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.. . . . . . . . . .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.
This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspiration I have found in her friendship and sympathy. The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife: an Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868. When I published the volume Among the Hills, in December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled out also the outlines of the story.
PRELUDE.ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of goldThat tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowersHang motionless upon their upright staves.The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,Vying-weary with its long flight from the south,Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leafWith faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,Confesses it. The locust by the wallStabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.A single hay-cart down the dusty roadCreaks slowly, with its driver fast asleepOn the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift stillDefied the dog-star. Through the open doorA drowsy smell of flowers-gray heliotrope,And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette—Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lendsTo the pervading symphony of peace.No time is this for hands long over-wornTo task their strength; and (unto Him be praiseWho giveth quietness!) the stress and strainOf years that did the work of centuriesHave ceased, and we can draw our breath once moreFreely and full. So, as yon harvestersMake glad their nooning underneath the elmsWith tale and riddle and old snatch of song,I lay aside grave themes, and idly turnThe leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'erOld summer pictures of the quiet hills,And human life, as quiet, at their feet.And yet not idly all. A farmer's son,Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feelingAll their fine possibilities, how richAnd restful even poverty and toilBecome when beauty, harmony, and loveSit at their humble hearth as angels satAt evening in the patriarch's tent, when manMakes labor noble, and his farmer's frockThe symbol of a Christian chivalryTender and just and generous to herWho clothes with grace all duty; still, I knowToo well the picture has another side,—How wearily the grind of toil goes onWhere love is wanting, how the eye and earAnd heart are starved amidst the plenitudeOf nature, and how hard and colorlessIs life without an atmosphere. I lookAcross the lapse of half a century,And call to mind old homesteads, where no flowerTold that the spring had come, but evil weeds,Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the placeOf the sweet doorway greeting of the roseAnd honeysuckle, where the house walls seemedBlistering in sun, without a tree or vineTo cast the tremulous shadow of its leavesAcross the curtainless windows, from whose panesFluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed(Broom-clean I think they called it); the best roomStifling with cellar damp, shut from the airIn hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless,Save the inevitable sampler hungOver the fireplace, or a mourning piece,A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneathImpossible willows; the wide-throated hearthBristling with faded pine-boughs half concealingThe piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;And, in sad keeping with all things about them,Shrill, querulous-women, sour and sullen men,Untidy, loveless, old before their time,With scarce a human interest save their ownMonotonous round of small economies,Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood;Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed,Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;For them the song-sparrow and the bobolinkSang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;For them in vain October's holocaustBurned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,The sacramental mystery of the woods.Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers,But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent,Saving, as shrewd economists, their soulsAnd winter pork with the least possible outlayOf salt and sanctity; in daily lifeShowing as little actual comprehensionOf Christian charity and love and duty,As if the Sermon on the Mount had beenOutdated like a last year's almanacRich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields,And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless,The veriest straggler limping on his rounds,The sun and air his sole inheritance,Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes,And hugged his rags in self-complacency!Not such should be the homesteads of a landWhere whoso wisely wills and acts may dwellAs king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state,With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to makeHis hour of leisure richer than a lifeOf fourscore to the barons of old time,Our yeoman should be equal to his homeSet in the fair, green valleys, purple walled,A man to match his mountains, not