how long for joy we'd
striven!
George Lathrop - Dreams and Days
"
But it didn't pan out. No one would hark.
"Let the prairie-dogs an' Blackmouth bark,"
Said our folks. And--no, he wa'n't resigned,
But concluded he had missed his find.
"_Where_ is Blackmouth? " That I can't decide.
Red an' white men, both, he tried to serve;
But I guess, at last, he lost his nerve.
Kind o' tired out. See? He had his pride:
Gave his life for others, far 's he could,
Hoping it would do 'em some small good.
Didn't seem to be much use. An' so--
Well; you see that man, dropped in the snow,
Where the crowd is? Suicide, they say.
Looks as though he had quit work, to stay.
Bullet in the breast. --His _body_ 's there;
But poor Blackmouth's gone--I don't know where!
THE CHILD YEAR
I
"Dying of hunger and sorrow:
I die for my youth I fear! "
Murmured the midnight-haunting
Voice of the stricken Year.
There like a child it perished
In the stormy thoroughfare:
The snow with cruel whiteness
Had aged its flowing hair.
Ah, little Year so fruitful,
Ah, child that brought us bliss,
Must we so early lose you--
Our dear hopes end in this?
II
"Too young am I, too tender,
To bear earth's avalanche
Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope,
And makes my heart's-blood blanch.
"Tell him who soon shall follow
Where my tired feet have bled,
He must be older, shrewder,
Hard, cold, and selfish-bred--
"Or else like me be trampled
Under the harsh world's heel.
'Tis weakness to be youthful;
'Tis death to love and feel. "
III
Then saw I how the New Year
Came like a scheming man,
With icy eyes, his forehead
Wrinkled by care and plan
For trade and rule and profit.
To him the fading child
Looked up and cried, "Oh, brother! "
But died even while it smiled.
Down bent the harsh new-comer
To lift with loving arm
The wanderer mute and fallen;
And lo! his eyes were warm;
All changed he grew; the wrinkles
Vanished: he, too, looked young--
As if that lost child's spirit
Into his breast had sprung.
So are those lives not wasted,
Too frail to bear the fray.
So Years may die, yet leave us
Young hearts in a world grown gray.
CHRISTENING
To-day I saw a little, calm-eyed child,--
Where soft lights rippled and the shadows tarried
Within a church's shelter arched and aisled,--
Peacefully wondering, to the altar carried;
White-robed and sweet, in semblance of a flower;
White as the daisies that adorned the chancel;
Borne like a gift, the young wife's natural dower,
Offered to God as her most precious hansel.
Then ceased the music, and the little one
Was silent, with the multitude assembled
Hearkening; and when of Father and of Son
He spoke, the pastor's deep voice broke and trembled.
But she, the child, knew not the solemn words,
And suddenly yielded to a troublous wailing,
As helpless as the cry of frightened birds
Whose untried wings for flight are unavailing.
How much the same, I thought, with older folk!
The blessing falls: we call it tribulation,
And fancy that we wear a sorrow's yoke,
Even at the moment of our consecration.
Pure daisy-child! Whatever be the form
Of dream or doctrine,--or of unbelieving,--
A hand may touch our heads, amid the storm
Of grief and doubt, to bless beyond bereaving;
A voice may sound, in measured, holy rite
Of speech we know not, tho' its earnest meaning
Be clear as dew, and sure as starry light
Gathered from some far-off celestial gleaning.
Wise is the ancient sacrament that blends
This weakling cry of children in our churches
With strength of prayer or anthem that ascends
To Him who hearts of men and children searches;
Since we are like the babe, who, soothed again,
Within her mother's cradling arm lay nested,
Bright as a new bud, now, refreshed by rain:
And on her hair, it seemed, heaven's radiance rested.
THANKSGIVING TURKEY
Valleys lay in sunny vapor,
And a radiance mild was shed
From each tree that like a taper
At a feast stood. Then we said,
"Our feast, too, shall soon be spread,
Of good Thanksgiving turkey. "
And already still November
Drapes her snowy table here.
Fetch a log, then; coax the ember;
Fill your hearts with old-time cheer;
Heaven be thanked for one more year,
And our Thanksgiving turkey!
Welcome, brothers--all our party
Gathered in the homestead old!
Shake the snow off and with hearty
Hand-shakes drive away the cold;
Else your plate you'll hardly hold
Of good Thanksgiving turkey.
When the skies are sad and murky,
'Tis a cheerful thing to meet
Round this homely roast of turkey--
Pilgrims, pausing just to greet,
Then, with earnest grace, to eat
A new Thanksgiving turkey.
And the merry feast is freighted
With its meanings true and deep.
Those we've loved and those we've hated,
All, to-day, the rite will keep,
All, to-day, their dishes heap
With plump Thanksgiving turkey.
But how many hearts must tingle
Now with mournful memories!
In the festal wine shall mingle
Unseen tears, perhaps from eyes
That look beyond the board where lies
Our plain Thanksgiving turkey.
See around us, drawing nearer,
Those faint yearning shapes of air--
Friends than whom earth holds none dearer!
No--alas! they are not there:
Have they, then, forgot to share
Our good Thanksgiving turkey?
Some have gone away and tarried
Strangely long by some strange wave;
Some have turned to foes; we carried
Some unto the pine-girt grave:
They 'll come no more so joyous-brave
To take Thanksgiving turkey.
Nay, repine not. Let our laughter
Leap like firelight up again.
Soon we touch the wide Hereafter,
Snow-field yet untrod of men:
Shall we meet once more--and when? --
To eat Thanksgiving turkey.
BEFORE THE SNOW
Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.
Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!
Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
Of that which makes moods dear,--some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
We walked in,--memory's rare environing.
And, though they die, the seasons only take
A ruined substance. All that's best remains
In the essential vision that can make
One light for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.
III
YOUTH TO THE POET
(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)
Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! --
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
Like and unlike as children of one mother
And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
Of young men see the prophecy arise
Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
But here in our dear poet both are blended--
Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended;--
Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
In strains that ever delicately run;
So musical and wise, page after page,
The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage.
The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers,
And day-break glory haunts his evening hours.
Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral:
That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel,
Which--smiling not, but trembling at the touch--
Youth gives back to the hand that gave so much.
EVENING OF DECEMBER 3, 1879.
THE SWORD DHAM
"How shall we honor the man who creates? "
Asked the Bedouin chief, the poet Antar;--
"Who unto the truth flings open our gates,
Or fashions new thoughts from the light of a star;
Or forges with craft of his finger and brain
Some marvelous weapon we copy in vain;
Or chants to the winds a wild song that shall
wander forever undying?
"See! His reward is in envies and hates;
In lips that deny, or in stabs that may kill. "
"Nay," said the smith; "for there's one here who waits
Humbly to serve you with unmeasured skill,
Sure that no utmost devotion can fail,
Offered to _you_, nor unfriended assail
The heart of the hero and poet Antar, whose
fame is undying! "
"Speak," said the chief. Then the smith: "O Antar,
It is I who would serve you! I know, by the soul
Of the poet within you, no envy can bar
The stream of your gratitude,--once let it roll.
Listen. The lightning, your camel that slew,
_I_ caught, and wrought in this sword-blade for you;--
Sword that no foe shall encounter unhurt, or
depart from undying. "
Burst from the eyes of Antar a swift rain,--Gratitude's
glittering drops,--as he threw
One shining arm round the smith, like a chain.
Closer the man to his bosom he drew;
Thankful, caressing, with "Great is my debt. "
"Yea," said the smith, and his eyelids were wet:
"I knew the sword Dham would unite me with
you in an honor undying. "
"So? " asked the chief, as his thumb-point at will
Silently over the sword's edge played.
--"Ay! " said the smith, "but there's one thing, still:
Who is the smiter, shall smite with this blade? "
Jealous, their eyes met; and fury awoke.
"_I_ am the smiter! " Antar cried. One stroke
Rolled the smith's head from his neck, and gave
him remembrance undying.
"Seek now who may, no search will avail:
No man the mate of this weapon shall own! "
Yet, in his triumph, the chieftain made wail:
"Slain is the craftsman, the one friend alone
Able to honor the man who creates.
I slew him--_I_, who am poet! O fates,
Grant that the envious blade slaying artists shall
make them undying! "
"AT THE GOLDEN GATE"
Before the golden gate she stands,
With drooping head, with idle hands
Loose-clasped, and bent beneath the weight
Of unseen woe. Too late, too late!
Those carved and fretted,
Starred, resetted
Panels shall not open ever
To her who seeks the perfect mate.
Only the tearless enter there:
Only the soul that, like a prayer,
No bolt can stay, no wall may bar,
Shall dream the dreams grief cannot mar.
No door of cedar,
Alas, shall lead her
Unto the stream that shows forever
Love's face like some reflected star!
They say that golden barrier hides
A realm where deathless spring abides;
Where flowers shall fade not, and there floats
Thro' moon-rays mild or sunlit motes--
'Mid dewy alleys
That gird the palace,
And fountain'd spray's unceasing quiver--
A dulcet rain of song-birds' notes.
The sultan lord knew not her name;
But to the door that fair shape came:
The hour had struck, the way was right,
Traced by her lamp's pale, flickering light.
But ah, whose error
Has brought this terror?
Whose fault has foiled her fond endeavor?
The gate swings to: her hope takes flight.
The harp, the song, the nightingales
She hears, beyond. The night-wind wails
Without, to sound of feast within,
While here she stands, shut out by sin.
And be that revel
Of angel or devil,
She longs to sit beside the giver,
That she at last her prize may win.
Her lamp has fallen; her eyes are wet;
Frozen she stands, she lingers yet;
But through the garden's gladness steals
A whisper that each heart congeals--
A moan of grieving
Beyond relieving,
Which makes the proudest of them shiver.
