A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs,Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge;Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlockspursAnd sharp, gray splinters of the wind-sweptledgePierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose,Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down uponthe snows.And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away,Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree,O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a dayGurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea;And faint with distance came the stifled roar,The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore.No cheerful village with its mingling smokes,No laugh of children wrestling in the snow,No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks,No fishers kneeling on the ice below;Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view,Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyedWeetamoo.Her heart had found a home; and freshly allIts beautiful affections overgrewTheir rugged prop. As o'er some granite wallSoft vine-leaves open to the moistening dewAnd warm bright sun, the love of that young wifeFound on a hard cold breast the dew and warmthof life.The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy shore,The long, dead level of the marsh between,A coloring of unreal beauty woreThrough the soft golden mist of young love seen.For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain,Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again.No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling,Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss,No fond and playful dalliance half concealing,Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness;But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride,And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied.Enough for Weetamoo, that she aloneSat on his mat and slumbered at his side;That he whose fame to her young ear had flownNow looked upon her proudly as his bride;That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heardVouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word.For she had learned the maxims of her race,Which teach the woman to become a slave,And feel herself the pardonless disgraceOf love's fond weakness in the wise and brave,—The scandal and the shame which they incur,Who give to woman all which man requires of her.So passed the winter moons. The sun at lastBroke link by link the frost chain of the rills,And the warm breathings of the southwest passedOver the hoar rime of the Saugus hills;The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more,And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round theSachem's door.Then from far Pennacook swift runners came,With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief;Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name,That, with the coming of the flower and leaf,The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain,Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again.And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together,And a grave council in his wigwam met,Solemn and brief in words, considering whetherThe rigid rules of forest etiquettePermitted Weetamoo once more to lookUpon her father's face and green-bankedPennacook.With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water,The forest sages pondered, and at length,Concluded in a body to escort herUp to her father's home of pride and strength,Impressing thus on Pennacook a senseOf Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence.So through old woods which Aukeetamit's hand,A soft and many-shaded greenness lent,Over high breezy hills, and meadow landYellow with flowers, the wild procession went,Till, rolling down its wooded banks between,A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimacwas seen.The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn,The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores,Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn,Young children peering through the wigwam doors,Saw with delight, surrounded by her trainOf painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again.
The hills are dearest which our childish feetHave climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweetAre ever those at which our young lips drank,Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank.Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth-lightShines round the helmsman plunging through the night;And still, with inward eye, the traveller seesIn close, dark, stranger streets his native trees.The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fannedBy breezes whispering of his native land,And on the stranger's dim and dying eyeThe soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie.Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once moreA child upon her father's wigwam floor!Once more with her old fondness to beguileFrom his cold eye the strange light of a smile.The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed,The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast,And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rimeTold of the coming of the winter-time.But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo,Down the dark river for her chief's canoe;No dusky messenger from Saugus broughtThe grateful tidings which the young wife sought.At length a runner from her father sent,To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went"Eagle of Saugus,—in the woods the doveMourns for the shelter of thy wings of love."But the dark chief of Saugus turned asideIn the grim anger of hard-hearted pride;"I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter,Up to her home beside the gliding water.If now no more a mat for her is foundOf all which line her father's wigwam round,Let Pennacook call out his warrior train,And send her back with wampum gifts again."The baffled runner turned upon his track,Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back."Dog of the Marsh," cried Pennacook, "no moreShall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor."Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spreadThe stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed;Son of a fish-hawk! let him dig his clamsFor some vile daughter of the Agawams,"Or coward Nipmucks! may his scalp dry blackIn Mohawk smoke, before I send her back."He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean wave,While hoarse assent his listening council gave.Alas poor bride! can thy grim sire impartHis iron hardness to thy woman's heart?Or cold self-torturing pride like his atoneFor love denied and life's warm beauty flown?On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snowHung its white wreaths; with stifled voice and lowThe river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed,Built by the boar-locked artisan of Frost.And many a moon in beauty newly bornPierced the red sunset with her silver horn,Or, from the east, across her azure fieldRolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.Yet Winnepurkit came not,—on the matOf the scorned wife her dusky rival sat;And he, the while, in Western woods afar,Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief!Waste not on him the sacredness of grief;Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights,The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress,Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness?