to creepDwarfed and abased below them. I would fainIn this light way (of which I needs must ownWith the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings,"Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!")Invite the eye to see and heart to feelThe beauty and the joy within their reach,—Home, and home loves, and the beatitudesOf nature free to all. Haply in yearsThat wait to take the places of our own,Heard where some breezy balcony looks downOn happy homes, or where the lake in the moonSleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feetOf Boaz, even this simple lay of mineMay seem the burden of a prophecy,Finding its late fulfilment in a changeSlow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood upThrough broader culture, finer manners, love,And reverence, to the level of the hills.O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn,And not of sunset, forward, not behind,Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bringAll the old virtues, whatsoever thingsAre pure and honest and of good repute,But add thereto whatever bard has sungOr seer has told of when in trance and dreamThey saw the Happy Isles of prophecyLet Justice hold her scale, and Truth divideBetween the right and wrong; but give the heartThe freedom of its fair inheritance;Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long,At Nature's table feast his ear and eyeWith joy and wonder; let all harmoniesOf sound, form, color, motion, wait uponThe princely guest, whether in soft attireOf leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil,And, lending life to the dead form of faith,Give human nature reverence for the sakeOf One who bore it, making it divineWith the ineffable tenderness of God;Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer,The heirship of an unknown destiny,The unsolved mystery round about us, makeA man more precious than the gold of Ophir.Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all thingsShould minister, as outward types and signsOf the eternal beauty which fulfilsThe one great purpose of creation, Love,The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven!. . . . . . . . . . .For weeks the clouds had raked the hillsAnd vexed the vales with raining,And all the woods were sad with mist,And all the brooks complaining.At last, a sudden night-storm toreThe mountain veils asunder,And swept the valleys clean beforeThe besom of the thunder.Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sangGood morrow to the cotter;And once again Chocorua's hornOf shadow pierced the water.Above his broad lake Ossipee,Once more the sunshine wearing,Stooped, tracing on that silver shieldHis grim armorial bearing.Clear drawn against the hard blue sky,The peaks had winter's keenness;And, close on autumn's frost, the valesHad more than June's fresh greenness.Again the sodden forest floorsWith golden lights were checkered,Once more rejoicing leaves in windAnd sunshine danced and flickered.It was as if the summer's lateAtoning for it's sadnessHad borrowed every season's charmTo end its days in gladness.Rivers of gold-mist flowing downFrom far celestial fountains,—The great sun flaming through the riftsBeyond the wall of mountains.We paused at last where home-bound cowsBrought down the pasture's treasure,And in the barn the rhythmic flailsBeat out a harvest measure.We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge,The crow his tree-mates callingThe shadows lengthening down the slopesAbout our feet were falling.And through them smote the level sunIn broken lines of splendor,Touched the gray rocks and made the greenOf the shorn grass more tender.The maples bending o'er the gate,Their arch of leaves just tintedWith yellow warmth, the golden glowOf coming autumn hinted.Keen white between the farm-house showed,And smiled on porch and trellis,The fair democracy of flowersThat equals cot and palace.And weaving garlands for her dog,'Twixt chidings and caresses,A human flower of childhood shookThe sunshine from her tresses.Clear drawn against the hard blue sky,The peaks had winter's keenness;And, close on autumn's frost, the valesHad more than June's fresh greenness.Again the sodden forest floorsWith golden lights were checkered,Once more rejoicing leaves in windAnd sunshine danced and flickered.It was as if the summer's lateAtoning for it's sadnessHad borrowed every season's charmTo end its days in gladness.I call to mind those banded valesOf shadow and of shining,Through which, my hostess at my side,I drove in day's declining.We held our sideling way aboveThe river's whitening shallows,By homesteads old, with wide-flung barnsSwept through and through by swallows;By maple orchards, belts of pineAnd larches climbing darklyThe mountain slopes, and, over all,The great peaks rising starkly.You should have seen that long hill-rangeWith gaps of brightness riven,—How through each pass and hollow streamedThe purpling lights of heaven,—On either hand we saw the signsOf fancy and of shrewdness,Where taste had wound its arms of vinesRound thrift's uncomely rudeness.The sun-brown farmer in his frockShook hands, and called to MaryBare-armed, as Juno might, she came,White-aproned from her dairy.Her