As they who watch by sick-beds find reliefUnwittingly from the great stress of griefAnd anxious care, in fantasies outwroughtFrom the hearth's embers flickering low, or caughtFrom whispering wind, or tread of passing feet,Or vagrant memory calling up some sweetSnatch of old song or romance, whence or whyThey scarcely know or ask,—so, thou and I,Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strongIn the endurance which outwearies Wrong,With meek persistence baffling brutal force,And trusting God against the universe,—We, doomed to watch a strife we may not shareWith other weapons than the patriot's prayer,Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,And wrung by keenest sympathy for allWho give their loved ones for the living wall'Twixt law and treason,—in this evil dayMay haply find, through automatic playOf pen and pencil, solace to our pain,And hearten others with the strength we gain.I know it has been said our times requireNo play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre,No weak essay with Fancy's chloroformTo calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm,But the stern war-blast rather, such as setsThe battle's teeth of serried bayonets,And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with theseSome softer tints may blend, and milder keysRelieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet,If so we may, our hearts, even while we eatThe bitter harvest of our own deviceAnd half a century's moral cowardice.As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied,And Kranach painted by his Luther's side,And through the war-march of the PuritanThe silver stream of Marvell's music ran,So let the household melodies be sung,The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung—So let us hold against the hosts of nightAnd slavery all our vantage-ground of light.Let Treason boast its savagery, and shakeFrom its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake,Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan,And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man,And make the tale of Fijian banquets dullBy drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,—But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease,(God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peaceNo foes are conquered who the victors teachTheir vandal manners and barbaric speech.
And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bearOf the great common burden our full share,Let none upbraid us that the waves enticeThy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device,Rhythmic, and sweet, beguiles my pen awayFrom the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day.Thus, while the east-wind keen from LabradorSings it the leafless elms, and from the shoreOf the great sea comes the monotonous roarOf the long-breaking surf, and all the skyIs gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I tryTo time a simple legend to the soundsOf winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,—A song for oars to chime with, such as mightBe sung by tired sea-painters, who at nightLook from their hemlock camps, by quiet coveOr beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love.(So hast thou looked, when level sunset layOn the calm bosom of some Eastern bay,And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolledUp the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.)Something it has—a flavor of the sea,And the sea's freedom—which reminds of thee.Its faded picture, dimly smiling downFrom the blurred fresco of the ancient town,I have not touched with warmer tints in vain,If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thoughtfrom pain.
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Her fingers shame the ivory keysThey dance so light along;The bloom upon her parted lipsIs sweeter than the song.
O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles!Her thoughts are not of thee;She better loves the salted wind,The voices of the sea.
Her heart is like an outbound shipThat at its anchor swings;The murmur of the stranded shellIs in the song she sings.
She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise,But dreams the while of oneWho watches from his sea-blown deckThe icebergs in the sun.
She questions all the winds that blow,And every fog-wreath dim,And bids the sea-birds flying northBear messages to him.
She speeds them with the thanks of menHe perilled life to save,And grateful prayers like holy oilTo smooth for him the wave.
Brown Viking of the fishing-smack!Fair toast of all the town!—The skipper's jerkin ill beseemsThe lady's silken gown!
But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wearFor him the blush of shameWho dares to set his manly giftsAgainst her ancient name.
The stream is brightest at its spring,And blood is not like wine;Nor honored less than he who heirsIs he who founds a line.
Full lightly shall the prize be won,If love be Fortune's spur;And never maiden stoops to himWho lifts himself to her.
Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street,With stately stairways wornBy feet of old Colonial knightsAnd ladies gentle-born.
Still green about its ample porchThe English ivy twines,Trained back to show in English oakThe herald's carven signs.
And on her, from the wainscot old,Ancestral faces frown,—And this has worn the soldier's sword,And that the judge's gown.
But, strong of will and proud as they,She walks the gallery floorAs if she trod her sailor's deckBy stormy Labrador.
The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side,And green are Elliot's bowers;Her garden is the pebbled beach,The mosses are her flowers.
She looks across the harbor-barTo see the white gulls fly;His greeting from the Northern seaIs in their clanging cry.
She hums a song, and dreams that he,As in its romance old,Shall homeward ride with silken sailsAnd masts of beaten gold!
Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair,And high and low mate ill;But love has never known a lawBeyond its own sweet will!1862.
I inscribed this poem to Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massachusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the "wise old doctor" of Snow-Bound. Count Francois de Vipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the present century. They took up their residence at Rocks Village on the Merrimac, where they both married. The wife of Count Vipart was Mary Ingalls, who as my father remembered her was a very lovely young girl. Her wedding dress, as described by a lady still living, was "pink satin with an overdress of white lace, and white satin slippers." She died in less than a year after her marriage. Her husband returned to his native country. He lies buried in the family tomb of the Viparts at Bordeaux.
