YOUhave put to me that case which puzzles more than almost any in this strange world—the case of a man of good intentions, with natural powers sufficient to carry them out, who, after having through great part of a life lived the best he knew, and, in the world's eye, lived admirably well, suddenly wakes to a consciousness of the soul's true aims. He finds that he has been a good son, husband, and father, an adroit man of business, respected by all around him, without ever having advanced one step in the life of the soul. His object has not been the development of his immortal being, nor has this been developed; all he has done bears upon the present life only, and even that in a way poor and limited, since no deep fountain of intellect or feeling has ever been unsealed for him. Now that his eyes are opened, he sees what communion is possible; what incorruptible riches may be accumulated by the man of true wisdom. But why is the hour of clear vision so late deferred? He cannot blame himself for his previous blindness. His eyes were holden that he saw not. He lived as well as he knew how.
And now that he would fain give himself up to the new oracle in his bosom, and to the inspirations of nature, all his old habits, all his previous connections, are unpropitious. He is bound by a thousand chains which press on him so as to leave no moment free. And perhaps it seems to him that, were he free, he should but feel the more forlorn. He seesthe charm and nobleness of this new life, but knows not how to live it. It is an element to which his mental frame has not been trained. He knows not what to do to-day or to-morrow; how to stay by himself, or how to meet others; how to act, or how to rest. Looking on others who chose the path which now invites him at an age when their characters were yet plastic, and the world more freely opened before them, he deems them favored children, and cries in almost despairing sadness, Why, O Father of Spirits, didst thou not earlier enlighten me also? Why was I not led gently by the hand in the days of my youth? "And what," you ask, "could I reply?"
Much, much, dear H——, were this a friend whom I could see so often that his circumstances would be my text. For no subject has more engaged my thoughts, no difficulty is more frequently met. But now on this poor sheet I can only give you the clew to what I should say.
In the first place, the depth of the despair must be caused by the mistaken idea that this our present life is all the time allotted to man for the education of his nature for that state of consummation which is called heaven. Were it seen that this present is only one little link in the long chain of probations; were it felt that the Divine Justice is pledged to give the aspirations of the soul all the time they require for their fulfilment; were it recognized that disease, old age, and death are circumstances which can never touch the eternal youth of the spirit; that though the "plant man" grows more or less fair in hue and stature, according to the soil in which it is planted, yet the principle, which is the life of the plant, will not be defeated, but must scatter its seeds again and again, till it does at last come to perfect flower,—then would he, who is pausing to despair, realize that a new choice can never be too late, that false steps made in ignorance can never be counted by the All-Wise, and that, though a moment's delay against conviction is of incalculable weightthe mistakes of forty years are but as dust on the balance held by an unerring hand. Despair is for time, hope for eternity.
Then he who looks at all at the working of the grand principle of compensation which holds all nature in equipoise, cannot long remain a stranger to the meaning of the beautiful parable of the prodigal son, and the joy over finding the one lost piece of silver. It is no arbitrary kindness, no generosity of the ruling powers, which causes that there be more joy in heaven over the one that returns, than over ninety and nine that never strayed. It is the inevitable working of a spiritual law that he who has been groping in darkness must feel the light most keenly, best know how to prize it—he who has long been exiled from the truth seize it with the most earnest grasp, live in it with the deepest joy. It was after descending to the very pit of sorrow, that our Elder Brother was permitted to ascend to the Father, who perchance said to the angels who had dwelt always about the throne, Ye are always with me, and all that I have is yours; but this is my Son; he has been into a far country, but could not there abide, and has returned. But if any one say, "I know not how to return," I should still use words from the same record: "Let him arise and go to his Father." Let him put his soul into that state of simple, fervent desire for truth alone, truth for its own sake, which is prayer, and not only the sight of truth, but the way to make it living, shall be shown. Obstacles, insuperable to the intellect of any adviser, shall melt away like frostwork before a ray from the celestial sun. The Father may hide his face for a time, till the earnestness of the suppliant child be proved; but he is not far from any that seek, and when he does resolve to make a revelation, will show not only thewhat, but thehow; and none else can advise or aid the seeking soul, except by just observation on some matter of detail.
In this path, as in the downward one, must there be the first step that decides the whole—one sacrifice of the temporal for the eternal day is the grain of mustard seed which may give birth to a tree large enough to make a home for the sweetest singing birds. One moment of deep truth in life, of choosing not merely honesty, but purity, may leaven the whole mass.
Poesy.—The expression of the sublime and beautiful, whether in measured words or in the fine arts. The human mind, apprehending the harmony of the universe, and making new combinations by its laws.
Poetry.—The sublime and beautiful expressed in measured language. It is closely allied with the fine arts. It should sing to the ear, paint to the eye, and exhibit the symmetry of architecture. If perfect, it will satisfy the intellectual and moral faculties no less than the heart and the senses. It works chiefly by simile and melody. It is to prose as the garden to the house. Pleasure is the object of the one, convenience of the other. The flowers and fruits may be copied on the furniture of the house, but if their beauty be not subordinated to utility, they lose the charm of beauty, and degenerate into finery. The reverse is the case in the garden.