The wild March rains had fallen fast and longThe snowy mountains of the North among,Making each vale a watercourse, each hillBright with the cascade of some new-made rill.Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain,Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,The ice-bridge yielded, and the MerrimacBore the huge ruin crashing down its track.On that strong turbid water, a small boatGuided by one weak hand was seen to float;Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore,Too early voyager with too frail an oar!Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide,The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side,The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view,With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe.The trapper, moistening his moose's meatOn the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet,Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream;Slept he, or waked he? was it truth or dream?The straining eye bent fearfully before,The small hand clenching on the useless oar,The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water—He knew them all—woe for the Sachem's daughter!Sick and aweary of her lonely life,Heedless of peril, the still faithful wifeHad left her mother's grave, her father's door,To seek the wigwam of her chief once more.Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled,On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled,Empty and broken, circled the canoeIn the vexed pool below—but where was Weetamoo.
The Dark eye has left us,The Spring-bird has flown;On the pathway of spiritsShe wanders alone.The song of the wood-dove has died on our shoreMat wonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more!O dark water SpiritWe cast on thy waveThese furs which may neverHang over her grave;Bear down to the lost one the robes that she woreMat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!Of the strange land she walks inNo Powah has told:It may burn with the sunshine,Or freeze with the cold.Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore:Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!The path she is treadingShall soon be our own;Each gliding in shadowUnseen and alone!In vain shall we call on the souls gone before:Mat wonck kunna-monee! They hear us no more!O mighty Sowanna!Thy gateways unfold,From thy wigwam of sunsetLift curtains of gold!Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'erMat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more!So sang the Children of the Leaves besideThe broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide;Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell,On the high wind their voices rose and fell.Nature's wild music,—sounds of wind-swept trees,The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze,The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong,—Mingled and murmured in that farewell song.1844.
Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. "I find more satisfaction," said Barclay, "as well as honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my favor."
Up the streets of Aberdeen,By the kirk and college green,Rode the Laird of Ury;Close behind him, close beside,Foul of mouth and evil-eyed,Pressed the mob in fury.Flouted him the drunken churl,Jeered at him the serving-girl,Prompt to please her master;And the begging carlin, lateFed and clothed at Ury's gate,Cursed him as he passed her.Yet, with calm and stately mien,Up the streets of AberdeenCame he slowly riding;And, to all he saw and heard,Answering not with bitter word,Turning not for chiding.Came a troop with broadswords swinging,Bits and bridles sharply ringing,Loose and free and froward;Quoth the foremost, "Ride him down!Push him! prick him! through the townDrive the Quaker coward!"But from out the thickening crowdCried a sudden voice and loud"Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!"And the old man at his sideSaw a comrade, battle tried,Scarred and sunburned darkly;Who with ready weapon bare,Fronting to the troopers there,Cried aloud: "God save us,Call ye coward him who stoodAnkle deep in Lutzen's blood,With the brave Gustavus?""Nay, I do not need thy sword,Comrade mine," said Ury's lord;"Put it up, I pray theePassive to His holy will,Trust I in my Master still,Even though He slay me."Pledges of thy love and faith,Proved on many a field of death,Not by me are needed."Marvelled much that henchman bold,That his laird, so stout of old,Now so meekly pleaded."Woe's the day!" he sadly said,With a slowly shaking head,And a look of pity;"Ury's honest lord reviled,Mock of knave and sport of child,In his own good city."Speak the word, and, master mine,As we charged on Tilly's line,And his Walloon lancers,Smiting through their midst we'll teachCivil look and decent speechTo these boyish prancers!""Marvel not, mine ancient friend,Like beginning, like the end:"Quoth the Laird of Ury;"Is the sinful servant moreThan his gracious Lord who boreBonds and stripes in Jewry?"Give me joy that in His nameI can bear, with patient frame,All these vain ones offer;While for them He suffereth long,Shall I answer wrong with wrong,Scoffing with the scoffer?"Happier I, with loss of all,Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,With few friends to greet me,Than when reeve and squire were seen,Riding out from Aberdeen,With bared heads to meet me."When each goodwife, o'er and o'er,Blessed me as I passed her door;And the snooded daughter,Through her casement glancing down,Smiled on him who bore renownFrom red fields of slaughter."Hard to feel the stranger's scoff,Hard the old friend's falling off,Hard to learn forgiving;But the Lord His own rewards,And His love with theirs accords,Warm and fresh and living."Through this dark and stormy nightFaith beholds a feeble lightUp the blackness streaking;Knowing God's own time is best,In a patient hope I restFor the full day-breaking!"So the Laird of Ury said,Turning slow his horse's headTowards the Tolbooth prison,Where, through iron gates, he heardPoor disciples of the WordPreach of Christ arisen!Not in vain, Confessor old,Unto us the tale is toldOf thy day of trial;Every age on him who straysFrom its broad and beaten waysPours its seven-fold vial.Happy he whose inward earAngel comfortings can hear,O'er the rabble's laughter;And while Hatred's fagots burn,Glimpses through the smoke discernOf the good hereafter.Knowing this, that never yetShare of Truth was vainly setIn the world's wide fallow;After hands shall sow the seed,After hands from hill and meadReap the harvests yellow.Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,Must the moral pioneerFrom the Future borrow;Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,And, on midnight's sky of rain,Paint the golden morrow!