And suddenly the sultan kneels!
The lamp was quenched; he found her dead,
When dawn had turned the threshold red.
Her face was calm and sad as fate:
His sin, not hers, made her too late.
Some think, unbidden
She brought him, hidden,
A truer bliss that came back never
To him, unblest, who closed the gate.
CHARITY
I
Unarmed she goeth; yet her hands
Strike deeper awe than steel-caparison'd bands.
No fatal hurt of foe she fears,--
Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears.
II
'Gainst her thou canst not bar the door:
Like air she enters, where none dared before.
Even to the rich she can forgive
Their regal selfishness,--and let them live!
HELEN AT THE LOOM
Helen, in her silent room,
Weaves upon the upright loom;
Weaves a mantle rich and dark,
Purpled over, deep. But mark
How she scatters o'er the wool
Woven shapes, till it is full
Of men that struggle close, complex;
Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks
Arching high; spear, shield, and all
The panoply that doth recall
Mighty war; such war as e'en
For Helen's sake is waged, I ween.
Purple is the groundwork: good!
All the field is stained with blood--
Blood poured out for Helen's sake;
(Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake! )
But the shapes of men that pass
Are as ghosts within a glass,
Woven with whiteness of the swan,
Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan
From the garment's purple fold
Where Troy's tale is twined and told.
Well may Helen, as with tender
Touch of rosy fingers slender
She doth knit the story in
Of Troy's sorrow and her sin,
Feel sharp filaments of pain
Reeled off with the well-spun skein,
And faint blood-stains on her hands
From the shifting, sanguine strands.
Gently, sweetly she doth sorrow:
What has been must be to-morrow;
Meekly to her fate she bows.
Heavenly beauties still will rouse
Strife and savagery in men:
Shall the lucid heavens, then,
Lose their high serenity,
Sorrowing over what must be?
If she taketh to her shame,
Lo, they give her not the blame,--
Priam's wisest counselors,
Aged men, not loving wars.
When she goes forth, clad in white,
Day-cloud touched by first moonlight,
With her fair hair, amber-hued
As vapor by the moon imbued
With burning brown, that round her clings,
See, she sudden silence brings
On the gloomy whisperers
Who would make the wrong all hers.
So, Helen, in thy silent room,
Labor at the storied loom;
(Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake! )
Let thy aching sorrow make
Something strangely beautiful
Of this fabric; since the wool
Comes so tinted from the Fates,
Dyed with loves, hopes, fears, and hates.
Thou shalt work with subtle force
All thy deep shade of remorse
In the texture of the weft,
That no stain on thee be left;--
Ay, false queen, shalt fashion grief,
Grief and wrong, to soft relief.
Speed the garment! It may chance,
Long hereafter, meet the glance,
Of Oenone; when her lord,
Now thy Paris, shall go tow'rd
Ida, at his last sad end,
Seeking her, his early friend,
Who alone can cure his ill,
Of all who love him, if she will.
It were fitting she should see
In that hour thine artistry,
And her husband's speechless corse
In the garment of remorse!
But take heed that in thy work
Naught unbeautiful may lurk.
Ah, how little signifies
Unto thee what fortunes rise,
What others fall! Thou still shall rule,
Still shalt twirl the colored spool.
Though thy yearning woman's eyes
Burn with glorious agonies,
Pitying the waste and woe,
And the heroes falling low
In the war around thee, here,
Yet the least, quick-trembling tear
'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be
Than life, to friend or enemy.
There are people on the earth
Doomed with doom of too great worth.
Look on Helen not with hate,
Therefore, but compassionate.
If she suffer not too much,
Seldom does she feel the touch
Of that fresh, auroral joy
Lighter spirits may decoy
To their pure and sunny lives.
Heavy honey 'tis she hives.
To her sweet but burdened soul
All that here she may control--
What of bitter memories,
What of coming fate's surmise,
Paris' passion, distant din
Of the war now drifting in
To her quiet--idle seems;
Idle as the lazy gleams
Of some stilly water's reach,
Seen from where broad vine-leaves pleach
A heavy arch; and, looking through,
Far away the doubtful blue
Glimmers, on a drowsy day,
Crowded with the sun's rich gray;--
As she stands within her room,
Weaving, weaving at the loom.
THE CASKET OF OPALS
I
Deep, smoldering colors of the land and sea
Burn in these stones, that, by some mystery,
Wrap fire in sleep and never are consumed.
Scarlet of daybreak, sunset gleams half spent
In thick white cloud; pale moons that may have lent
Light to love's grieving; rose-illumined snows,
And veins of gold no mine depth ever gloomed;
All these, and green of thin-edged waves, are there.
I think a tide of feeling through them flows
With blush and pallor, as if some being of air,--
Some soul once human,--wandering, in the snare
Of passion had been caught, and henceforth doomed
In misty crystal here to lie entombed.
And so it is, indeed. Here prisoned sleep
The ardors and the moods and all the pain
That once within a man's heart throbbed. He gave
These opals to the woman whom he loved;
And now, like glinting sunbeams through the rain,
The rays of thought that through his spirit moved
Leap out from these mysterious forms again.
The colors of the jewels laugh and weep
As with his very voice. In them the wave
Of sorrow and joy that, with a changing sweep,
Bore him to misery or else made him blest
Still surges in melodious, wild unrest.
So when each gem in place I touch and take,
It murmurs what he thought or what he spake.
FIRST OPAL
My heart is like an opal
Made to lie upon your breast
In dreams of ardor, clouded o'er
By endless joy's unrest.
And forever it shall haunt you
With its mystic, changing ray:
Its light shall live when we lie dead,
With hearts at the heart of day!
SECOND OPAL
If, from a careless hold,
One gem of these should fall,
No power of art or gold
Its wholeness could recall:
The lustrous wonder dies
In gleams of irised rain,
As light fades out from the eyes
When a soul is crushed by pain.
Take heed that from your hold
My love you do not cast:
Dim, shattered, vapor-cold--
That day would be its last.
II
THIRD OPAL
_He won her love; and so this opal sings
With all its tints in maze, that seem to quake
And leap in light, as if its heart would break:_
Gleam of the sea,
Translucent air,
Where every leaf alive with glee
Glows in the sun without shadow of grief--
You speak of spring,
When earth takes wing
And sunlight, sunlight is everywhere!
Radiant life,
Face so fair--
Crowned with the gracious glory of wife--
Your glance lights all this happy day,
Your tender glow
And murmurs low
Make miracle, miracle, everywhere.
Earth takes wing
With birds--do I care
Whether of sorrow or joy they sing?
No; for they make not my life nor destroy!
My soul awakes
At a smile that breaks
In sun; and sunlight is everywhere!
III
_Then dawned a mood of musing thoughtfulness;
As if he doubted whether he could bless
Her wayward spirit, through each fickle hour,
With love's serenity of flawless power,
Or she remain a vision, as when first
She came to soothe his fancy all athirst. _
FOURTH OPAL
We were alone: the perfumed night,
Moonlighted, like a flower
Grew round us and exhaled delight
To bless that one sweet hour.
You stood where, 'mid the white and gold,
The rose-fire through the gloom
Touched hair and cheek and garment's fold
With soft, ethereal bloom.
And when the vision seemed to swerve,
'T was but the flickering shine
That gave new grace, a lovelier curve,
To every dream-like line.
O perfect vision! Form and face
Of womanhood complete!
O rare ideal to embrace
And hold, from head to feet!
Could I so hold you ever--could
Your eye still catch the glow
Of mine--it were an endless good:
Together we should grow
One perfect picture of our love! . . .
Alas, the embers old
Fell, and the moonlight fell, above--
Dim, shattered, vapor-cold.
IV
_What ill befell these lovers? Shall I say?
What tragedy of petty care and sorrow?
Ye all know, who have lived and loved: if nay,
Then those will know who live and love tomorrow.
But here at least is what this opal said,
The fifth in number: and the next two bore
My fancy toward that dim world of the dead,
Where waiting spirits muse the past life o'er_:
FIFTH OPAL
I dreamed my kisses on your hair
Turned into roses. Circling bloom
Crowned the loose-lifted tresses there.
"O Love," I cried, "forever
Dwell wreathed, and perfume-haunted
By my heart's deep honey-breath! "
But even as I bending looked, I saw
The roses were not; and, instead, there lay
Pale, feathered flakes and scentless
Ashes upon your hair!
SIXTH OPAL
The love I gave, the love I gave,
Wherewith I sought to win you--
Ah, long and close to you it clave
With life and soul and sinew!
My gentleness with scorn you cursed:
You knew not what I gave.
The strongest man may die of thirst:
My love is in its grave!
SEVENTH OPAL
You say these jewels were accurst--
With evil omen fraught.
You should have known it from the first!
This was the truth they taught:
No treasured thing in heaven or earth
Holds potency more weird
Than our hearts hold, that throb from birth
With wavering flames insphered.
And when from me the gems you took,
On that strange April day,
My nature, too, I gave, that shook
With passion's fateful play.
The mingled fate my love should give
In these mute emblems shone,
That more intensely burn and live--
While I am turned to stone.
V
_Listen now to what is said
By the eighth opal, flashing red
And pale, by turns, with every breath--
The voice of the lover after death. _
EIGHTH OPAL
I did not know before
That we dead could rise and walk;
That our voices, as of yore,
Would blend in gentle talk.
I did not know her eyes
Would so haunt mine after death,
Or that she could hear my sighs,
Low as the harp-string's breath.
But, ah, last night we met!
From our stilly trance we rose,
Thrilled with all the old regret--
The grieving that God knows.
She asked: "Am I forgiven? "--
"And dost thou forgive? " I said,
Ah!
how long for joy we'd striven!