I KNOW not, Time and Space so intervene,Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen;But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,Like an old friend, all day has been with me.The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly handSmoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-landOf thought and fancy, in gray manhood yetKeeps green the memory of his early debt.To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their wordsThrough hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,Listening with quickened heart and ear intentTo each sharp clause of that stern argument,I still can hear at times a softer noteOf the old pastoral music round me float,While through the hot gleam of our civil strifeLooms the green mirage of a simpler life.As, at his alien post, the sentinelDrops the old bucket in the homestead well,And hears old voices in the winds that tossAbove his head the live-oak's beard of moss,So, in our trial-time, and under skiesShadowed by swords like Islam's paradise,I wait and watch, and let my fancy strayTo milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day;And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreamsShades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams,The country doctor in the foreground seems,Whose ancient sulky down the village lanesDragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains.I could not paint the scenery of my song,Mindless of one who looked thereon so long;Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round,Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the soundOf each small brook, and what the hillside treesSaid to the winds that touched their leafy keys;Who saw so keenly and so well could paintThe village-folk, with all their humors quaint,The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan.Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown;The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown;The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale,And the loud straggler levying his blackmail,—Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears,All that lies buried under fifty years.To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay,And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay.
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Over the wooded northern ridge,Between its houses brown,To the dark tunnel of the bridgeThe street comes straggling down.
You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine,Of gable, roof, and porch,The tavern with its swinging sign,The sharp horn of the church.
The river's steel-blue crescent curvesTo meet, in ebb and flow,The single broken wharf that servesFor sloop and gundelow.
With salt sea-scents along its shoresThe heavy hay-boats crawl,The long antennae of their oarsIn lazy rise and fall.
Along the gray abutment's wallThe idle shad-net dries;The toll-man in his cobbler's stallSits smoking with closed eyes.
You hear the pier's low undertoneOf waves that chafe and gnaw;You start,—a skipper's horn is blownTo raise the creaking draw.
At times a blacksmith's anvil soundsWith slow and sluggard beat,Or stage-coach on its dusty roundsFakes up the staring street.
A place for idle eyes and ears,A cobwebbed nook of dreams;Left by the stream whose waves are yearsThe stranded village seems.
And there, like other moss and rust,The native dweller clings,And keeps, in uninquiring trust,The old, dull round of things.
The fisher drops his patient lines,The farmer sows his grain,Content to hear the murmuring pinesInstead of railroad-train.
Go where, along the tangled steepThat slopes against the west,The hamlet's buried idlers sleepIn still profounder rest.
Throw back the locust's flowery plume,The birch's pale-green scarf,And break the web of brier and bloomFrom name and epitaph.
A simple muster-roll of death,Of pomp and romance shorn,The dry, old names that common breathHas cheapened and outworn.
Yet pause by one low mound, and partThe wild vines o'er it laced,And read the words by rustic artUpon its headstone traced.
Haply yon white-haired villagerOf fourscore years can sayWhat means the noble name of herWho sleeps with common clay.
An exile from the Gascon landFound refuge here and rest,And loved, of all the village band,Its fairest and its best.
He knelt with her on Sabbath morns,He worshipped through her eyes,And on the pride that doubts and scornsStole in her faith's surprise.
Her simple daily life he sawBy homeliest duties tried,In all things by an untaught lawOf fitness justified.
For her his rank aside he laid;He took the hue and toneOf lowly life and toil, and madeHer simple ways his own.
Yet still, in gay and careless ease,To harvest-field or danceHe brought the gentle courtesies,The nameless grace of France.
And she who taught him love not lessFrom him she loved in turnCaught in her sweet unconsciousnessWhat love is quick to learn.
Each grew to each in pleased accord,Nor knew the gazing townIf she looked upward to her lordOr he to her looked down.
How sweet, when summer's day was o'er,His violin's mirth and wail,The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore,The river's moonlit sail!
Ah! life is brief, though love be long;The altar and the bier,The burial hymn and bridal song,Were both in one short year!
Her rest is quiet on the hill,Beneath the locust's bloomFar off her lover sleeps as stillWithin his scutcheoned tomb.
The Gascon lord, the village maid,In death still clasp their hands;The love that levels rank and gradeUnites their severed lands.
What matter whose the hillside grave,Or whose the blazoned stone?Forever to her western waveShall whisper blue Garonne!
O Love!—so hallowing every soilThat gives thy sweet flower room,Wherever, nursed by ease or toil,The human heart takes bloom!—
Plant of lost Eden, from the sodOf sinful earth unriven,White blossom of the trees of GodDropped down to us from heaven!
This tangled waste of mound and stoneIs holy for thy sale;A sweetness which is all thy ownBreathes out from fern and brake.
And while ancestral pride shall twineThe Gascon's tomb with flowers,Fall sweetly here, O song of mine,With summer's bloom and showers!
And let the lines that severed seemUnite again in thee,As western wave and Gallic streamAre mingled in one sea!1863.