopes of my sunny youth.
Had it lived the storm--but it could not be,
A stranded wreck on the surf-washed lea,
My ship came home from sea.

And then a smiling fairy bark,
A fragile, precious-freighted ark,
Out on life's ocean drear and dark.
And I prayed to God as I never before,
To shield this back from the tempest's roar,
To spare me this--but it could not be,
A tiny coffin came back to me--
Came back from my ship at sea.

With reckless hand I launched again,
A venture on the treacherous main,
Bound for ambition's dizzy court;
Sailed from a hopeless, loveless port;
With gloomy walls whose silence chilled,
With ghostly haunting memories filled,
With never a breath of the roses dead;
Never a rest for a weary head,
Never a dream of a sweet to be,
Hopeless, loveless still, to me,
My ship came home from sea.

The last, and least, of all the ships
Fashioned with hands, and heart, and lips,
I pushed from shore with its decks untrod
And the freight it bore was my faith in God.
I recked not whither its way, nor when,
Nor how, if ever, 'twould come again,
And this, alone, came back to me,
Rich-laden from the stormy sea.
And so, sweet maiden, while your dreams
Paint fairest all that fairest seems,
I stand with you and watch to-day
The ship that sails form the shore away;
But never a sail from over the sea
The flowing tide will bring to me--
My ships have come from sea.


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Publication Date: 08-18-2009

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Dedication:
_To the one who, reading, may fancy-- With a kindly thought for me-- There's a grain of gold in its driftings, I dedicate this "Debris."_