But now our hearts were dead.
Alas, for the lips I kissed
And the sweet hope, long ago!
On her grave chill hangs the mist;
On mine, white lies the snow.
VI
_Hearkening still, I hear this strain
From the ninth opal's varied vein:_
NINTH OPAL
In the mountains of Mexico,
Where the barren volcanoes throw
Their fierce peaks high to the sky,
With the strength of a tawny brute
That sees heaven but to defy,
And the soft, white hand of the snow
Touches and makes them mute,--
Firm in the clasp of the ground
The opal is found.
By the struggle of frost and fire
Created, yet caught in a spell
From which only human desire
Can free it, what passion profound
In its dim, sweet bosom may dwell!
So was it with us, I think,
Whose souls were formed on the brink
Of a crater, where rain and flame
Had mingled and crystallized.
One venturous day Love came;
Found us; and bound with a link
Of gold the jewels he prized.
The agonies old of the earth,
Its plenitude and its dearth,
The torrents of flame and of tears,
All these in our souls were inborn.
And we must endure through the years
The glory and burden of birth
That filled us with fire of the morn.
Let the diamond lie in its mine;
Let ruby and topaz shine;
The beryl sleep, and the emerald keep
Its sunned-leaf green! We know
The joy of sufferings deep
That blend with a love divine,
And the hidden warmth of the snow!
TENTH OPAL
Colors that tremble and perish,
Atoms that follow the law,
You mirror the truth which we cherish,
You mirror the spirit we saw.
Glow of the daybreak tender,
Flushed with an opaline gleam,
And passionate sunset-splendor--
Ye both but embody a dream.
Visions of cloud-hidden glory
Breaking from sources of light
Mimic the mist of life's story.
Mingled of scarlet and white.
Sunset-clouds iridescent,
Opals, and mists of the day,
Are thrilled alike with the crescent
Delight of a deathless ray
Shot through the hesitant trouble
Of particles floating in space,
And touching each wandering bubble
With tints of a rainbowed grace.
So through the veil of emotion
Trembles the light of the truth;
And so may the light of devotion
Glorify life--age and youth.
Sufferings,--pangs that seem cruel,--
These are but atoms adrift:
The light streams through, and a jewel
Is formed for us, Heaven's own gift!
LOVE THAT LIVES
Dear face--bright, glinting hair;
Dear life, whose heart is mine--
The thought of you is prayer,
The love of you divine.
In starlight, or in rain;
In the sunset's shrouded glow;
Ever, with joy or pain,
To you my quick thoughts go
Like winds or clouds, that fleet
Across the hungry space
Between, and find you, sweet,
Where life again wins grace.
Now, as in that once young
Year that so softly drew
My heart to where it clung,
I long for, gladden in you.
And when in the silent hours
I whisper your sacred name,
Like an altar-fire it showers
My blood with fragrant flame!
Perished is all that grieves;
And lo, our old-new joys
Are gathered as in sheaves,
Held in love's equipoise.
Ours is the love that lives;
Its springtime blossoms blow
'Mid the fruit that autumn gives,
And its life outlasts the snow.
IV
BLUEBIRD'S GREETING
Over the mossy walls,
Above the slumbering fields
Where yet the ground no fruitage yields,
Save as the sunlight falls
In dreams of harvest-yellow,
What voice remembered calls,--
So bubbling fresh, so soft and mellow?
A darting, azure-feathered arrow
From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet
The bluebird, springing light and narrow,
Sings in flight, with gurglings sweet:
"Out of the South I wing,
Blown on the breath of Spring:
The little faltering song
That in my beak I bring
Some maiden shall catch and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of her spirit's blossoming.
"Warbling along
In the sunny weather,
Float, my notes,
Through the sunny motes,
Falling light as a feather!
Flit, flit, o'er the fertile land
'Mid hovering insects' hums;
Fall into the sower's hand:
Then, when his harvest comes,
The seed and the song shall have flowered together.
"From the Coosa and Altamaha,
With a thought of the dim blue Gulf;
From the Roanoke and Kanawha;
From the musical Southern rivers,
O'er the land where the fierce war-wolf
Lies slain and buried in flowers;
I come to your chill, sad hours
And the woods where the sunlight shivers.
I come like an echo: 'Awake! '
I answer the sky and the lake
And the clear, cool color that quivers
In all your azure rills.
I come to your wan, bleak hills
For a greeting that rises dearer,
To homely hearts draws me nearer
Than the warmth of the rice-fields or wealth of the ranches.
"I will charm away your sorrow,
For I sing of the dewy morrow:
My melody sways like the branches
My light feet set astir:
I bring to the old, as I hover,
The days and the joys that were,
And hope to the waiting lover!
Then, take my note and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of your spirit's blossoming! "
Not long that music lingers:
Like the breath of forgotten singers
It flies,--or like the March-cloud's shadow
That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow
Not long! And yet thy fleeting,
Thy tender, flute-toned greeting,
O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains
The purest chord in all the year's refrains.
THE VOICE OF THE VOID
I warn, like the one drop of rain
On your face, ere the storm;
Or tremble in whispered refrain
With your blood, beating warm.
I am the presence that ever
Baffles your touch's endeavor,--
Gone like the glimmer of dust
Dispersed by a gust.
I am the absence that taunts you,
The fancy that haunts you;
The ever unsatisfied guess
That, questioning emptiness,
Wins a sigh for reply.
Nay; nothing am I,
But the flight of a breath--
For I am Death!
"O WHOLESOME DEATH"
O wholesome Death, thy sombre funeral-car
Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way
Of life; while, lengthening still, in sad array,
My deeds in long procession go, that are
As mourners of the man they helped to mar.
I see it all in dreams, such as waylay
The wandering fancy when the solid day
Has fallen in smoldering ruins, and night's star,
Aloft there, with its steady point of light
Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.
Ah, when I die, and planets hold their flight
Above my grave, still let my spirit keep
Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse,
'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse!
INCANTATION
When the leaves, by thousands thinned,
A thousand times have whirled in the wind,
And the moon, with hollow cheek,
Staring from her hollow height,
Consolation seems to seek
From the dim, reechoing night;
And the fog-streaks dead and white
Lie like ghosts of lost delight
O'er highest earth and lowest sky;
Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!
Strew the ground with poppy-seeds,
And let my bed be hung with weeds,
Growing gaunt and rank and tall,
Drooping o'er me like a pall.
Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist
Across my brow to turn and twist
Fold on fold, and leave me blind
To all save visions in the mind.
Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams
I shall slumber, and in dreams
Slide through some long glen that burns
With a crust of blood-red ferns
And brown-withered wings of brake
Like a burning lava-lake;--
So, urged to fearful, faster flow
By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk! " of the crow,
Shall pass by many a haunted rood
Of the nutty, odorous wood;
Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom,
Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom;
Till, lured by light, reflected cloud,
I burst aloft my watery shroud,
And upward through the ether sail
Far above the shrill wind's wail;--
But, falling thence, my soul involve
With the dust dead flowers dissolve;
And, gliding out at last to sea,
Lulled to a long tranquillity,
The perfect poise of seasons keep
With the tides that rest at neap.
So must be fulfilled the rite
That giveth me the dead year's might;
And at dawn I shall arise
A spirit, though with human eyes,
A human form and human face;
And where'er I go or stay,
There the summer's perished grace
Shall be with me, night and day.
FAMINE AND HARVEST
[PLYMOUTH PLANTATION: 1622]
The strong and the tender,
The young and the old,
Unto Death we must render;--
Our silver, our gold.
To break their long sleeping
No voice may avail:
They hear not our weeping--
Our famished love's wail.
Yea, those whom we cherish
Depart, day by day.
Soon we, too, shall perish
And crumble to clay.
And the vine and the berry
Above us will bloom;
The wind shall make merry
While we lie in gloom.
Fear not! Though thou starvest,
Provision is made:
God gathers His harvest
When our hopes fade!
THE CHILD'S WISH GRANTED
Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,
How in the soft June days forever done
You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;
And when I lifted you, soft came your cry,--
"Put me 'way up--'way, 'way up in blue sky"?
I laughed and said I could not;--set you down,
Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown
Of bright hair gladdening me as you raced by.
Another Father now, more strong than I,
Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky.
THE FLOWN SOUL
(FRANCIS HAWTHORNE LATHROP)
FEBRUARY 6, 1881
Come not again! I dwell with you
Above the realm of frost and dew,
Of pain and fire, and growth to death.
I dwell with you where never breath
Is drawn, but fragrance vital flows
From life to life, even as a rose
Unseen pours sweetness through each vein
And from the air distills again.
You are my rose unseen; we live
Where each to other joy may give
In ways untold, by means unknown
And secret as the magnet-stone.
For which of us, indeed, is dead?
No more I lean to kiss your head--
The gold-red hair so thick upon it;
Joy feels no more the touch that won it
When o'er my brow your pearl-cool palm
In tenderness so childish, calm,
Crept softly, once. Yet, see, my arm
Is strong, and still my blood runs warm.
I still can work, and think and weep.
But all this show of life I keep
Is but the shadow of your shine,
Flicker of your fire, husk of your vine;
Therefore, you are not dead, nor I
Who hear your laughter's minstrelsy.
Among the stars your feet are set;
Your little feet are dancing yet
Their rhythmic beat, as when on earth.
So swift, so slight are death and birth!
Come not again, dear child. If thou
By any chance couldst break that vow
Of silence at thy last hour made;
If to this grim life unafraid
Thou couldst return, and melt the frost
Wherein thy bright limbs' power was lost;
Still would I whisper--since so fair
This silent comradeship we share--
Yes, whisper 'mid the unbidden rain
Of tears: "Come not, come not again! "
SUNSET AND SHORE
Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!
Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowing
Soon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;
Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing;--
Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.
Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;
Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;
Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest:--
Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!
THE PHOEBE-BIRD
(A REPLY)
Yes, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird.
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow
Strength from the other, making one more brave
And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.
But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.
Our voices vary with the changing seasons
Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.
Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered,
If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love and hate, or good and evil--all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 't is the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.
A STRONG CITY
For them that hope in Thee. . . . Thou shalt hide
them in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men.
Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the
contradiction of tongues.
Blessed be the Lord, for He hath shewn His wonderful
mercy to me in a fortified city. --_Psalm xxx. _
Beauty and splendor were on every hand:
Yet strangely crawled dark shadows down the lanes,
Twisting across the fields, like dragon-shapes
That smote the air with blackness, and devoured
The life of light, and choked the smiling world
Till it grew livid with a sudden age--
The death of hope.
O squandered happiness;
Vain dust of misery powdering life's fresh flower!
The sky was holy, but the earth was not.
Men ruled, but ruled in vain; since wretchedness
Of soul and body, for the mass of men,
Made them like dead leaves in an idle drift
Around the plough of progress as it drove
Sharp through the glebe of modern days, to plant
A civilized world. Ay; civilized--but not Christian!
Civilization is a clarion voice
Crying in the wilderness; a prophet-word
Still unfulfilled. And lo, along the ways
Crowded with nations, there arose a strife;
Disturbance of men; tongues contradicting tongues;
Madness of noise, that scattered multitudes;
A trample of blind feet, beneath whose tread
Truth's bloom shrank withered; while incessant mouths
Howled "Progress! Change! "--as though all moods of change
Were fiats of truth eternal.
'Mid the din
Two pilgrims, faring forward, saw the light
In a strong city, fortified, and moved
Patiently thither. "All your steps are vain,"
Cried scoffers. "There is mercy in the world;
But chiefly mercy of man to man. For we
Are good. We help our fellows, when we can.
Our charity is enormous. Look at these
Long rolls of rich subscriptions. We are good.
'T is true, God's mercy plays a part in things;
But most is left to us; and we judge well.
Stay with us in the field of endless war!
Here only is health. Yon city fortified
You dream of--why, its ramparts are as dust.
It gives no safety. One assaulting sweep
Of our huge cohorts would annul its power--
Crush it in atoms; make it meaningless. "
The pilgrims listened; but onward still they moved.
They passed the gates; they stood upon a hill
Enclosed, but in that strong enclosure free!
Though earth opposed, they held the key to heaven.
On came the turbulent multitude in war,
Dashing against the city's walls; and swept
Through all the streets, and robbed and burned and killed.
The walls were strong; the gates were always open.
And so the invader rioted, and was proud.
But sudden, in seeming triumph, the enemy host
Was stricken with death; and still the city stayed.
Skyward the souls of its defenders rose,
Returning soon in mist intangible
That flashed with radiance of half-hidden swords;
And those who still assaulted--though they crept
Into the inmost vantage-points, with craft--
Fell, blasted namelessly by this veiled flash,
Even as they shouted out, "The place is ours! "
So those two pilgrims dwelt there, fortified
In that strong city men had thought so frail.
They died, and lived again. Fiercest attack
Was as a perfumed breeze to them, which drew
Their souls still closer unto God. And there
Beauty and splendor bloomed untouched. The stars
Spoke to them, bidding them be of good cheer,
Though hostile hordes rushed over them in blood.
And still the prayers of all that people rose
As incense mingled with music of their hearts.
For Christ was with them: angels were their aid.
What though the enemy used their open gates?
The children of the citadel conquered all
Their conquerors, smiting them with the pure light
That shone in that strong city fortified.
THREE DOVES
Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
At eve they circled back to me.
The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
The third--the whitest--Charity.
Above the plunging surge's play
Dream-like they hovered, day by day.
At last they turned, and bore to me
Green signs of peace thro' nightfall gray.
No shore forlorn, no loveliest land
Their gentle eyes had left unscanned,
'Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope
Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned.
Quick visions of celestial grace,--
Hither they waft, from earth's broad space,
Kind thoughts for all humanity.
They shine with radiance from God's face.
Ah, since my heart they choose for home,
Why loose them,--forth again to roam?
Yet look: they rise! with loftier scope
They wheel in flight toward heaven's pure dome.
Fly, messengers that find no rest
Save in such toil as makes man blest!
Your home is God's immensity:
We hold you but at his behest.
V
ARISE, AMERICAN!
The soul of a nation awaking,--
High visions of daybreak,--I saw;
A people renewed; the forsaking
Of sin, and the worship of law.
Sing, pine-tree; shout, to the hoarser
Response of the jubilant sea!
Rush, river, foam-flecked like a courser;
Warn all who are honest and free!
Our birth-star beckons to trial
The faith of the far-fled years,
Ere scorn was our share, and denial,
Or laughter for patriots' tears.
And Faith shall come forth the finer,
From trampled thickets of fire,
And the orient open diviner
Before her, the heaven rise higher.
O deep, sweet eyes, but severer
Than steel! See you yet, where he comes--
Our hero? Bend your glance nearer;
Speak, Faith! For, as wakening drums,
Your voice shall set his blood stirring;
His heart shall grow strong like the main
When the rowelled winds are spurring,
And the broad tides landward strain.
O hero, art thou among us?
O helper, hidest thou, still?
Why hast thou no anthem sung us,
Why workest thou not our will?
For a smirk of the face, or a favor,
Still shelters the cheat where he crawls;
And the truth we began with needs braver
Upholders, and loftier walls.
Too long has the land's soul slumbered
In wearying dreams of gain,
With prosperous falsity cumbered
And dulled with bribes, as a bane.
Yes, cunning is civilized evil,
And crafty the gold-baited snare;
But virtue, in fiery upheaval,
May cast fine device to the air.
Bring us the simple and stalwart
Purpose of earlier days.
Come! Far better than all were't--
Our precepts, our pride, and our lays--
That the people in spirit should tremble
With heed of the God-given Word;
That we cease from our boast, nor dissemble,
But follow where truth's voice is heard.
Come to us, mountain-dweller,
Leader, wherever thou art;
Skilled from thy cradle, a queller
Of serpents, and sound to the heart!
Modest and mighty and tender;
Man of an iron mold;
Honest, fine-grained, our defender;--
American-souled!
THE NAME OF WASHINGTON
[Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887]
Sons of the youth and the truth of the nation,
Ye that are met to remember the man
Whose valor gave birth to a people's salvation,
Honor him now; set his name in the van.
A nobleness to try for,
A name to live and die for--
The name of Washington.
Calmly his face shall look down through the ages--
Sweet yet severe with a spirit of warning;
Charged with the wisdom of saints and of sages;
Quick with the light of a life-giving morning.
A majesty to try for,
A name to live and die for--
The name of Washington!
Though faction may rack us, or party divide us,
And bitterness break the gold links of our story,
Our father and leader is ever beside us.
Live, and forgive! But forget not the glory
Of him whose height we try for,
A name to live and die for--
The name of Washington!
Still in his eyes shall be mirrored our fleeting
Days, with the image of days long ended;
Still shall those eyes give, immortally, greeting
Unto the souls from his spirit descended.
His grandeur we will try for,
His name we 'll live and die for--
The name of Washington!
GRANT'S DIRGE
I
Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief.
The pent-up anguish of the loyal wife,
The sobs of those who, nearest in this life,
Still hold him closely in the life beyond;--
These first, with threnody of memories fond.
But look! Forth press a myriad mourners thronging,
With hearts that throb in sorrow's exaltation,
Moved by a strange, impassioned, hopeless longing
To serve him with their love's last ministration.
Make way! Make way, from wave-bound verge to verge
Of all our land, that this great multitude
With lamentation proud albeit subdued,
Deep murmuring like the ocean's mighty surge,
May pass beneath the heavens' triumphal arch!
II
What is the sound we hear?
Never the fall of a tear;
For grief repressed
In every breast
More honors the man we revere.
Rising from East and West,
There echoes afar or near--
From the cool, sad North and the burning South--
A sound long since grown dear,
When brave ranks faced the cannon's mouth
And died for a faith austere:
The tread of marching men,
A steady tramp of feet
That never flinched nor faltered when
The drums of duty beat.
With sable hats whose shade
Falls from the cord of gold
On every time-worn face;
With tattered flags, in black enrolled,
Beneath whose folds they warred of old;
Forward, firmly arrayed,
With a sombre, martial grace;
So the Grand Army moves
Commanded by the dead,
Following him whose name it loves,
Whose voice in life its footsteps led.
III
Those that in the combat perished,--
Hostile shapes and forms of friends,--
Those we hated, those we cherished,
Meet the pageant where it ends.
Flash of steel and tears forgiving
Blend in splendor. Hark, the knell!
Comrades ghostly join the living--
Dreaming, chanting: "All is well. "
They receive the General sleeping,
Him of spirit pure and large:
Him they draw into their keeping
Evermore, in faithful charge.
IV
Pass on, O steps, with your dead, sad note!
For a people's homage is in the sound;
And the even tread, in measured rote,
As a leader is laid beneath the ground,
Rumors the hum of a pilgrim train
That shall trample the earth as tramples the rain,
Seeking the door of the hero's tomb,
Seeking him where he lies low in the gloom,
Paying him tribute of worker and mage,
Through age on age!
V
Tall pine-tree on McGregor's height,
How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing,
For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring,
There where thy shadow touched the dying brow?
Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright?
Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daring
Didst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous bough
And trust it to the frail support of air?
We only know that thou art now supreme:
We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair.
But it didn't pan out. No one would hark.
"Let the prairie-dogs an' Blackmouth bark,"
Said our folks. And--no, he wa'n't resigned,
But concluded he had missed his find.