Nature.—I would praise alike the soft gray and brown which soothed my eye erewhile, and the snowy fretwork which now decks the forest aisles. Every ripple in the snowy fields, every grass and fern which raises its petrified delicacy above them, seems to me to claim a voice. A voice! Canst thou not silently adore, but must needs be doing? Art thou too good to wait as a beggar at the door of the great temple?
Woman—Man.—Woman is the flower, man the bee. She sighs out melodious fragrance, and invites the winged laborer. He drains her cup, and carries off the honey. She dies on the stalk; he returns to the hive, well fed, and praised as an active member of the community.
Action symbolical of what is within.—Gœthe says, "I have learned to consider all I do as symbolical,—so that it now matters little to me whether I make plates or dishes." And further, he says, "All manly effort goes from within outwards."
Opportunity fleeting.—I held in my hand the cup. It was full of hot liquid. The air was cold; I delayed to drink, and its vital heat, its soul, curled upwards in delicatest wreaths. I looked delighted on their beauty; but while I waited, the essence of the draught was wasted on the cold air: it would not wait for me; it longed too much to utter itself: and when my lip was ready, only a flat, worthless sediment remained of what had been.
Mingling of the heavenly with the earthly.—The son of the gods has sold his birthright. He has received in exchange one, not merely the fairest, but the sweetest and holiest of earth's daughters. Yet is it not a fit exchange. His pinions droop powerless; he must no longer soar amid the golden stars. No matter, he thinks; "I will take her to some green and flowery isle; I will pay the penalty of Adam for the sake of the daughter of Eve; I will make the earth fruitful by the sweat of my brow. No longer my hands shall bear the coal to the lips of the inspired singer—no longer my voice modulate its tones to the accompaniment of spheral harmonies. My hands now lift the clod of the valley which dares cling to them with brotherly familiarity. And for my soiling, dreary task-work all the day, I receive—food.
"But the smile with which she receives me at set of sun, is it not worth all that sun has seen me endure? Can angelic delights surpass those which I possess, when, facing the shore with her, watched by the quiet moon, we listen to the tide of the world surging up impatiently against the Eden it cannot conquer? Truly the joys of heaven were gregarious and low in comparison. This, this alone, is exquisite, because exclusive and peculiar."
Ah, seraph! but the winter's frost must nip thy vine; a viper lurks beneath the flowers to sting the foot of thy child, and pale decay must steal over the cheek thou dost adore. In the realm of ideas all was imperishable. Be blest while thou canst. I love thee, fallen seraph, but thou shouldst not have sold thy birthright.
"All for love and the world well lost." That sounds so true! But genius, when it sells itself, gives up, not only the world, but the universe.
Yet does not love comprehend the universe? The universe is love. Why should I weary my eye with scanning the parts, when I can clasp the whole this moment to my beating heart?
But if the intellect be repressed, the idea will never be brought out from the feeling. The amaranth wreath will in thy grasp be changed to one of roses, more fragrant indeed, but withering with a single sun!
The Crisis with Gœthe.—I have thought much whether Gœthe did well in giving up Lili. That was the crisis in his existence. From that era dates his being as a "Weltweise;" the heroic element vanished irrecoverably from his character; he became an Epicurean and a Realist; plucking flowers and hammering stones instead of looking at the stars. How could he look through the blinds, and see her sitting alone in her beauty, yet give her up for so slight reasons? He was right as a genius, but wrong as a character.
The Flower and the Pearl.—— has written wonders about the mystery of personality. Why do we love it? In the first place, each wishes to embrace a whole, and this seems the readiest way. The intellect soars, the heart clasps; from putting "a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes," thou wouldst return to thy own little green isle of emotion, and be the loving and playful fay, rather than the delicate Ariel.
Then most persons are plants, organic. We can predict their growth according to their own law. From the young girl we can predict the lustre, the fragrance of the future flower. It waves gracefully to the breeze, the dew rests upon its petals, the bee busies himself in them, and flies away after a brief rapture, richly laden.
When it fades, its leaves fall softly on the bosom of Mother Earth, to all whose feelings it has so closely conformed. It has lived as a part of nature; its life was music, and we open our hearts to the melody.
But characters like thine and mine are mineral. We are the bone and sinew, these the smiles and glances, of earth. We lie nearer the mighty heart, and boast an existence more enduring than they. The sod lies heavy on us, or, if we show ourselves, the melancholy moss clings to us. If we are to be made into palaces and temples, we must be hewn and chiselled by instruments of unsparing sharpness. The process is mechanical and unpleasing; the noises which accompany it, discordant and obtrusive; the artist is surrounded with rubbish. Yet we may be polished to marble smoothness. In our veins may lie the diamond, the ruby, perhaps the emblematic carbuncle.
The flower is pressed to the bosom with intense emotion, but in the home of love it withers and is cast away.
The gem is worn with less love, but with more pride; if we enjoy its sparkle, the joy is partly from calculation of its value; but if it be lost, we regret it long.