A letter-writer from Mexico during the Mexican war, when detailing some of the incidents at the terrible fight of Buena Vista, mentioned that Mexican women were seen hovering near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and succor to the wounded. One poor woman was found surrounded by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering to the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans, with impartial tenderness.
SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northwardfar away,O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexicanarray,Who is losing? who is winning? are they far orcome they near?Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls thestorm we hear.Down the hills of Angostura still the storm ofbattle rolls;Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercyon their souls!"Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hilland over plain,I see but smoke of cannon clouding through themountain rain.Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena,look once more."Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darklyas before,Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman,foot and horse,Like some wild and troubled torrent sweepingdown its mountain course."Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smokehas rolled away;And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down theranks of gray.Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troopof Minon wheels;There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannonat their heels."Jesu, pity I how it thickens I now retreat andnow advance!Bight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla'scharging lance!Down they go, the brave young riders; horse andfoot together fall;Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through themploughs the Northern ball."Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast andfrightful on!Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost,and who has won?Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe togetherfall,O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters,for them all!"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. BlessedMother, save my brain!I can see the wounded crawling slowly out fromheaps of slain.Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now theyfall, and strive to rise;Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they diebefore our eyes!"O my hearts love! O my dear one! lay thypoor head on my knee;Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canstthou hear me? canst thou see?O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal,look once moreOn the blessed cross before thee! Mercy!all is o'er!"Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear onedown to rest;Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross uponhis breast;Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeralmasses said;To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thyaid.Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young,a soldier lay,Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleedingslow his life away;But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.With a stifled cry of horror straight she turnedaway her head;With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back uponher dead;But she heard the youth's low moaning, and hisstruggling breath of pain,And she raised the cooling water to his parchinglips again.Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her handand faintly smiled;Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watchbeside her child?All his stranger words with meaning her woman'sheart supplied;With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!"murmured he, and died!"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led theeforth,From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely,in the North!"Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid himwith her dead,And turned to soothe the living, and bind thewounds which bled."Look forth once more, Ximena!" Like a cloudbefore the windRolls the battle down the mountains, leaving bloodand death behind;Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust thewounded strive;"Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ ofGod, forgive!"Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool,gray shadows fall;Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtainover all!Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apartthe battle rolled,In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon'slips grew cold.But the noble Mexic women still their holy taskpursued,Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn andfaint and lacking food.Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tendercare they hung,And the dying foeman blessed them in a strangeand Northern tongue.Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world ofours;Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afreshthe Eden flowers;From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pitysend their prayer,And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly inour air!1847.