"_Where_ is Blackmouth? " That I can't decide.
Red an' white men, both, he tried to serve;
But I guess, at last, he lost his nerve.
Kind o' tired out. See? He had his pride:
Gave his life for others, far 's he could,
Hoping it would do 'em some small good.
Didn't seem to be much use. An' so--
Well; you see that man, dropped in the snow,
Where the crowd is? Suicide, they say.
Looks as though he had quit work, to stay.
Bullet in the breast. --His _body_ 's there;
But poor Blackmouth's gone--I don't know where!
THE CHILD YEAR
I
"Dying of hunger and sorrow:
I die for my youth I fear! "
Murmured the midnight-haunting
Voice of the stricken Year.
There like a child it perished
In the stormy thoroughfare:
The snow with cruel whiteness
Had aged its flowing hair.
Ah, little Year so fruitful,
Ah, child that brought us bliss,
Must we so early lose you--
Our dear hopes end in this?
II
"Too young am I, too tender,
To bear earth's avalanche
Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope,
And makes my heart's-blood blanch.
"Tell him who soon shall follow
Where my tired feet have bled,
He must be older, shrewder,
Hard, cold, and selfish-bred--
"Or else like me be trampled
Under the harsh world's heel.
'Tis weakness to be youthful;
'Tis death to love and feel. "
III
Then saw I how the New Year
Came like a scheming man,
With icy eyes, his forehead
Wrinkled by care and plan
For trade and rule and profit.
To him the fading child
Looked up and cried, "Oh, brother! "
But died even while it smiled.
Down bent the harsh new-comer
To lift with loving arm
The wanderer mute and fallen;
And lo! his eyes were warm;
All changed he grew; the wrinkles
Vanished: he, too, looked young--
As if that lost child's spirit
Into his breast had sprung.
So are those lives not wasted,
Too frail to bear the fray.
So Years may die, yet leave us
Young hearts in a world grown gray.
CHRISTENING
To-day I saw a little, calm-eyed child,--
Where soft lights rippled and the shadows tarried
Within a church's shelter arched and aisled,--
Peacefully wondering, to the altar carried;
White-robed and sweet, in semblance of a flower;
White as the daisies that adorned the chancel;
Borne like a gift, the young wife's natural dower,
Offered to God as her most precious hansel.
Then ceased the music, and the little one
Was silent, with the multitude assembled
Hearkening; and when of Father and of Son
He spoke, the pastor's deep voice broke and trembled.
But she, the child, knew not the solemn words,
And suddenly yielded to a troublous wailing,
As helpless as the cry of frightened birds
Whose untried wings for flight are unavailing.
How much the same, I thought, with older folk!
The blessing falls: we call it tribulation,
And fancy that we wear a sorrow's yoke,
Even at the moment of our consecration.
Pure daisy-child! Whatever be the form
Of dream or doctrine,--or of unbelieving,--
A hand may touch our heads, amid the storm
Of grief and doubt, to bless beyond bereaving;
A voice may sound, in measured, holy rite
Of speech we know not, tho' its earnest meaning
Be clear as dew, and sure as starry light
Gathered from some far-off celestial gleaning.
Wise is the ancient sacrament that blends
This weakling cry of children in our churches
With strength of prayer or anthem that ascends
To Him who hearts of men and children searches;
Since we are like the babe, who, soothed again,
Within her mother's cradling arm lay nested,
Bright as a new bud, now, refreshed by rain:
And on her hair, it seemed, heaven's radiance rested.
THANKSGIVING TURKEY
Valleys lay in sunny vapor,
And a radiance mild was shed
From each tree that like a taper
At a feast stood. Then we said,
"Our feast, too, shall soon be spread,
Of good Thanksgiving turkey. "
And already still November
Drapes her snowy table here.
Fetch a log, then; coax the ember;
Fill your hearts with old-time cheer;
Heaven be thanked for one more year,
And our Thanksgiving turkey!
Welcome, brothers--all our party
Gathered in the homestead old!
Shake the snow off and with hearty
Hand-shakes drive away the cold;
Else your plate you'll hardly hold
Of good Thanksgiving turkey.
When the skies are sad and murky,
'Tis a cheerful thing to meet
Round this homely roast of turkey--
Pilgrims, pausing just to greet,
Then, with earnest grace, to eat
A new Thanksgiving turkey.
And the merry feast is freighted
With its meanings true and deep.
Those we've loved and those we've hated,
All, to-day, the rite will keep,
All, to-day, their dishes heap
With plump Thanksgiving turkey.
But how many hearts must tingle
Now with mournful memories!
In the festal wine shall mingle
Unseen tears, perhaps from eyes
That look beyond the board where lies
Our plain Thanksgiving turkey.
See around us, drawing nearer,
Those faint yearning shapes of air--
Friends than whom earth holds none dearer!
No--alas! they are not there:
Have they, then, forgot to share
Our good Thanksgiving turkey?
Some have gone away and tarried
Strangely long by some strange wave;
Some have turned to foes; we carried
Some unto the pine-girt grave:
They 'll come no more so joyous-brave
To take Thanksgiving turkey.
Nay, repine not. Let our laughter
Leap like firelight up again.
Soon we touch the wide Hereafter,
Snow-field yet untrod of men:
Shall we meet once more--and when? --
To eat Thanksgiving turkey.
BEFORE THE SNOW
Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.
Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!
Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
Of that which makes moods dear,--some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
We walked in,--memory's rare environing.
And, though they die, the seasons only take
A ruined substance. All that's best remains
In the essential vision that can make
One light for life, love, death, their joys, their pains.
III
YOUTH TO THE POET
(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)
Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! --
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
Like and unlike as children of one mother
And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
Of young men see the prophecy arise
Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
But here in our dear poet both are blended--
Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended;--
Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
In strains that ever delicately run;
So musical and wise, page after page,
The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage.
The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers,
And day-break glory haunts his evening hours.
Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral:
That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel,
Which--smiling not, but trembling at the touch--
Youth gives back to the hand that gave so much.
EVENING OF DECEMBER 3, 1879.
THE SWORD DHAM
"How shall we honor the man who creates? "
Asked the Bedouin chief, the poet Antar;--
"Who unto the truth flings open our gates,
Or fashions new thoughts from the light of a star;
Or forges with craft of his finger and brain
Some marvelous weapon we copy in vain;
Or chants to the winds a wild song that shall
wander forever undying?
"See! His reward is in envies and hates;
In lips that deny, or in stabs that may kill. "
"Nay," said the smith; "for there's one here who waits
Humbly to serve you with unmeasured skill,
Sure that no utmost devotion can fail,
Offered to _you_, nor unfriended assail
The heart of the hero and poet Antar, whose
fame is undying! "
"Speak," said the chief. Then the smith: "O Antar,
It is I who would serve you! I know, by the soul
Of the poet within you, no envy can bar
The stream of your gratitude,--once let it roll.
Listen. The lightning, your camel that slew,
_I_ caught, and wrought in this sword-blade for you;--
Sword that no foe shall encounter unhurt, or
depart from undying. "
Burst from the eyes of Antar a swift rain,--Gratitude's
glittering drops,--as he threw
One shining arm round the smith, like a chain.
Closer the man to his bosom he drew;
Thankful, caressing, with "Great is my debt. "
"Yea," said the smith, and his eyelids were wet:
"I knew the sword Dham would unite me with
you in an honor undying. "
"So? " asked the chief, as his thumb-point at will
Silently over the sword's edge played.
--"Ay! " said the smith, "but there's one thing, still:
Who is the smiter, shall smite with this blade? "
Jealous, their eyes met; and fury awoke.
"_I_ am the smiter! " Antar cried. One stroke
Rolled the smith's head from his neck, and gave
him remembrance undying.
"Seek now who may, no search will avail:
No man the mate of this weapon shall own! "
Yet, in his triumph, the chieftain made wail:
"Slain is the craftsman, the one friend alone
Able to honor the man who creates.
I slew him--_I_, who am poet! O fates,
Grant that the envious blade slaying artists shall
make them undying! "
"AT THE GOLDEN GATE"
Before the golden gate she stands,
With drooping head, with idle hands
Loose-clasped, and bent beneath the weight
Of unseen woe. Too late, too late!
Those carved and fretted,
Starred, resetted
Panels shall not open ever
To her who seeks the perfect mate.
Only the tearless enter there:
Only the soul that, like a prayer,
No bolt can stay, no wall may bar,
Shall dream the dreams grief cannot mar.
No door of cedar,
Alas, shall lead her
Unto the stream that shows forever
Love's face like some reflected star!
They say that golden barrier hides
A realm where deathless spring abides;
Where flowers shall fade not, and there floats
Thro' moon-rays mild or sunlit motes--
'Mid dewy alleys
That gird the palace,
And fountain'd spray's unceasing quiver--
A dulcet rain of song-birds' notes.
The sultan lord knew not her name;
But to the door that fair shape came:
The hour had struck, the way was right,
Traced by her lamp's pale, flickering light.
But ah, whose error
Has brought this terror?
Whose fault has foiled her fond endeavor?
The gate swings to: her hope takes flight.
The harp, the song, the nightingales
She hears, beyond. The night-wind wails
Without, to sound of feast within,
While here she stands, shut out by sin.
And be that revel
Of angel or devil,
She longs to sit beside the giver,
That she at last her prize may win.
Her lamp has fallen; her eyes are wet;
Frozen she stands, she lingers yet;
But through the garden's gladness steals
A whisper that each heart congeals--
A moan of grieving
Beyond relieving,
Which makes the proudest of them shiver.
And suddenly the sultan kneels!
The lamp was quenched; he found her dead,
When dawn had turned the threshold red.