For myself, my name is Pearl.[42]That lies at the beginning, amid slime and foul prodigies from which only its unsightly shell protects. It is cradled and brought to its noblest state amid disease and decay. Only the experienced diver could have known that it was there, and brought it to the strand, where it is valued as pure, round, and, if less brilliant than the diamond, yet an ornament for a kingly head. Were it again immersed in the element where first it dwelt, now that it is stripped of the protecting shell, soon would it blacken into deformity. So what is noblest in my soul has sprung from disease, present defeat, disappointment, and untoward outward circumstance.
For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and brilliancy of sparks which are occasionally struck from you, that you are either a flint or a rough diamond. If the former, I hope you will find a home in some friendly tinder-box, instead of lying in the highway to answer the hasty hoof of the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together; you lighting up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze.
Dried Ferns about my Lamp-shade.—"What pleasure do you, who have exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that bouquet of dried ferns? Their colors are less bright, and their shapes less graceful, than those of your shades."
I answer, "They grew beneath the solemn pines. They opened their hearts to the smile of summer, and answered to the sigh of autumn.Theyremind me of the wealth of nature; the tissues, of the poverty of man. They were gathered by a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and behind them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in seeing them is 'denkende' and 'menschliche.'"
"They are of no use."
"Good! I like useless things: they are to me the vouchers of a different state of existence."
Light.—My lamp says to me, "Why do you disdain me, and use that candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing every five minutes, and which ever again grows dim, ungrateful for your care? I would burn steadily from sunset to midnight, and be your faithful, vigilant friend, yet never interrupt you an instant."
I reply, "But your steady light is also dull,—while his, at its best, is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for the trouble he gives; he calls on my sympathy, and admonishes me constantly to use my life, which likewise flickers as if near the socket."
Wit and Satire.—I cannot endure people who do not distinguish between wit and satire; who think you, of course, laugh at people when you laughaboutthem; and who have no perception of the peculiar pleasure derived from toying with lovely or tragic figures.
FAREWELLto New York city, where twenty months have presented me with a richer and more varied exercise for thought and life, than twenty years could in any other part of these United States.
It is the common remark about New York, that it has at least nothing petty or provincial in its methods and habits. The place is large enough: there is room enough, and occupation enough, for men to have no need or excuse for small cavils or scrutinies. A person who is independent, and knows what he wants, may lead his proper life here, unimpeded by others.
Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly coated by hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes sometimes to the most infected subjects.
New York is the focus, the point where American and European interests converge. There is no topic of general interest to men, that will not betimes be brought before the thinker by the quick turning of the wheel.
Tooquick that revolution,—some object. Life rushes wide and free, buttoo fast. Yet it is in the power of every one to avert from himself the evil that accompanies the good. He must build for his study, as did the German poet, a house beneath the bridge; and then all that passes above and by him will be heard and seen, but he will not be carried away with it.
Earlier views have been confirmed, and many new onesopened. On two great leadings, the superlative importance of promoting national education by heightening and deepening the cultivation of individual minds, and the part which is assigned to woman in the next stage of human progress in this country, where most important achievements are to be effected, I have received much encouragement, much instruction, and the fairest hopes of more.
On various subjects of minor importance, no less than these, I hope for good results, from observation, with my own eyes, of life in the old world, and to bring home some packages of seed for life in the new.
These words I address to my friends, for I feel that I have some. The degree of sympathetic response to the thoughts and suggestions I have offered through the columns of the Tribune, has indeed surprised me, conscious as I am of a natural and acquired aloofness from many, if not most popular tendencies of my time and place. It has greatly encouraged me, for none can sympathize with thoughts like mine, who are permanently insnared in the meshes of sect or party; none who prefer the formation and advancement of mere opinions to the free pursuit of truth. I see, surely, that the topmost bubble or sparkle of the cup is no voucher for the nature of its contents throughout, and shall, in future, feel that in our age, nobler in that respect than most of the preceding ages, each sincere and fervent act or word is secure, not only of a final, but of a speedy response.
I go to behold the wonders of art, and the temples of old religion. But I shall see no forms of beauty and majesty beyond what my country is capable of producing in myriad variety, if she has but the soul to will it; no temple to compare with what she might erect in the ages, if the catchword of the time, a sense ofdivine order, should become no more a mere word of form, but a deeply-rooted and pregnant idea in her life. Beneath the light of a hope that this may be, I say to my friends once more a kind farewell!
The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend,Freedom is but a means to gain an end.Freedom should build the temple, but the shrineBe consecrate to thought still more divine.The human bliss which angel hopes foresawIs liberty to comprehend the law.Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame,Comprising means and end in Truth's great name.