"This legend (to which my attention was called by my friend Charles Sumner), is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tintoretto, of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror; a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been admired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch, finer than in the picture."—MRS. JAMESON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 154.
THE day is closing dark and cold,With roaring blast and sleety showers;And through the dusk the lilacs wearThe bloom of snow, instead of flowers.I turn me from the gloom without,To ponder o'er a tale of old;A legend of the age of Faith,By dreaming monk or abbess told.On Tintoretto's canvas livesThat fancy of a loving heart,In graceful lines and shapes of power,And hues immortal as his art.In Provence (so the story runs)There lived a lord, to whom, as slave,A peasant-boy of tender yearsThe chance of trade or conquest gave.Forth-looking from the castle tower,Beyond the hills with almonds dark,The straining eye could scarce discernThe chapel of the good St. Mark.And there, when bitter word or fareThe service of the youth repaid,By stealth, before that holy shrine,For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed.The steed stamped at the castle gate,The boar-hunt sounded on the hill;Why stayed the Baron from the chase,With looks so stern, and words so ill?"Go, bind yon slave! and let him learn,By scath of fire and strain of cord,How ill they speed who give dead saintsThe homage due their living lord!"They bound him on the fearful rack,When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark,He saw the light of shining robes,And knew the face of good St. Mark.Then sank the iron rack apart,The cords released their cruel clasp,The pincers, with their teeth of fire,Fell broken from the torturer's grasp.And lo! before the Youth and Saint,Barred door and wall of stone gave way;And up from bondage and the nightThey passed to freedom and the day!O dreaming monk! thy tale is true;O painter! true thy pencil's art;in tones of hope and prophecy,Ye whisper to my listening heart!Unheard no burdened heart's appealMoans up to God's inclining ear;Unheeded by his tender eye,Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.For still the Lord alone is GodThe pomp and power of tyrant manAre scattered at his lightest breath,Like chaff before the winnower's fan.Not always shall the slave upliftHis heavy hands to Heaven in vain.God's angel, like the good St. Mark,Comes shining down to break his chain!O weary ones! ye may not seeYour helpers in their downward flight;Nor hear the sound of silver wingsSlow beating through the hush of night!But not the less gray Dothan shone,With sunbright watchers bending low,That Fear's dim eye beheld aloneThe spear-heads of the Syrian foe.There are, who, like the Seer of old,Can see the helpers God has sent,And how life's rugged mountain-sideIs white with many an angel tent!They hear the heralds whom our LordSends down his pathway to prepare;And light, from others hidden, shinesOn their high place of faith and prayer.Let such, for earth's despairing ones,Hopeless, yet longing to be free,Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer"Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see!"1849.
This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, as the song of a wandering Milesian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Political offenders and criminals were transported by the British government to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent in the seaports of the United Kingdom.