Her face was calm and sad as fate:
His sin, not hers, made her too late.
Some think, unbidden
She brought him, hidden,
A truer bliss that came back never
To him, unblest, who closed the gate.
CHARITY
I
Unarmed she goeth; yet her hands
Strike deeper awe than steel-caparison'd bands.
No fatal hurt of foe she fears,--
Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears.
II
'Gainst her thou canst not bar the door:
Like air she enters, where none dared before.
Even to the rich she can forgive
Their regal selfishness,--and let them live!
HELEN AT THE LOOM
Helen, in her silent room,
Weaves upon the upright loom;
Weaves a mantle rich and dark,
Purpled over, deep. But mark
How she scatters o'er the wool
Woven shapes, till it is full
Of men that struggle close, complex;
Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks
Arching high; spear, shield, and all
The panoply that doth recall
Mighty war; such war as e'en
For Helen's sake is waged, I ween.
Purple is the groundwork: good!
All the field is stained with blood--
Blood poured out for Helen's sake;
(Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake! )
But the shapes of men that pass
Are as ghosts within a glass,
Woven with whiteness of the swan,
Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan
From the garment's purple fold
Where Troy's tale is twined and told.
Well may Helen, as with tender
Touch of rosy fingers slender
She doth knit the story in
Of Troy's sorrow and her sin,
Feel sharp filaments of pain
Reeled off with the well-spun skein,
And faint blood-stains on her hands
From the shifting, sanguine strands.
Gently, sweetly she doth sorrow:
What has been must be to-morrow;
Meekly to her fate she bows.
Heavenly beauties still will rouse
Strife and savagery in men:
Shall the lucid heavens, then,
Lose their high serenity,
Sorrowing over what must be?
If she taketh to her shame,
Lo, they give her not the blame,--
Priam's wisest counselors,
Aged men, not loving wars.
When she goes forth, clad in white,
Day-cloud touched by first moonlight,
With her fair hair, amber-hued
As vapor by the moon imbued
With burning brown, that round her clings,
See, she sudden silence brings
On the gloomy whisperers
Who would make the wrong all hers.
So, Helen, in thy silent room,
Labor at the storied loom;
(Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake! )
Let thy aching sorrow make
Something strangely beautiful
Of this fabric; since the wool
Comes so tinted from the Fates,
Dyed with loves, hopes, fears, and hates.
Thou shalt work with subtle force
All thy deep shade of remorse
In the texture of the weft,
That no stain on thee be left;--
Ay, false queen, shalt fashion grief,
Grief and wrong, to soft relief.
Speed the garment! It may chance,
Long hereafter, meet the glance,
Of Oenone; when her lord,
Now thy Paris, shall go tow'rd
Ida, at his last sad end,
Seeking her, his early friend,
Who alone can cure his ill,
Of all who love him, if she will.
It were fitting she should see
In that hour thine artistry,
And her husband's speechless corse
In the garment of remorse!
But take heed that in thy work
Naught unbeautiful may lurk.
Ah, how little signifies
Unto thee what fortunes rise,
What others fall! Thou still shall rule,
Still shalt twirl the colored spool.
Though thy yearning woman's eyes
Burn with glorious agonies,
Pitying the waste and woe,
And the heroes falling low
In the war around thee, here,
Yet the least, quick-trembling tear
'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be
Than life, to friend or enemy.
There are people on the earth
Doomed with doom of too great worth.
Look on Helen not with hate,
Therefore, but compassionate.
If she suffer not too much,
Seldom does she feel the touch
Of that fresh, auroral joy
Lighter spirits may decoy
To their pure and sunny lives.
Heavy honey 'tis she hives.
To her sweet but burdened soul
All that here she may control--
What of bitter memories,
What of coming fate's surmise,
Paris' passion, distant din
Of the war now drifting in
To her quiet--idle seems;
Idle as the lazy gleams
Of some stilly water's reach,
Seen from where broad vine-leaves pleach
A heavy arch; and, looking through,
Far away the doubtful blue
Glimmers, on a drowsy day,
Crowded with the sun's rich gray;--
As she stands within her room,
Weaving, weaving at the loom.
THE CASKET OF OPALS
I
Deep, smoldering colors of the land and sea
Burn in these stones, that, by some mystery,
Wrap fire in sleep and never are consumed.
Scarlet of daybreak, sunset gleams half spent
In thick white cloud; pale moons that may have lent
Light to love's grieving; rose-illumined snows,
And veins of gold no mine depth ever gloomed;
All these, and green of thin-edged waves, are there.
I think a tide of feeling through them flows
With blush and pallor, as if some being of air,--
Some soul once human,--wandering, in the snare
Of passion had been caught, and henceforth doomed
In misty crystal here to lie entombed.
And so it is, indeed. Here prisoned sleep
The ardors and the moods and all the pain
That once within a man's heart throbbed. He gave
These opals to the woman whom he loved;
And now, like glinting sunbeams through the rain,
The rays of thought that through his spirit moved
Leap out from these mysterious forms again.
The colors of the jewels laugh and weep
As with his very voice. In them the wave
Of sorrow and joy that, with a changing sweep,
Bore him to misery or else made him blest
Still surges in melodious, wild unrest.
So when each gem in place I touch and take,
It murmurs what he thought or what he spake.
FIRST OPAL
My heart is like an opal
Made to lie upon your breast
In dreams of ardor, clouded o'er
By endless joy's unrest.
And forever it shall haunt you
With its mystic, changing ray:
Its light shall live when we lie dead,
With hearts at the heart of day!
SECOND OPAL
If, from a careless hold,
One gem of these should fall,
No power of art or gold
Its wholeness could recall:
The lustrous wonder dies
In gleams of irised rain,
As light fades out from the eyes
When a soul is crushed by pain.
Take heed that from your hold
My love you do not cast:
Dim, shattered, vapor-cold--
That day would be its last.
II
THIRD OPAL
_He won her love; and so this opal sings
With all its tints in maze, that seem to quake
And leap in light, as if its heart would break:_
Gleam of the sea,
Translucent air,
Where every leaf alive with glee
Glows in the sun without shadow of grief--
You speak of spring,
When earth takes wing
And sunlight, sunlight is everywhere!
Radiant life,
Face so fair--
Crowned with the gracious glory of wife--
Your glance lights all this happy day,
Your tender glow
And murmurs low
Make miracle, miracle, everywhere.
Earth takes wing
With birds--do I care
Whether of sorrow or joy they sing?
No; for they make not my life nor destroy!
My soul awakes
At a smile that breaks
In sun; and sunlight is everywhere!
III
_Then dawned a mood of musing thoughtfulness;
As if he doubted whether he could bless
Her wayward spirit, through each fickle hour,
With love's serenity of flawless power,
Or she remain a vision, as when first
She came to soothe his fancy all athirst. _
FOURTH OPAL
We were alone: the perfumed night,
Moonlighted, like a flower
Grew round us and exhaled delight
To bless that one sweet hour.
You stood where, 'mid the white and gold,
The rose-fire through the gloom
Touched hair and cheek and garment's fold
With soft, ethereal bloom.
And when the vision seemed to swerve,
'T was but the flickering shine
That gave new grace, a lovelier curve,
To every dream-like line.
O perfect vision! Form and face
Of womanhood complete!
O rare ideal to embrace
And hold, from head to feet!
Could I so hold you ever--could
Your eye still catch the glow
Of mine--it were an endless good:
Together we should grow
One perfect picture of our love! . . .
Alas, the embers old
Fell, and the moonlight fell, above--
Dim, shattered, vapor-cold.
IV
_What ill befell these lovers? Shall I say?
What tragedy of petty care and sorrow?
Ye all know, who have lived and loved: if nay,
Then those will know who live and love tomorrow.
But here at least is what this opal said,
The fifth in number: and the next two bore
My fancy toward that dim world of the dead,
Where waiting spirits muse the past life o'er_:
FIFTH OPAL
I dreamed my kisses on your hair
Turned into roses. Circling bloom
Crowned the loose-lifted tresses there.
"O Love," I cried, "forever
Dwell wreathed, and perfume-haunted
By my heart's deep honey-breath! "
But even as I bending looked, I saw
The roses were not; and, instead, there lay
Pale, feathered flakes and scentless
Ashes upon your hair!
SIXTH OPAL
The love I gave, the love I gave,
Wherewith I sought to win you--
Ah, long and close to you it clave
With life and soul and sinew!
My gentleness with scorn you cursed:
You knew not what I gave.
The strongest man may die of thirst:
My love is in its grave!
SEVENTH OPAL
You say these jewels were accurst--
With evil omen fraught.
You should have known it from the first!
This was the truth they taught:
No treasured thing in heaven or earth
Holds potency more weird
Than our hearts hold, that throb from birth
With wavering flames insphered.
And when from me the gems you took,
On that strange April day,
My nature, too, I gave, that shook
With passion's fateful play.
The mingled fate my love should give
In these mute emblems shone,
That more intensely burn and live--
While I am turned to stone.
V
_Listen now to what is said
By the eighth opal, flashing red
And pale, by turns, with every breath--
The voice of the lover after death. _
EIGHTH OPAL
I did not know before
That we dead could rise and walk;
That our voices, as of yore,
Would blend in gentle talk.
I did not know her eyes
Would so haunt mine after death,
Or that she could hear my sighs,
Low as the harp-string's breath.
But, ah, last night we met!
From our stilly trance we rose,
Thrilled with all the old regret--
The grieving that God knows.
She asked: "Am I forgiven? "--
"And dost thou forgive? " I said,
Ah!
how long for joy we'd striven!
But now our hearts were dead.
Alas, for the lips I kissed
And the sweet hope, long ago!
On her grave chill hangs the mist;
On mine, white lies the snow.