The long-anticipated morning dawns,Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath.The dogstar is exhausted of its rage,And copious showers have cooled the feverish air,The mighty engine pants—away, away!And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group—The stately matron with her tempered grace,Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile,Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth.Her counsel firm and generous sympathy;The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet everDilating to the scene, refuse that blissWhich excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty.Next two fair maidens in gradation meet,The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes;Like water she, that yielding and combining,Yet most pure element in the social cup:The other with bright glance and damask cheek,You need not deem concealment there was preyingTo mar the healthful promise of the spring.Another dame was there, of graver look,And heart of slower beat; yet in its depthsNot irresponsive to the soul of things,Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word.These ladies had a knight from foreign clime,Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube,Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim,To worship at the shrine of Liberty,And after, made his home in her loved realm,Content to call it fatherland where'erThe streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them;A courteous knight he was, of merry mood,Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest,Or tale of strange romance or comic song.And there was one I must not call a page,Although too young yet to have won his spurs;Yet there was promise in his laughing eye,That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight;Now, bright companion on a summer sea,With wingéd words of gay or tasteful thought,He was fit clasp to this our social chain.And now, the swift car loosened on its way,O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness,While each tongue celebrates the power of steam;O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast!No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature!'Tis bliss indeed if "to think be to groan!"The genius of the time soon shifts the scene:No longer whirled over our kindred clods,We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters.Now doth our chain a while untwine its links,And some rebound from a three hours' communionTo mingle with less favored fellow-men;One careless turns the leaves of some new volume;The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic,Too vast the characters for patient study,Till sunset lures us with majestic powerTo cast one look of love on that bright eye,Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us.The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome,Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes,And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave,Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty.Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talkCasts to the hours a store of gentle gifts,Which memory receives from these bright mindsAnd careful garners them for duller days.The morning greets us not with her late smile;Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes,And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene.Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson,Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wandHas piled thy banks on high, and given them formsWhich have for taste an impulse yet unknown.Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen,An humble handmaid now to the Sublime.The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength,And tasks its elements for congenial formsTo create anew within those mighty piles,Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defyingAnd thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows.Now at the river's bend we pause a while,And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us.Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point returnUpon the mind, in its still picture-hours,Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues,The soft seclusion of its wooded paths,And the alluring hopefulness of viewAlong the river from its crisis-point.Unlike the currents of our human livesWhen they approach their long-sought ocean-mother,—This stream is noblest onward to its close,More tame and grave when near its inland founts.Now onward, onward, till the whole be known;The heart, though swollen with these new sensations,With no less vital throb beats on for more,And rather we'd shake hands with disappointmentThan wait and lean on sober expectation.The Highlands now are passed, and Hyde Park flies,—Catskill salutes us—a far fairy-land.O mountains, how do ye delude our hearts!Let but the eye look down upon a valley,We feel our limitations, and are calm;But place blue mountains in the distant view,And the soul labors with the Titan hopeTo ascend the shrouded tops, and scale the heavens.O, pause not in the murky, old Dutch city,But, hasting onward with a renewed steam power,Bestow your hours upon the beauteous Mohawk;And here we grieve to lose our courteous knight,Just at the opening of so rich a page.How shall I praise thee, Mohawk? How portrayThe love, the joyousness, felt in thy presence?When each new step along the silvery tideAdded new gems of beauty to our thought,And lapped the soul in an ElysiumOf verdure and of grace, fed by thy sweetness.O, how gay Fancy smiled, and deemed it home!This is, thought she, the river of my garden;These are the graceful trees that form its bowers,And these the meads where I have sighed to roam.I now may fold my wearied wings in peace.
I.TO MY FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS.If this faint reflex from those days so brightMay aught of sympathy among you gain,I shall not think these verses penned in vain;Though they tell nothing of the fancies light,The kindly deeds, rich thoughts, and various graceWith which you knew to make the hours so fair,That neither grief nor sickness could effaceFrom memory's tablet what you printed there.Could I have breathed your spirit through these lines,They might have charms to win a critic's smile,Or the cold worldling of a sigh beguile.I could but from my being bring one tone;May it arouse the sweetness of your own.II.THE HIGHLANDS.I saw ye first, arrayed in mist and cloud;No cheerful lights softened your aspect bold;A sullen gray, or green, more grave and cold,The varied beauties of the scene enshroud.Yet not the less, O Hudson! calm and proud,Did I receive the impress of that hourWhich showed thee to me, emblem of that powerOf high resolve, to which even rocks have bowed;Thou wouldst not deign thy course to turn aside,And seek some smiling valley's welcome warm,But through the mountain's very heart, thy prideHas been, thy