O NORAH, lay your basket down,And rest your weary hand,And come and hear me sing a songOf our old Ireland.There was a lord of Galaway,A mighty lord was he;And he did wed a second wife,A maid of low degree.But he was old, and she was young,And so, in evil spite,She baked the black bread for his kin,And fed her own with white.She whipped the maids and starved the kern,And drove away the poor;"Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said,"I rue my bargain sore!"This lord he had a daughter fair,Beloved of old and young,And nightly round the shealing-firesOf her the gleeman sung."As sweet and good is young KathleenAs Eve before her fall;"So sang the harper at the fair,So harped he in the hall."Oh, come to me, my daughter dear!Come sit upon my knee,For looking in your face, Kathleen,Your mother's own I see!"He smoothed and smoothed her hair away,He kissed her forehead fair;"It is my darling Mary's brow,It is my darling's hair!"Oh, then spake up the angry dame,"Get up, get up," quoth she,"I'll sell ye over Ireland,I'll sell ye o'er the sea!"She clipped her glossy hair away,That none her rank might know;She took away her gown of silk,And gave her one of tow,And sent her down to Limerick townAnd to a seaman soldThis daughter of an Irish lordFor ten good pounds in gold.The lord he smote upon his breast,And tore his beard so gray;But he was old, and she was young,And so she had her way.Sure that same night the Banshee howledTo fright the evil dame,And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,With funeral torches came.She watched them glancing through the trees,And glimmering down the hill;They crept before the dead-vault door,And there they all stood still!"Get up, old man! the wake-lights shine!""Ye murthering witch," quoth he,"So I'm rid of your tongue, I little careIf they shine for you or me.""Oh, whoso brings my daughter back,My gold and land shall have!"Oh, then spake up his handsome page,"No gold nor land I crave!"But give to me your daughter dear,Give sweet Kathleen to me,Be she on sea or be she on land,I'll bring her back to thee.""My daughter is a lady born,And you of low degree,But she shall be your bride the dayYou bring her back to me."He sailed east, he sailed west,And far and long sailed he,Until he came to Boston town,Across the great salt sea."Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen,The flower of Ireland?Ye'll know her by her eyes so blue,And by her snow-white hand!"Out spake an ancient man, "I knowThe maiden whom ye mean;I bought her of a Limerick man,And she is called Kathleen."No skill hath she in household work,Her hands are soft and white,Yet well by loving looks and waysShe doth her cost requite."So up they walked through Boston town,And met a maiden fair,A little basket on her armSo snowy-white and bare."Come hither, child, and say hast thouThis young man ever seen?"They wept within each other's arms,The page and young Kathleen."Oh give to me this darling child,And take my purse of gold.""Nay, not by me," her master said,"Shall sweet Kathleen be sold."We loved her in the place of oneThe Lord hath early ta'en;But, since her heart's in Ireland,We give her back again!"Oh, for that same the saints in heavenFor his poor soul shall pray,And Mary Mother wash with tearsHis heresies away.Sure now they dwell in Ireland;As you go up ClaremoreYe'll see their castle looking downThe pleasant Galway shore.And the old lord's wife is dead and gone,And a happy man is he,For he sits beside his own Kathleen,With her darling on his knee.1849.
Pennant, in his Voyage to the Hebrides, describes the holy well of Loch Maree, the waters of which were supposed to effect a miraculous cure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity.
CALM on the breast of Loch MareeA little isle reposes;A shadow woven of the oakAnd willow o'er it closes.Within, a Druid's mound is seen,Set round with stony warders;A fountain, gushing through the turf,Flows o'er its grassy borders.And whoso bathes therein his brow,With care or madness burning,Feels once again his healthful thoughtAnd sense of peace returning.O restless heart and fevered brain,Unquiet and unstable,That holy well of Loch MareeIs more than idle fable!Life's changes vex, its discords stun,Its glaring sunshine blindeth,And blest is he who on his wayThat fount of healing findeth!The shadows of a humbled willAnd contrite heart are o'er it;Go read its legend, "TRUST IN GOD,"On Faith's white stones before it.1850.
The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. "We arrived at the habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said to me, with his heart overflowing, 'At this moment I experience what is said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.' I said, 'If Finelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.' He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, 'Oh, if Finelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey!'" In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have somewhat antedated the period of his old age. At that time he was not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus speaks of himself: "The ingratitude of those of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony through enterprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes,—these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. . . . I found it impossible to continue in a room where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise at ease in places where I saw children only. At the sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, 'My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them?'"
He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. "I renounced," says he, "my books. I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter. Thenceforth my histories and my journals were the herbage of the fields and meadows. My thoughts did not go forth painfully after them, as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand engaging forms, quietly sought me. In these I studied, without effort, the laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from the cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little attention."
Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society. What I prized still more than his genius was his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect security, confide your most secret thoughts. . . . Even when he deviated, and became the victim of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate of the miserable. There might be inscribed on his tomb these affecting words from that Book of which he carried always about him some select passages, during the last years of his life: 'His sins, which are many, are forgiven, for he loved much.'"
"I do believe, and yet, in grief,I pray for help to unbelief;For needful strength aside to layThe daily cumberings of my way."I'm sick at heart of craft and cant,Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant,Profession's smooth hypocrisies,And creeds of iron, and lives of ease."I ponder o'er the sacred word,I read the record of our Lord;And, weak and troubled, envy themWho touched His seamless garment's hem;"Who saw the tears of love He weptAbove the grave where Lazarus slept;And heard, amidst the shadows dimOf Olivet, His evening hymn."How blessed the swineherd's low estate,The beggar crouching at the gate,The leper loathly and abhorred,Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord!"O sacred soil His sandals pressed!Sweet fountains of His noonday rest!O light and air of Palestine,Impregnate with His life divine!"Oh, bear me thither! Let me lookOn Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook;Kneel at Gethsemane, and byGennesaret walk, before I die!"Methinks this cold and northern nightWould melt before that Orient light;And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain,My childhood's faith revive again!"So spake my friend, one autumn day,Where the still river slid awayBeneath us, and above the brownRed curtains of the woods shut down.Then said I,—for I could not brookThe mute appealing of his look,—"I, too, am weak, and faith is small,And blindness happeneth unto all."Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,Through present wrong, the eternal right;And, step by step, since time began,I see the steady gain of man;"That all of good the past hath hadRemains to make our own time glad,Our common daily life divine,And every land a Palestine."Thou weariest of thy present state;What gain to thee time's holiest date?The doubter now perchance had beenAs High Priest or as Pilate then!"What thought Chorazin's scribes? What faithIn Him had Nain and Nazareth?Of the few followers whom He ledOne sold Him,—all forsook and fled."O friend! we need nor rock nor sand,Nor storied stream of Morning-Land;The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,—What more could Jordan render back?"We lack but open eye and earTo find the Orient's marvels here;The still small voice in autumn's hush,Yon maple wood the burning bush."For still the new transcends the old,In signs and tokens manifold;Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,With roots deep set in battle graves!"Through the harsh noises of our dayA low, sweet prelude finds its way;Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,A light is breaking, calm and clear."That song of Love, now low and far,Erelong shall swell from star to star!That light, the breaking day, which tipsThe golden-spired Apocalypse!"Then, when my good friend shook his head,And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said:"Thou mind'st me of a story toldIn rare Bernardin's leaves of gold."And while the slanted sunbeams woveThe shadows of the frost-stained grove,And, picturing all, the river ranO'er cloud and wood, I thus began:—. . . . . . . . . . . . .In Mount Valerien's chestnut woodThe Chapel of the Hermits stood;And thither, at the close of day,Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray.One, whose impetuous youth defiedThe storms of Baikal's wintry side,And mused and dreamed where tropic dayFlamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.His simple tale of love and woeAll hearts had melted, high or low;—A blissful pain, a sweet distress,Immortal in its tenderness.Yet, while above his charmed pageBeat quick the young heart of his age,He walked amidst the crowd unknown,A sorrowing old man, strange and lone.A homeless, troubled age,—the grayPale setting of a weary day;Too dull his ear for voice of praise,Too sadly worn his brow for bays.Pride, lust of power and glory, slept;Yet still his heart its young dream kept,And, wandering like the deluge-dove,Still sought the resting-place of love.And, mateless, childless, envied moreThe peasant's welcome from his doorBy smiling eyes at eventide,Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.Until, in place of wife and child,All-pitying Nature on him smiled,And gave to him the golden keysTo all her inmost sanctities.Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim!She laid her great heart bare to him,Its loves and sweet accords;—he sawThe beauty of her perfect law.The language of her signs he knew,What notes her cloudy clarion blew;The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes,The hymn of sunset's painted skies.And thus he seemed to hear the songWhich swept, of old, the stars along;And to his eyes the earth once moreIts fresh and primal beauty wore.Who sought with him, from summer air,And field and wood, a balm for care;And bathed in light of sunset skiesHis tortured nerves and weary eyes?His fame on all the winds had flown;His words had shaken crypt and throne;Like fire, on camp and court and cellThey dropped, and kindled as they fell.Beneath the pomps of state, belowThe mitred juggler's masque and show,A prophecy, a vague hope, ranHis burning thought from man to man.For peace or rest too well he sawThe fraud of priests, the wrong of law,And felt how hard, between the two,Their breath of pain the millions drew.A prophet-utterance, strong and wild,The weakness of an unweaned child,A sun-bright hope for human-kind,And self-despair, in him combined.He loathed the false, yet lived not trueTo half the glorious truths he knew;The doubt, the discord, and the sin,He mourned without, he felt within.Untrod by him the path he showed,Sweet pictures on his easel glowedOf simple faith, and loves of home,And virtue's golden days to come.But weakness, shame, and folly madeThe foil to all his pen portrayed;Still, where his dreamy splendors shone,The shadow of himself was thrown.Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times,Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs,While still his grosser instinct clingsTo earth, like other creeping things!So rich in words, in acts so mean;So high, so low; chance-swung betweenThe foulness of the penal pitAnd Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit!Vain, pride of star-lent genius!—vain,Quick fancy and creative brain,Unblest by prayerful sacrifice,Absurdly great, or weakly wise!Midst yearnings for a truer life,Without were fears, within was strife;And still his wayward act deniedThe perfect good for which he sighed.The love he sent forth void returned;The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,—A fire-mount in a frozen zone!Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed,Seen southward from his sleety mast,About whose brows of changeless frostA wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.Far round the mournful beauty playedOf lambent light and purple shade,Lost on the fixed and dumb despairOf frozen earth and sea and air!A man apart, unknown, unlovedBy those whose wrongs his soul had moved,He bore the ban of Church and State,The good man's fear, the bigot's hate!Forth from the city's noise and throng,Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong,The twain that summer day had strayedTo Mount Valerien's chestnut shade.To them the green fields and the woodLent something of their quietude,And golden-tinted sunset seemedProphetical of all they dreamed.The hermits from their simple caresThe bell was calling home to prayers,And, listening to its sound, the twainSeemed lapped in childhood's trust again.Wide open stood the chapel door;A sweet old music, swelling o'erLow prayerful murmurs, issued thence,—The Litanies of Providence!Then Rousseau spake: "Where two or threeIn His name meet, He there will be!"And then, in silence, on their kneesThey sank beneath the chestnut-trees.As to the blind returning light,As daybreak to the Arctic night,Old faith revived; the doubts of yearsDissolved in reverential tears.That gush of feeling overpast,"Ah me!" Bernardin sighed at last,I would thy bitterest foes could seeThy heart as it is seen of me!"No church of God hast thou denied;Thou hast but spurned in scorn asideA bare and hollow counterfeit,Profaning the pure name of it!"With dry dead moss and marish weedsHis fire the western herdsman feeds,And greener from the ashen plainThe sweet spring grasses rise again."Nor thunder-peal nor mighty windDisturb the solid sky behind;And through the cloud the red bolt rendsThe calm, still smile of Heaven descends."Thus through the world, like bolt and blast,And scourging fire, thy words have passed.Clouds break,—the steadfast heavens remain;Weeds burn,—the ashes feed the grain!"But whoso strives with wrong may findIts touch pollute, its darkness blind;And learn, as latent fraud is shownIn others' faith, to doubt his own."With dream and falsehood, simple trustAnd pious hope we tread in dust;Lost the calm faith in goodness,—lostThe baptism of the Pentecost!"Alas!