VI
_Hearkening still, I hear this strain
From the ninth opal's varied vein:_
NINTH OPAL
In the mountains of Mexico,
Where the barren volcanoes throw
Their fierce peaks high to the sky,
With the strength of a tawny brute
That sees heaven but to defy,
And the soft, white hand of the snow
Touches and makes them mute,--
Firm in the clasp of the ground
The opal is found.
By the struggle of frost and fire
Created, yet caught in a spell
From which only human desire
Can free it, what passion profound
In its dim, sweet bosom may dwell!
So was it with us, I think,
Whose souls were formed on the brink
Of a crater, where rain and flame
Had mingled and crystallized.
One venturous day Love came;
Found us; and bound with a link
Of gold the jewels he prized.
The agonies old of the earth,
Its plenitude and its dearth,
The torrents of flame and of tears,
All these in our souls were inborn.
And we must endure through the years
The glory and burden of birth
That filled us with fire of the morn.
Let the diamond lie in its mine;
Let ruby and topaz shine;
The beryl sleep, and the emerald keep
Its sunned-leaf green! We know
The joy of sufferings deep
That blend with a love divine,
And the hidden warmth of the snow!
TENTH OPAL
Colors that tremble and perish,
Atoms that follow the law,
You mirror the truth which we cherish,
You mirror the spirit we saw.
Glow of the daybreak tender,
Flushed with an opaline gleam,
And passionate sunset-splendor--
Ye both but embody a dream.
Visions of cloud-hidden glory
Breaking from sources of light
Mimic the mist of life's story.
Mingled of scarlet and white.
Sunset-clouds iridescent,
Opals, and mists of the day,
Are thrilled alike with the crescent
Delight of a deathless ray
Shot through the hesitant trouble
Of particles floating in space,
And touching each wandering bubble
With tints of a rainbowed grace.
So through the veil of emotion
Trembles the light of the truth;
And so may the light of devotion
Glorify life--age and youth.
Sufferings,--pangs that seem cruel,--
These are but atoms adrift:
The light streams through, and a jewel
Is formed for us, Heaven's own gift!
LOVE THAT LIVES
Dear face--bright, glinting hair;
Dear life, whose heart is mine--
The thought of you is prayer,
The love of you divine.
In starlight, or in rain;
In the sunset's shrouded glow;
Ever, with joy or pain,
To you my quick thoughts go
Like winds or clouds, that fleet
Across the hungry space
Between, and find you, sweet,
Where life again wins grace.
Now, as in that once young
Year that so softly drew
My heart to where it clung,
I long for, gladden in you.
And when in the silent hours
I whisper your sacred name,
Like an altar-fire it showers
My blood with fragrant flame!
Perished is all that grieves;
And lo, our old-new joys
Are gathered as in sheaves,
Held in love's equipoise.
Ours is the love that lives;
Its springtime blossoms blow
'Mid the fruit that autumn gives,
And its life outlasts the snow.
IV
BLUEBIRD'S GREETING
Over the mossy walls,
Above the slumbering fields
Where yet the ground no fruitage yields,
Save as the sunlight falls
In dreams of harvest-yellow,
What voice remembered calls,--
So bubbling fresh, so soft and mellow?
A darting, azure-feathered arrow
From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet
The bluebird, springing light and narrow,
Sings in flight, with gurglings sweet:
"Out of the South I wing,
Blown on the breath of Spring:
The little faltering song
That in my beak I bring
Some maiden shall catch and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of her spirit's blossoming.
"Warbling along
In the sunny weather,
Float, my notes,
Through the sunny motes,
Falling light as a feather!
Flit, flit, o'er the fertile land
'Mid hovering insects' hums;
Fall into the sower's hand:
Then, when his harvest comes,
The seed and the song shall have flowered together.
"From the Coosa and Altamaha,
With a thought of the dim blue Gulf;
From the Roanoke and Kanawha;
From the musical Southern rivers,
O'er the land where the fierce war-wolf
Lies slain and buried in flowers;
I come to your chill, sad hours
And the woods where the sunlight shivers.
I come like an echo: 'Awake! '
I answer the sky and the lake
And the clear, cool color that quivers
In all your azure rills.
I come to your wan, bleak hills
For a greeting that rises dearer,
To homely hearts draws me nearer
Than the warmth of the rice-fields or wealth of the ranches.
"I will charm away your sorrow,
For I sing of the dewy morrow:
My melody sways like the branches
My light feet set astir:
I bring to the old, as I hover,
The days and the joys that were,
And hope to the waiting lover!
Then, take my note and sing,
Filling it with the longing
And the blithe, unfettered thronging
Of your spirit's blossoming! "
Not long that music lingers:
Like the breath of forgotten singers
It flies,--or like the March-cloud's shadow
That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow
Not long! And yet thy fleeting,
Thy tender, flute-toned greeting,
O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains
The purest chord in all the year's refrains.
THE VOICE OF THE VOID
I warn, like the one drop of rain
On your face, ere the storm;
Or tremble in whispered refrain
With your blood, beating warm.
I am the presence that ever
Baffles your touch's endeavor,--
Gone like the glimmer of dust
Dispersed by a gust.
I am the absence that taunts you,
The fancy that haunts you;
The ever unsatisfied guess
That, questioning emptiness,
Wins a sigh for reply.
Nay; nothing am I,
But the flight of a breath--
For I am Death!
"O WHOLESOME DEATH"
O wholesome Death, thy sombre funeral-car
Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way
Of life; while, lengthening still, in sad array,
My deeds in long procession go, that are
As mourners of the man they helped to mar.
I see it all in dreams, such as waylay
The wandering fancy when the solid day
Has fallen in smoldering ruins, and night's star,
Aloft there, with its steady point of light
Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.
Ah, when I die, and planets hold their flight
Above my grave, still let my spirit keep
Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse,
'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse!
INCANTATION
When the leaves, by thousands thinned,
A thousand times have whirled in the wind,
And the moon, with hollow cheek,
Staring from her hollow height,
Consolation seems to seek
From the dim, reechoing night;
And the fog-streaks dead and white
Lie like ghosts of lost delight
O'er highest earth and lowest sky;
Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!
Strew the ground with poppy-seeds,
And let my bed be hung with weeds,
Growing gaunt and rank and tall,
Drooping o'er me like a pall.
Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist
Across my brow to turn and twist
Fold on fold, and leave me blind
To all save visions in the mind.
Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams
I shall slumber, and in dreams
Slide through some long glen that burns
With a crust of blood-red ferns
And brown-withered wings of brake
Like a burning lava-lake;--
So, urged to fearful, faster flow
By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk! " of the crow,
Shall pass by many a haunted rood
Of the nutty, odorous wood;
Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom,
Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom;
Till, lured by light, reflected cloud,
I burst aloft my watery shroud,
And upward through the ether sail
Far above the shrill wind's wail;--
But, falling thence, my soul involve
With the dust dead flowers dissolve;
And, gliding out at last to sea,
Lulled to a long tranquillity,
The perfect poise of seasons keep
With the tides that rest at neap.
So must be fulfilled the rite
That giveth me the dead year's might;
And at dawn I shall arise
A spirit, though with human eyes,
A human form and human face;
And where'er I go or stay,
There the summer's perished grace
Shall be with me, night and day.
FAMINE AND HARVEST
[PLYMOUTH PLANTATION: 1622]
The strong and the tender,
The young and the old,
Unto Death we must render;--
Our silver, our gold.
To break their long sleeping
No voice may avail:
They hear not our weeping--
Our famished love's wail.
Yea, those whom we cherish
Depart, day by day.
Soon we, too, shall perish
And crumble to clay.
And the vine and the berry
Above us will bloom;
The wind shall make merry
While we lie in gloom.
Fear not! Though thou starvest,
Provision is made:
God gathers His harvest
When our hopes fade!
THE CHILD'S WISH GRANTED
Do you remember, my sweet, absent son,
How in the soft June days forever done
You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high;
And when I lifted you, soft came your cry,--
"Put me 'way up--'way, 'way up in blue sky"?
I laughed and said I could not;--set you down,
Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown
Of bright hair gladdening me as you raced by.
Another Father now, more strong than I,
Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky.
THE FLOWN SOUL
(FRANCIS HAWTHORNE LATHROP)
FEBRUARY 6, 1881
Come not again! I dwell with you
Above the realm of frost and dew,
Of pain and fire, and growth to death.
I dwell with you where never breath
Is drawn, but fragrance vital flows
From life to life, even as a rose
Unseen pours sweetness through each vein
And from the air distills again.
You are my rose unseen; we live
Where each to other joy may give
In ways untold, by means unknown
And secret as the magnet-stone.
For which of us, indeed, is dead?
No more I lean to kiss your head--
The gold-red hair so thick upon it;
Joy feels no more the touch that won it
When o'er my brow your pearl-cool palm
In tenderness so childish, calm,
Crept softly, once. Yet, see, my arm
Is strong, and still my blood runs warm.
I still can work, and think and weep.
But all this show of life I keep
Is but the shadow of your shine,
Flicker of your fire, husk of your vine;
Therefore, you are not dead, nor I
Who hear your laughter's minstrelsy.
Among the stars your feet are set;
Your little feet are dancing yet
Their rhythmic beat, as when on earth.
So swift, so slight are death and birth!
Come not again, dear child. If thou
By any chance couldst break that vow
Of silence at thy last hour made;
If to this grim life unafraid
Thou couldst return, and melt the frost
Wherein thy bright limbs' power was lost;
Still would I whisper--since so fair
This silent comradeship we share--
Yes, whisper 'mid the unbidden rain
Of tears: "Come not, come not again! "
SUNSET AND SHORE
Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!
Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowing
Soon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;
Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing;--
Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.
Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;
Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;
Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest:--
Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!
THE PHOEBE-BIRD
(A REPLY)
Yes, I was wrong about the phoebe-bird.
Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard:
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow
Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow
Strength from the other, making one more brave
And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.
But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
One is for hey-day, one is sorrow's cadence.
Our voices vary with the changing seasons
Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.
Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered,
If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love and hate, or good and evil--all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 't is the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.
A STRONG CITY
For them that hope in Thee. . . . Thou shalt hide
them in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men.
Thou shalt protect them in Thy tabernacle from the
contradiction of tongues.
Blessed be the Lord, for He hath shewn His wonderful
mercy to me in a fortified city. --_Psalm xxx. _
Beauty and splendor were on every hand:
Yet strangely crawled dark shadows down the lanes,
Twisting across the fields, like dragon-shapes
That smote the air with blackness, and devoured
The life of light, and choked the smiling world
Till it grew livid with a sudden age--
The death of hope.
O squandered happiness;
Vain dust of misery powdering life's fresh flower!
The sky was holy, but the earth was not.
Men ruled, but ruled in vain; since wretchedness
Of soul and body, for the mass of men,
Made them like dead leaves in an idle drift
Around the plough of progress as it drove
Sharp through the glebe of modern days, to plant
A civilized world. Ay; civilized--but not Christian!
Civilization is a clarion voice
Crying in the wilderness; a prophet-word
Still unfulfilled. And lo, along the ways
Crowded with nations, there arose a strife;
Disturbance of men; tongues contradicting tongues;
Madness of noise, that scattered multitudes;
A trample of blind feet, beneath whose tread
Truth's bloom shrank withered; while incessant mouths
Howled "Progress! Change! "--as though all moods of change
Were fiats of truth eternal.
'Mid the din
Two pilgrims, faring forward, saw the light
In a strong city, fortified, and moved
Patiently thither. "All your steps are vain,"
Cried scoffers. "There is mercy in the world;
But chiefly mercy of man to man. For we
Are good. We help our fellows, when we can.
Our charity is enormous. Look at these
Long rolls of rich subscriptions. We are good.
'T is true, God's mercy plays a part in things;
But most is left to us; and we judge well.
Stay with us in the field of endless war!
Here only is health. Yon city fortified
You dream of--why, its ramparts are as dust.
It gives no safety. One assaulting sweep
Of our huge cohorts would annul its power--
Crush it in atoms; make it meaningless. "
The pilgrims listened; but onward still they moved.
They passed the gates; they stood upon a hill
Enclosed, but in that strong enclosure free!
Though earth opposed, they held the key to heaven.
On came the turbulent multitude in war,
Dashing against the city's walls; and swept
Through all the streets, and robbed and burned and killed.
The walls were strong; the gates were always open.
And so the invader rioted, and was proud.
But sudden, in seeming triumph, the enemy host
Was stricken with death; and still the city stayed.
Skyward the souls of its defenders rose,
Returning soon in mist intangible
That flashed with radiance of half-hidden swords;
And those who still assaulted--though they crept
Into the inmost vantage-points, with craft--
Fell, blasted namelessly by this veiled flash,
Even as they shouted out, "The place is ours! "
So those two pilgrims dwelt there, fortified
In that strong city men had thought so frail.
They died, and lived again. Fiercest attack
Was as a perfumed breeze to them, which drew
Their souls still closer unto God. And there
Beauty and splendor bloomed untouched. The stars
Spoke to them, bidding them be of good cheer,
Though hostile hordes rushed over them in blood.
And still the prayers of all that people rose
As incense mingled with music of their hearts.
For Christ was with them: angels were their aid.
What though the enemy used their open gates?
The children of the citadel conquered all
Their conquerors, smiting them with the pure light
That shone in that strong city fortified.
THREE DOVES
Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
At eve they circled back to me.
The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
The third--the whitest--Charity.
Above the plunging surge's play
Dream-like they hovered, day by day.
At last they turned, and bore to me
Green signs of peace thro' nightfall gray.
No shore forlorn, no loveliest land
Their gentle eyes had left unscanned,
'Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope
Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned.
Quick visions of celestial grace,--
Hither they waft, from earth's broad space,
Kind thoughts for all humanity.
They shine with radiance from God's face.
Ah, since my heart they choose for home,
Why loose them,--forth again to roam?
Yet look: they rise! with loftier scope
They wheel in flight toward heaven's pure dome.
Fly, messengers that find no rest
Save in such toil as makes man blest!
Your home is God's immensity:
We hold you but at his behest.
V
ARISE, AMERICAN!
The soul of a nation awaking,--
High visions of daybreak,--I saw;
A people renewed; the forsaking
Of sin, and the worship of law.
Sing, pine-tree; shout, to the hoarser
Response of the jubilant sea!
Rush, river, foam-flecked like a courser;
Warn all who are honest and free!
Our birth-star beckons to trial
The faith of the far-fled years,
Ere scorn was our share, and denial,
Or laughter for patriots' tears.
And Faith shall come forth the finer,
From trampled thickets of fire,
And the orient open diviner
Before her, the heaven rise higher.
O deep, sweet eyes, but severer
Than steel! See you yet, where he comes--
Our hero? Bend your glance nearer;
Speak, Faith! For, as wakening drums,
Your voice shall set his blood stirring;
His heart shall grow strong like the main
When the rowelled winds are spurring,
And the broad tides landward strain.
O hero, art thou among us?
O helper, hidest thou, still?
Why hast thou no anthem sung us,
Why workest thou not our will?
For a smirk of the face, or a favor,
Still shelters the cheat where he crawls;
And the truth we began with needs braver
Upholders, and loftier walls.
Too long has the land's soul slumbered
In wearying dreams of gain,
With prosperous falsity cumbered
And dulled with bribes, as a bane.
Yes, cunning is civilized evil,
And crafty the gold-baited snare;
But virtue, in fiery upheaval,
May cast fine device to the air.
Bring us the simple and stalwart
Purpose of earlier days.
Come! Far better than all were't--
Our precepts, our pride, and our lays--
That the people in spirit should tremble
With heed of the God-given Word;
That we cease from our boast, nor dissemble,
But follow where truth's voice is heard.
Come to us, mountain-dweller,
Leader, wherever thou art;
Skilled from thy cradle, a queller
Of serpents, and sound to the heart!
Modest and mighty and tender;
Man of an iron mold;
Honest, fine-grained, our defender;--
American-souled!
THE NAME OF WASHINGTON
[Read before the Sons of the Revolution, New-York, February 22, 1887]
Sons of the youth and the truth of the nation,
Ye that are met to remember the man
Whose valor gave birth to a people's salvation,
Honor him now; set his name in the van.
A nobleness to try for,
A name to live and die for--
The name of Washington.
Calmly his face shall look down through the ages--
Sweet yet severe with a spirit of warning;
Charged with the wisdom of saints and of sages;
Quick with the light of a life-giving morning.
A majesty to try for,
A name to live and die for--
The name of Washington!
Though faction may rack us, or party divide us,
And bitterness break the gold links of our story,
Our father and leader is ever beside us.
Live, and forgive! But forget not the glory
Of him whose height we try for,
A name to live and die for--
The name of Washington!
Still in his eyes shall be mirrored our fleeting
Days, with the image of days long ended;
Still shall those eyes give, immortally, greeting
Unto the souls from his spirit descended.
His grandeur we will try for,
His name we 'll live and die for--
The name of Washington!
GRANT'S DIRGE
I
Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief.
The pent-up anguish of the loyal wife,
The sobs of those who, nearest in this life,
Still hold him closely in the life beyond;--
These first, with threnody of memories fond.
But look! Forth press a myriad mourners thronging,
With hearts that throb in sorrow's exaltation,
Moved by a strange, impassioned, hopeless longing
To serve him with their love's last ministration.
Make way! Make way, from wave-bound verge to verge
Of all our land, that this great multitude
With lamentation proud albeit subdued,
Deep murmuring like the ocean's mighty surge,
May pass beneath the heavens' triumphal arch!
II
What is the sound we hear?
Never the fall of a tear;
For grief repressed
In every breast
More honors the man we revere.
Rising from East and West,
There echoes afar or near--
From the cool, sad North and the burning South--
A sound long since grown dear,
When brave ranks faced the cannon's mouth
And died for a faith austere:
The tread of marching men,
A steady tramp of feet
That never flinched nor faltered when
The drums of duty beat.
With sable hats whose shade
Falls from the cord of gold
On every time-worn face;
With tattered flags, in black enrolled,
Beneath whose folds they warred of old;
Forward, firmly arrayed,
With a sombre, martial grace;
So the Grand Army moves
Commanded by the dead,
Following him whose name it loves,
Whose voice in life its footsteps led.
III
Those that in the combat perished,--
Hostile shapes and forms of friends,--
Those we hated, those we cherished,
Meet the pageant where it ends.
Flash of steel and tears forgiving
Blend in splendor. Hark, the knell!
Comrades ghostly join the living--
Dreaming, chanting: "All is well. "
They receive the General sleeping,
Him of spirit pure and large:
Him they draw into their keeping
Evermore, in faithful charge.
IV
Pass on, O steps, with your dead, sad note!
For a people's homage is in the sound;
And the even tread, in measured rote,
As a leader is laid beneath the ground,
Rumors the hum of a pilgrim train
That shall trample the earth as tramples the rain,
Seeking the door of the hero's tomb,
Seeking him where he lies low in the gloom,
Paying him tribute of worker and mage,
Through age on age!
V
Tall pine-tree on McGregor's height,
How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing,
For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring,
There where thy shadow touched the dying brow?
Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright?
Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daring
Didst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous bough
And trust it to the frail support of air?
We only know that thou art now supreme:
We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair.