channel and thy banks to form.Not even the "bulwarks of the world" could barThe inland fount from joining ocean's war!III.CATSKILL.How fair at distance shone yon silvery blue,O stately mountain-tops, charming the mindTo dream of pleasures which she there may find,Where from the eagle's height she earth can view!Nor are those disappointments which ensue;For though, while eyeing what beneath us lay,Almost we shunned to think of yesterday,As wonderingly our looks its course pursue.Dwarfed to a point the joys of many hours,The river on whose bosom we were borneSeems but a thread, of pride and beauty shorn;Its banks, its shadowy groves, like beds of flowers,Wave their diminished heads;—yet would we sigh,Since all this loss shows us more near the sky?IV.VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK.Could I my words with gentlest grace imbue,Which the flute's breath, or harp's clear tones, can bless,I then might hope the feelings to express,And with new life the happy day endue,Thou gav'st, O vale, than Tempe's self more fair!With thy romantic stream and emerald isles,Touched by an April mood of tears and smilesWhich stole on matron August unaware;The meads with all the spring's first freshness green,The trees with summer's thickest garlands crowned,And each so elegant, that fairy queenAll day might wander ere she chose her round;No blemish on the sense of beauty broke,But the whole scene one ecstasy awoke.V.TRENTON FALLS, EARLY IN THE MORNING.The sun, impatient, o'er the lofty treesStruggles to illume as fair a sight as liesBeneath the light of his joy-loving eyes,Which all the forms of energy must please;A solemn shadow falls in pillared form,Made by yon ledge, which noontide scarcely shows,Upon the amber radiance, soft and warm,Where through the cleft the eager torrent flows.Would you the genius of the place enjoy,In all the charms contrast and color give?Your eye and taste you now may best employ,For this the hour when minor beauties live;Scan ye the details as the sun rides high,For with the morn these sparkling glories fly.VI.TRENTON FALLS, (AFTERNOON.)A calmer grace o'er these still hours presides;Now is the time to see the might of form;The heavy masses of the buttressed sides,The stately steps o'er which the waters storm;Where, 'neath the mill, the stream so gently glides,You feel the deep seclusion of the scene,And now begin to comprehend what meanThe beauty and the power this chasm hides.From the green forest's depths the portent springs,But from those quiet shades bounding away,Lays bare its being to the light of day,Though on the rock's cold breast its love it flings.Yet can all sympathy such courage miss?Answer, ye trees! who bend the waves to kiss.VII.TRENTON FALLS BY MOONLIGHT.I deemed the inmost sense my soul had blessedWhich in the poem of thy being dwells,And gives such store for thought's most sacred cells;And yet a higher joy was now confessed.With what a holiness did night investThe eager impulse of impetuous life,And hymn-like meanings clothed the waters' strife!With what a solemn peace the moon did restUpon the white crest of the waterfall;The haughty guardian banks, by the deep shade,In almost double height are now displayed.Depth, height, speak things which awe, but not appall.From elemental powers this voice has come,And God's love answers from the azure dome.
In times of old, as we are told,When men more child-like at the feetOf Jesus sat, than now,A chivalry was known more boldThan ours, and yet of stricter vow,Of worship more complete.Knights of the Rosy Cross, they boreIts weight within the heart, but woreWithout, devotion's sign in glistening ruby bright;The gall and vinegar they drank alone,But to the world at large would only ownThe wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light.They knew the secret of the sacred oilWhich, poured upon the prophet's head,Could keep him wise and pure for aye.Apart from all that might distract or soil,With this their lamps they fed.Which burn in their sepulchral shrines unfading night and day.The pass-word now is lost,To that initiation full and free;Daily we pay the costOf our slow schooling for divine degree.We know no means to feed an undying lamp;Our lights go out in every wind or damp.We wear the cross of ebony and gold,Upon a dark background a form of light,A heavenly hope upon a bosom cold,A starry promise in a frequent night;The dying lamp must often trim again,For we are conscious, thoughtful, striving men.Yet be we faithful to this present trust,Clasp to a heart resigned the fatal must;Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold,Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold;Forget not oft to lift the hope on high;The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky.And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed,The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed,Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand,The kindred angels of a faithful band;Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside,No lamp is needed, for the night has died.Happy be those who seek that distant day,With feet that from the appointed wayCould never stray;Yet happy too be those who more and more,As gleams the beacon of that only shore,Strive at the laboring oar.Be to the best thou knowest ever true,Is all the creed;Then, be thy talisman of rosy hue,Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed,Or gentle pledge of Love's prophetic view,The faithful steps it will securely lead.Happy are all who reach that shore,And bathe in heavenly day,Happiest are those who high the banner bore,To marshal others on the way;Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn,By burdens overborne.
In a fair garden of a distant land,Where autumn skies the softest blue outspread,A lovely crimson dahlia reared her head,To drink the lustre of the season's prime;And drink she did, until her cup o'erflowedWith ruby redder than the sunset cloud.Near to her root she saw the fairest roseThat ever oped her soul to sun and wind.And still the more her sweets she did disclose,The more her queenly heart of sweets did find,Not only for her worshipper the wind,But for bee, nightingale, and butterfly,Who would with ceaseless wing about her ply,Nor ever cease to seek what found they still would find.Upon the other side, nearer the ground,A paler floweret on a slender stem,That cast so exquisite a fragrance round,As seemed the minute blossom to contemn,Seeking an ampler urn to hold its sweetness,And in a statelier shape to find completeness.Who could refuse to hear that keenest voice,Although it did not bid the heart rejoice,And though the nightingale had just begunHis hymn; the evening breeze begun to woo,When through the charming of the evening dew,The floweret did its secret soul disclose?By that revealing touched, the queenly roseForgot them both, a deeper joy to hopeAnd heed the love-note of the heliotrope.