—the blows for error meantToo oft on truth itself are spent,As through the false and vile and baseLooks forth her sad, rebuking face."Not ours the Theban's charmed life;We come not scathless from the strife!The Python's coil about us clings,The trampled Hydra bites and stings!"Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance,The plastic shapes of circumstance,What might have been we fondly guess,If earlier born, or tempted less."And thou, in these wild, troubled days,Misjudged alike in blame and praise,Unsought and undeserved the sameThe skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame;—"I cannot doubt, if thou hadst beenAmong the highly favored menWho walked on earth with Fenelon,He would have owned thee as his son;"And, bright with wings of cherubimVisibly waving over him,Seen through his life, the Church had seemedAll that its old confessors dreamed.""I would have been," Jean Jaques replied,"The humblest servant at his side,Obscure, unknown, content to seeHow beautiful man's life may be!"Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, moreThan solemn rite or sacred lore,The holy life of one who trodThe foot-marks of the Christ of God!"Amidst a blinded world he sawThe oneness of the Dual law;That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began,And God was loved through love of man."He lived the Truth which reconciledThe strong man Reason, Faith, the child;In him belief and act were one,The homilies of duty done!"So speaking, through the twilight grayThe two old pilgrims went their way.What seeds of life that day were sown,The heavenly watchers knew alone.Time passed, and Autumn came to foldGreen Summer in her brown and gold;Time passed, and Winter's tears of snowDropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau."The tree remaineth where it fell,The pained on earth is pained in hell!"So priestcraft from its altars cursedThe mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,"Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!"Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,And man is hate, but God is love!No Hermits now the wanderer sees,Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;A morning dream, a tale that's told,The wave of change o'er all has rolled.Yet lives the lesson of that day;And from its twilight cool and grayComes up a low, sad whisper, "MakeThe truth thine own, for truth's own sake."Why wait to see in thy brief spanIts perfect flower and fruit in man?No saintly touch can save; no balmOf healing hath the martyr's palm."Midst soulless forms, and false pretenceOf spiritual pride and pampered sense,A voice saith, 'What is that to thee?Be true thyself, and follow Me!"In days when throne and altar heardThe wanton's wish, the bigot's word,And pomp of state and ritual showScarce hid the loathsome death below,—"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,The losel swarm of crown and cowl,White-robed walked Francois Fenelon,Stainless as Uriel in the sun!"Yet in his time the stake blazed red,The poor were eaten up like breadMen knew him not; his garment's hemNo healing virtue had for them."Alas! no present saint we find;The white cymar gleams far behind,Revealed in outline vague, sublime,Through telescopic mists of time!"Trust not in man with passing breath,But in the Lord, old Scripture saith;The truth which saves thou mayst not blendWith false professor, faithless friend."Search thine own heart. What paineth theeIn others in thyself may be;All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;Be thou the true man thou dost seek!"Where now with pain thou treadest, trodThe whitest of the saints of God!To show thee where their feet were set,the light which led them shineth yet."The footprints of the life divine,Which marked their path, remain in thine;And that great Life, transfused in theirs,Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!"A lesson which I well may heed,A word of fitness to my need;So from that twilight cool and grayStill saith a voice, or seems to say.We rose, and slowly homeward turned,While down the west the sunset burned;And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,And human forms seemed glorified.The village homes transfigured stood,And purple bluffs, whose belting woodAcross the waters leaned to holdThe yellow leaves like lamps of hold.Then spake my friend: "Thy words are true;Forever old, forever new,These home-seen splendors are the sameWhich over Eden's sunsets came."To these bowed heavens let wood and hillLift voiceless praise and anthem still;Fall, warm with blessing, over them,Light of the New Jerusalem!"Flow on, sweet river, like the streamOf John's Apocalyptic dreamThis mapled ridge shall Horeb be,Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!"Henceforth my heart shall sigh no moreFor olden time and holier shore;God's love and blessing, then and there,Are now and here and everywhere."1851.