air, her smile, her motions, toldOf womanly completeness;A music as of household songsWas in her voice of sweetness.Not fair alone in curve and line,But something more and better,The secret charm eluding art,Its spirit, not its letter;—An inborn grace that nothing lackedOf culture or appliance,The warmth of genial courtesy,The calm of self-reliance.Before her queenly womanhoodHow dared our hostess utterThe paltry errand of her needTo buy her fresh-churned butter?She led the way with housewife pride,Her goodly store disclosing,Full tenderly the golden ballsWith practised hands disposing.Then, while along the western hillsWe watched the changeful gloryOf sunset, on our homeward way,I heard her simple story.The early crickets sang; the streamPlashed through my friend's narrationHer rustic patois of the hillsLost in my free-translation."More wise," she said, "than those who swarmOur hills in middle summer,She came, when June's first roses blow,To greet the early comer."From school and ball and rout she came,The city's fair, pale daughter,To drink the wine of mountain airBeside the Bearcamp Water."Her step grew firmer on the hillsThat watch our homesteads over;On cheek and lip, from summer fields,She caught the bloom of clover."For health comes sparkling in the streamsFrom cool Chocorua stealingThere's iron in our Northern winds;Our pines are trees of healing."She sat beneath the broad-armed elmsThat skirt the mowing-meadow,And watched the gentle west-wind weaveThe grass with shine and shadow."Beside her, from the summer heatTo share her grateful screening,With forehead bared, the farmer stood,Upon his pitchfork leaning."Framed in its damp, dark locks, his faceHad nothing mean or common,—Strong, manly, true, the tendernessAnd pride beloved of woman."She looked up, glowing with the healthThe country air had brought her,And, laughing, said: 'You lack a wife,Your mother lacks a daughter."'To mend your frock and bake your breadYou do not need a ladyBe sure among these brown old homesIs some one waiting ready,—"'Some fair, sweet girl with skilful handAnd cheerful heart for treasure,Who never played with ivory keys,Or danced the polka's measure.'"He bent his black brows to a frown,He set his white teeth tightly.''T is well,' he said, 'for one like youTo choose for me so lightly."You think, because my life is rudeI take no note of sweetnessI tell you love has naught to doWith meetness or unmeetness."'Itself its best excuse, it asksNo leave of pride or fashionWhen silken zone or homespun frockIt stirs with throbs of passion."'You think me deaf and blind: you bringYour winning graces hitherAs free as if from cradle-timeWe two had played together."'You tempt me with your laughing eyes,Your cheek of sundown's blushes,A motion as of waving grain,A music as of thrushes."'The plaything of your summer sport,The spells you weave around meYou cannot at your will undo,Nor leave me as you found me."'You go as lightly as you came,Your life is well without me;What care you that these hills will closeLike prison-walls about me?"'No mood is mine to seek a wife,Or daughter for my motherWho loves you loses in that loveAll power to love another!"'I dare your pity or your scorn,With pride your own exceeding;I fling my heart into your lapWithout a word of pleading.'"She looked up in his face of painSo archly, yet so tender'And if I lend you mine,' she said,'Will you forgive the lender?"'Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;And see you not, my farmer,How weak and fond a woman waitsBehind this silken armor?"'I love you: on that love alone,And not my worth, presuming,Will you not trust for summer fruitThe tree in May-day blooming?'"Alone the hangbird overhead,His hair-swung cradle straining,Looked down to see love's miracle,—The giving that is gaining."And so the farmer found a wife,His mother found a daughterThere looks no happier home than hersOn pleasant Bearcamp Water."Flowers spring to blossom where she walksThe careful ways of duty;Our hard, stiff lines of life with herAre flowing curves of beauty."Our homes are cheerier for her sake,Our door-yards brighter blooming,And all about the social airIs sweeter for her coming."Unspoken homilies of peaceHer daily life is preaching;The still refreshment of the dewIs her unconscious teaching."And never tenderer hand than hersUnknits the brow of ailing;Her garments to the sick man's earHave music in their trailing."And when, in pleasant harvest moons,The youthful huskers gather,Or sleigh-drives on the mountain waysDefy the winter weather,—"In sugar-camps, when south and warmThe winds of March are blowing,And sweetly from its thawing veinsThe maple's blood is flowing,—"In summer, where some lilied pondIts virgin zone is baring,Or where the ruddy autumn fireLights up the apple-paring,—"The coarseness of a ruder timeHer finer mirth displaces,A subtler sense of pleasure fillsEach rustic sport she graces."Her presence lends its warmth and healthTo all who come before it.If woman lost us Eden, suchAs she alone restore it."For larger life and wiser aimsThe farmer is her debtor;Who holds to his another's heartMust needs be worse or better."Through her his civic service showsA purer-toned