Beloved friends! Earth hath known brighter daysThan ours; we vainly strive to hide this truth;Would history be silent in their praise,The very stones tell of man's glorious youth,In heavenly forms on which we crowd to gaze;But that high-favored race hath sunk in night;The day is ours—the living still have sight.Friends of my youth! In happier climes than ours,As some far-wandering countrymen declare,The air is perfume; at each step spring flowers.Nature has not been bounteous to our prayer;But art dwells here, with her creative powers,Laurel and myrtle shun our winter snows,But with the cheerful vine we wreathe our brows.Though of more pomp and wealth the Briton boast,Who holds four worlds in tribute to his pride,—Although from farthest India's glowing coastCome gems of gold to burden Thames' dull tide,Andbringeach luxury that Heaven denied,—Not in the torrent, but the still, calm brook,Delights Apollo at himself to look.More nobly lodged than we in northern halls,At Angelo's gate the Roman beggar dwells;Girt by the Eternal City's honored walls,Each column some soul-stiring story tells;While on the earth a second heaven dwells,Where Michael's spirit to St. Peter calls;Yet all this splendor only decks a tomb;For us fresh flowers from every green hour bloomAnd while we live obscure, may others' namesThrough Rumor's trump be given to the wind;New forms of ancient glories, ancient shames,For nothing new the searching sun can find,As pass the motley groups of human kind;All other living things grow old and die—Fancy alone has immortality.
I.Come, breath of dawn! and o'er my temples play;Rouse to the draught of life the wearied sense;Fly, sleep! with thy sad phantoms, far away;Let the glad light scare those pale troublous shadows hence!II.I rise, and leaning from my casement high,Feel from the morning twilight a delight;Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye,And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night.III.O glorious morn! how great is yet thy power!Yet how unlike to that which once I knew,When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar,And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew!IV.Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon;For me the dream is vanished ere my time;I feel the heat and weariness of noon,And long in night's cool shadows to recline.
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,And in the forms of gods and heroes wroughtEternal beauty from the sculptured stone—A higher charm than modern culture won,With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore.A many-colored light flows from our sun;Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun;The prison modifies the perfect day;But thou hast known such mediums to shun,And cast once more on life a pure white ray.Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.
Hark! the church-going bell! But through the airThe feathery missiles of old Winter hurled,Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring;She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away.Sweet is the time passed in the house of prayer,When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay,We, on this day,—the tribe of ills forgot,Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other,—Assemble in the temple of our God,And use our breath to worship Him who gave it.What though no gorgeous relics of old days,The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors,Deck the fair shrine, or cluster round the pillars;No stately windows decked with various hues,No blazon of dead saints repel the sun;Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured friezeExcite the fancy and allure the taste,No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury,No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul.Ours is the faith of Reason; to the earthWe leave the senses who interpret her;The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven,The immaterial with the infinite.Calmly we wait in solemn expectation.He rises in the desk—that earnest man;No priestly terrors flashing from his eye,No mitre towers above the throne of thought,No pomp and circumstance wait on his breath.He speaks—we hear; and man to man we judge.Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling,To kindle in the mind a pure ambition,Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm,To guide the timid and refresh the weary,Appall the wicked and abash the proud?He is the man of God. Our hearts confess him.He needs no homage paid in servile forms,No worldly state, to give him dignity:To his own heart the blessing will return,And all his days blossom with love divine.There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods,There is a holiness in the blue skies;The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skiesPreach ceaselessly. The universe is love—And this disjointed fragment of a worldMust, by its spirit, man, be harmonized,Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain,Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes,As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical,And all things have one text of truth and beauty.There is a blessing in a day like this,When sky and earth are talking busily;The clouds give back the riches they received,And for their graceful shapes return they fulness;While in the inmost shrine, the life of life,The soul within the soul, the consciousnessWhom I can onlyname, counting her wealth,Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowlWhich never shall be broken, strengthens stillThe silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven.O that such hours must pass away! yet oftSuch will recur, and memories of thisCome to enhance their sweetness. And againI say, great is the blessing of that hourWhen the soul, turning from without, beginsTo register her treasures, the bright thoughts,The lovely hopes, the ethereal desires,Which she has garnered in past Sabbath hours.Within her halls the preacher's voice still sounds,Though he be dead or distant far. The bandOf friends who with us listened to his word,With throngs around of linked associations,Are there; the little stream, long left behind,Is murmuring still; the woods as musical;The skies how blue, the whole how eloquentWith "life of life and life's most secret joy"!
Remembrancer of joys long passed away,Relic from which, as yet, I cannot part,O, hast thou power to lengthen love's short day?Stronger thy chain than that which bound the heart?Lili, I fly—yet still thy fetters press meIn distant valley, or far lonely wood;Still will a struggling sigh of pain confess theeThe mistress of my soul in every mood.The bird may burst the silken chain which bound him,Flying to the green home, which fits him best;But, O, he bears the prisoner's badge around him,Still by the piece about his neck distressed.He ne'er can breathe his free, wild notes again;They're stifled by the pressure of his chain.
These pallid blossoms thou wilt not disdain,The harbingers of thy approach to me,Which grew and bloomed despite the cold and rain,To tell of summer and futurity.It was not given them to tell the soul,And lure the nightingale by fragrant breath:These slender stems and roots brook no control,And in the garden life would find but death.The rock which is their cradle and their homeMust also be their monument and tomb;Yet has my floweret's life a charm more rareThan those admiring crowds esteem so fair,Self-nurtured, self-sustaining, self-approved:Not even by the forest trees beloved,As are her sisters of the Spring, she dies,—Nor to the guardian stars lifts up her eyes,But droops her graceful head upon her breast,Nor asks the wild bird's requiem for her rest,By her own heart upheld, by her own soul possessed.Learn of the clematis domestic love,Religious beauty in the lily see;Learn from the rose how rapture's pulses move,Learn from the heliotrope fidelity.From autumn flowers let hope and faith be known;Learn from the columbine to live alone,To deck whatever spot the Fates provideWith graces worthy of the garden's pride,And to deserve each gift that is denied.These are the shades of the departed flowers,My lines faint shadows of some beauteous hours,Whereto the soul the highest thoughts have spoken,And brightest hopes from frequent twilight broken.Preserve them for my sake. In other years,When life has answered to your hopes or fears,When the web is well woven, and you tryYour wings, whether as moth or butterfly,If, as I pray, the fairest lot be thine,Yet value still the faded columbine.But look not on her if thy earnest eye,Be filled by works of art or poesy;Bring not the hermit where, in long array,Triumphs of genius gild the purple day;Let her not hear the lyre's proud voice arise,To tell, "still lives the song though Regnor dies;"Let her not hear the lute's soft-rising swellDeclare she never lived who lived so well;But from the anvil's clang, and joiner's screw,The busy streets where men dull crafts pursue,From weary cares and from tumultuous joys,From aimless bustle and from voiceless noise,If there thy plans should be, turn here thine eye,—Open the casket of thy memory;Give to thy friend the gentlest, holiest sigh.
"Composed as I stood sentinel on the banks of the Elbe."
Fatherland! Thou call'st the singerIn the blissful glow of day;He no more can musing linger,While thou dost mourn a tyrant's sway.Love and poesy forsaking,From friendship's magic circle breaking,The keenest pangs he could endureThy peace to insure.Yet sometimes tears must dim his eyes,As, on the melodious bridge of song,The shadows of past joys arise,And in mild beauty round him throng.In vain, o'er life, that early beamSuch radiance shed;—the impetuous streamOf strife has seized him, onward borne,While left behind his loved ones mourn.Here in the crowd must he complain,Nor find a fit employ?Give him poetic place again,Or the quick throb of warlike joy.The wonted inspiration give;Thus languidly he cannot live;Love's accents are no longer near;Let him the trumpet hear.Where is the cannon's thunder?The clashing cymbals, where?While foreign foes our cities plunder,Can we not hasten there?I can no longer watch this stream;In proseI die! O source of flame!O poesy! for which I glow,—A nobler death thou shouldst bestow!
Mercury has cast asideThe signs of intellectual pride,Freely offers thee the soul:Art thou noble to receive?Canst thou give or take the whole,Nobly promise, and believe?Then thou wholly human art,A spotless, radiant, ruby heart,And the golden chain of loveHas bound thee to the realm above.If there be one small, mean doubt,One serpent thought that fled not out,Take instead the serpent-rod;Thou art neither man nor God.Guard thee from the powers of evil;Who cannot trust, vows to the devil.Walk thy slow and spell-bound way;Keep on thy mask, or shun the day—Let go my hand upon the way.
"Why wilt thou not thy griefs forget?Why must thine eyes with tears be wet?When all things round thee sweetly smile,Canst thou not, too, be glad a while?""Hither I come to weep alone;The grief I feel is all mine own;Dearer than smiles these tears to me;Smile you—I ask no sympathy!""Repel not thus affection's voice!While thou art sad, can we rejoice?To friendly hearts impart thy woe;Perhaps we may some healing know.""Too gay your hearts to feel like mine,Or such a sorrow to divine;Nought have I lost I e'er possessed;I mourn that I cannot be blessed.""What idle, morbid feelings these!Can you not win what prize you please?Youth, with a genius rich as yours,All bliss the world can give insures.""Ah, too high-placed is my desire!The star to which my hopes aspireShines all too far—I sigh in vain,Yet cannot stoop to earth again.""Waste not so foolishly thy prime;If to the stars thou canst not climb,Their gentle beams thy loving eyeEvery clear night will gratify.""Do I not know it? Even nowI wait the sun's departing glow,That I may watch them. Meanwhile yeEnjoy the day—'tis nought to me!"
Though many at my feet have bowed,And asked my love through pain and pleasure,Fate never yet the youth has showedMeet to receive so great a treasure.Although sometimes my heart, deceived,Would love because it sighedto feel,Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grievedBecause my fancied wound would heal.
Sunday,May 12, 1833.