ambition;No double consciousness dividesThe man and politician."In party's doubtful ways he trustsHer instincts to determine;At the loud polls, the thought of herRecalls Christ's Mountain Sermon."He owns her logic of the heart,And wisdom of unreason,Supplying, while he doubts and weighs,The needed word in season."He sees with pride her richer thought,Her fancy's freer ranges;And love thus deepened to respectIs proof against all changes."And if she walks at ease in waysHis feet are slow to travel,And if she reads with cultured eyesWhat his may scarce unravel,"Still clearer, for her keener sightOf beauty and of wonder,He learns the meaning of the hillsHe dwelt from childhood under."And higher, warmed with summer lights,Or winter-crowned and hoary,The ridged horizon lifts for himIts inner veils of glory."He has his own free, bookless lore,The lessons nature taught him,The wisdom which the woods and hillsAnd toiling men have brought him:"The steady force of will wherebyHer flexile grace seems sweeter;The sturdy counterpoise which makesHer woman's life completer."A latent fire of soul which lacksNo breath of love to fan it;And wit, that, like his native brooks,Plays over solid granite."How dwarfed against his manlinessShe sees the poor pretension,The wants, the aims, the follies, bornOf fashion and convention."How life behind its accidentsStands strong and self-sustaining,The human fact transcending allThe losing and the gaining."And so in grateful interchangeOf teacher and of hearer,Their lives their true distinctness keepWhile daily drawing nearer."And if the husband or the wifeIn home's strong light discoversSuch slight defaults as failed to meetThe blinded eyes of lovers,"Why need we care to ask?—who dreamsWithout their thorns of roses,Or wonders that the truest steelThe readiest spark discloses?"For still in mutual sufferance liesThe secret of true living;Love scarce is love that never knowsThe sweetness of forgiving."We send the Squire to General Court,He takes his young wife thither;No prouder man election dayRides through the sweet June weather."He sees with eyes of manly trustAll hearts to her inclining;Not less for him his household lightThat others share its shining."Thus, while my hostess spake, there grewBefore me, warmer tintedAnd outlined with a tenderer grace,The picture that she hinted.The sunset smouldered as we droveBeneath the deep hill-shadows.Below us wreaths of white fog walkedLike ghosts the haunted meadows.Sounding the summer night, the starsDropped down their golden plummets;The pale arc of the Northern lightsRose o'er the mountain summits,Until, at last, beneath its bridge,We heard the Bearcamp flowing,And saw across the mapled lawnThe welcome home lights glowing.And, musing on the tale I heard,'T were well, thought I, if oftenTo rugged farm-life came the giftTo harmonize and soften;If more and more we found the trothOf fact and fancy plighted,And culture's charm and labor's strengthIn rural homes united,—The simple life, the homely hearth,With beauty's sphere surrounding,And blessing toil where toil aboundsWith graces more abounding.1868.
THE land was pale with famineAnd racked with fever-pain;The frozen fiords were fishless,The earth withheld her grain.Men saw the boding FylgjaBefore them come and go,And, through their dreams, the UrdarmoonFrom west to east sailed slow.Jarl Thorkell of TheveraAt Yule-time made his vow;On Rykdal's holy Doom-stoneHe slew to Frey his cow.To bounteous Frey he slew her;To Skuld, the younger Norn,Who watches over birth and death,He gave her calf unborn.And his little gold-haired daughterTook up the sprinkling-rod,And smeared with blood the templeAnd the wide lips of the god.Hoarse below, the winter waterGround its ice-blocks o'er and o'er;Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves,Rose and fell along the shore.The red torch of the Jokul,Aloft in icy space,Shone down on the bloody Horg-stonesAnd the statue's carven face.And closer round and grimmerBeneath its baleful lightThe Jotun shapes of mountainsCame crowding through the night.The gray-haired Hersir trembledAs a flame by wind is blown;A weird power moved his white lips,And their voice was not his own."The AEsir thirst!" he muttered;"The gods must have more bloodBefore the tun shall blossomOr fish shall fill the flood."The AEsir thirst and hunger,And hence our blight and ban;The mouths of the strong gods waterFor the flesh and blood of man!"Whom shall we give the strong ones?Not warriors, sword on thigh;But let the nursling infantAnd bedrid old man die.""So be it!" cried the young men,"There needs nor doubt nor parle."But, knitting hard his red brows,In silence stood the Jarl.A sound of woman's weepingAt the temple door was heard,But the old men bowed their white heads,And answered not a word.Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla,A Vala young and fair,Sang softly, stirring with her breathThe veil of her loose hair.She sang: "The winds from AlfheimBring never sound of strife;The gifts for Frey the meetestAre not of death, but life."He loves the grass-green meadows,The grazing kine's sweet breath;He loathes your bloody Horg-stones,Your gifts that smell of death."No wrong by wrong is righted,No pain is cured by pain;The blood that smokes from Doom-ringsFalls back in redder rain."The gods are what you make them,As earth shall Asgard prove;And hate will come of hating,And love will come of love."Make dole of skyr and black breadThat old and young may live;And look to Frey for favorWhen first like Frey you give."Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadowsThe summer dawn beginsThe tun shall have its harvest,The fiord its glancing fins."Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell"By Gimli and by Hel,O Vala of Thingvalla,Thou singest wise and well!"Too dear the AEsir's favorsBought with our children's lives;Better die than shame in livingOur mothers and our wives."The full shall give his portionTo him who hath most need;Of curdled skyr and black bread,Be daily dole decreed."He broke from off his neck-chainThree links of beaten gold;And each man, at his bidding,Brought gifts for young and old.Then mothers nursed their children,And daughters fed their sires,And Health sat down with PlentyBefore the next Yule fires.The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal;The Doom-ring still remains;But the snows of a thousand wintersHave washed away the stains.Christ ruleth now; the AsirHave found their twilight dim;And, wiser than she dreamed, of oldThe Vala sang of Him1868.
THE Rabbi Nathan two-score years and tenWalked blameless through the evil world, and then,Just as the almond blossomed in his hair,Met a temptation all too strong to bear,And miserably sinned. So, adding notFalsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taughtNo more among the elders, but went outFrom the great congregation girt aboutWith sackcloth, and with ashes on his head,Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed,Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laidOpen before him for the Bath-Col's choice,Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice,Behold the royal preacher's words: "A friendLoveth at all times, yea, unto the end;And for the evil day thy brother lives."Marvelling, he said: "It is the Lord who givesCounsel in need. At Ecbatana dwellsRabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excelsIn righteousness and wisdom, as the treesOf Lebanon the small weeds that the beesBow with their weight. I will arise, and layMy sins before him."And he went his wayBarefooted, fasting long, with many prayers;But even as one who, followed unawares,Suddenly in the darkness feels a handThrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fannedBy odors subtly sweet, and whispers nearOf words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear,So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting lowThe wail of David's penitential woe,Before him still the old temptation came,And mocked him with the motion and the shameOf such desires that, shuddering, he abhorredHimself; and, crying mightily to the LordTo free his soul and cast the demon out,Smote with his staff the blankness round about.At length, in the low light of a spent day,The towers of Ecbatana far awayRose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faintAnd footsore, pausing where for some dead saintThe faith of Islam reared a domed tomb,Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whomHe greeted kindly: "May the Holy OneAnswer thy prayers, O stranger!" WhereuponThe shape stood up with a loud cry, and then,Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray menWept, praising Him whose gracious providenceMade their paths one. But straightway, as the senseOf his transgression smote him, Nathan toreHimself away: "O friend beloved, no moreWorthy am I to touch thee, for I came,Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame.Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine,May purge my soul, and make it white like thine.Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!"Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert windBlew his long mantle backward, laying bareThe mournful secret of his shirt of hair."I too, O friend, if not in act," he said,"In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read,'Better the eye should see than that desireShould wander?' Burning with a hidden fireThat tears and prayers quench not, I come to theeFor pity and for help, as thou to me.Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried,"Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!"Side by sideIn the low sunshine by the turban stoneThey knelt; each made his brother's woe his own,Forgetting, in the agony and stressOf pitying love, his claim of selfishness;Peace, for his friend besought, his own became;His prayers were answered in another's name;And, when at last they rose up to embrace,Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!Long after, when his headstone gathered moss,Traced on the targum-marge of OnkelosIn Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read:"Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;Forget it in love's service, and the debtThou, canst not pay the angels shall forget;Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone;Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!"1868.