The clouds are marshalling across the sky,Leaving their deepest tints upon yon rangeOf soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,Laden with tribute that a hundred orchardsNow in their fullest blossom send, in thanksFor this refreshing shower. The birds pour forthIn heightened melody the notes of praiseThey had suspended while God's voice was speaking,And his eye flashing down upon his world.I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,And, taking in this freshened beauty, tellsIts pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeatingPoetic sentiments from many a recordWhich other souls have left, when stirred and satisfiedBy scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heartSends back a hollow echo to the callOf outward things,—and its once bright companion,Who erst would have been answered by a streamOf life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned,—Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the thingsOf Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,Too often were they poured forth: part have sunkInto the desert; part profaned and swollenBy bitter waters, mixed by those who feignedThey asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,Have broken and o'erflowed their former urns.So when ye talk ofpleasure, lonely world,And busy mind, ye ne'er again shall move meTo answer ye, though still your calls have powerTo jar me through, and cause dull achinghere.Not so the voice which hailed me from the depthsOf yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishingBefore the sun ye greet. It touched my centre,The voice of the Eternal, calling meTo feel his other worlds; to feel that ifI could deserve a home, I still might find itIn other spheres,—and bade me not despair,Though "want of harmony" and "aching void"Are terms invented by the men of this,Which I may not forget.In former timesI loved to see the lightnings flash athwartThe stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunderCall to the seas and mountains; for I thought'Tis thus man's flashing fancy doth enkindleThe firmament of mind; 'tis thus his eloquenceCalls unto the soul's depths and heights; and stillI deified the creature, nor rememberedThe Creator in his works.Ah now how different!The proud delight of that keen sympathyIs gone; no longer riding on the wave,But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works,Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my "inventions"No longer interpose 'twixt me and Heaven.To-day, for the first time, I felt the Deity,And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. ThisMust be thy will,—for finer, higher spiritsHave gone through this same process,—yet I thinkThere was religion in that strong delight,Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,I did not say, "He is the Lord thy God,"But I had feeling of his essence. But"'Twas pride by which the angels fell." So be it!But O, might I but see a little onward!Father, I cannot be a spirit of power;May I be active as a spirit of love,Since thou hast ta'en me from that path which NatureSeemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another,Where I may walk with thought and hope assured;"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!"Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis,I too could bear that the heart "fall in ashes,"While the freed spirit rises from beneath them,With heavenward-look, and Phœnix-plumes upsoaring!
Poet of Nature, gentlest of the wise,Most airy of the fanciful, most keenOf satirists, thy thoughts, like butterflies,Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been:With Titian's colors, thou canst sunset paint;With Raphael's dignity, celestial love;With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feintOf meanness and hypocrisy reprove;Canst to Devotion's highest flight sublimeExalt the mind; by tenderest pathos' artDissolve in purifying tears the heart,Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime;The fond illusions of the youth and maid,At which so many world-formed sages sneer,When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed,Our natural religion must appear.All things in thee tend to one polar star;Magnetic all thy influences are;A labyrinth; a flowery wilderness.Some in thy "slip-boxes" and honeymoonsComplain of—want of order, I confess,But not of system in its highest sense.Who asks a guiding clew through this wide mind,In love of nature such will surely find,In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird,Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stray;Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed:No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away;Nature's wide temple and the azure domeHave plan enough for the free spirit's home.
With equal sweetness the commissioned hoursShed light and dew upon both weeds and flowers.The weeds unthankful raise their vile heads high,Flaunting back insult to the gracious sky;While the dear flowers, with fond humility,Uplift the eyelids of a starry eyeIn speechless homage, and, from grateful hearts,Perfume that homage all around imparts.
When leaves were falling thickly in the pale November day,A bird dropped here this feather upon her pensive way.Another bird has found it in the snow-chilled April day;It brings to him the music of all her summer's lay.Thus sweet birds, though unmated, do never sing in vain;The lonely notes they utter to free them from their pain,Caught up by the echoes, ring through the blue dome,And by good spirits guided pierce to some gentle home.The pencil moved prophetic: together now men readIn the fair book of nature, and find the hope they need.The wreath woven by the river is by the seaside worn,And one of fate's best arrows to its due mark is borne.
Thy other book to fill, more than eight yearsHave paid chance tribute of their smiles and tears;Many bright strokes portray the varied scene—Wild sports, sweet ties the days of toil between;And those related both in mind and blood,The wise, the true, the lovely, and the good,Have left their impress here; nor such alone,But those chance toys that lively feelings ownWeave their gay flourishes 'mid lines sincere,As 'mid the shadowy thickets bound the deerAccept a volume where the coming timeWill join, I hope, much reason with the rhyme,And that the stair his steady feet ascendMay prove a Jacob's ladder to my friend,Peopled with angel-shapes of promise bright,And ending only in the realms of light.May purity be stamped upon his brow,Yet leave the manly footsteps free as now;May generous love glow in his inmost heart,Truth to its utterance lend the only art;While more a man, may he be more the child;More thoughtful be, but the more sweet and mild;May growing wisdom, mixed with sprightly cheer,Bless his own breast and those which hold him dear;Each act be worthy of his worthiest aim,And love of goodness keep him free from blame,Without a need straight rules for life to frame.Good Spirit, teach him what he ought to be,Best to fulfil his proper destiny,To serve himself, his fellow-men, and thee.These pages then will show how Nature wildAccepts her Master, cherishes her child;And many flowers, ere eight years more are done,Shall bless and blossom in the western sun.