IThere are beggars in Iran and Araby,SAID was hungrier than all;Hafiz said he was a flyThat came to every festival.He came a pilgrim to the MosqueOn trail of camel and caravan,Knew every temple and kioskOut from Mecca to Ispahan;Northward he went to the snowy hills,At court he sat in the grave Divan.His music was the south-wind's sigh,His lamp, the maiden's downcast eye,And ever the spell of beauty cameAnd turned the drowsy world to flame.By lake and stream and gleaming hallAnd modest copse and the forest tall,Where'er he went, the magic guideKept its place by the poet's side.Said melted the days like cups of pearl,Served high and low, the lord and the churl,Loved harebells nodding on a rock,A cabin hung with curling smoke,Ring of axe or hum of wheelOr gleam which use can paint on steel,And huts and tents; nor loved he lessStately lords in palaces,Princely women hard to please,Fenced by form and ceremony,Decked by courtly rites and dressAnd etiquette of gentilesse.But when the mate of the snow and wind,He left each civil scale behind:Him wood-gods fed with honey wildAnd of his memory beguiled.He loved to watch and wakeWhen the wing of the south-wind whipt the lakeAnd the glassy surface in ripples brakeAnd fled in pretty frowns awayLike the flitting boreal lights,Rippling roses in northern nights,Or like the thrill of Aeolian stringsIn which the sudden wind-god rings.In caves and hollow trees he creptAnd near the wolf and panther slept.He came to the green ocean's brimAnd saw the wheeling sea-birds skim,Summer and winter, o'er the wave,Like creatures of a skiey mould,Impassible to heat or cold.He stood before the tumbling mainWith joy too tense for sober brain;He shared the life of the element,The tie of blood and home was rent:As if in him the welkin walked,The winds took flesh, the mountains talked,And he the bard, a crystal soulSphered and concentric with the whole.IIThe Dervish whined to Said,"Thou didst not tarry while I prayed.Beware the fire that Eblis burned,"But Saadi coldly thus returned,"Once with manlike love and fearI gave thee for an hour my ear,I kept the sun and stars at bay,And love, for words thy tongue could say.I cannot sell my heaven againFor all that rattles in thy brain."IIISaid Saadi, "When I stood beforeHassan the camel-driver's door,I scorned the fame of Timour brave;Timour, to Hassan, was a slave.In every glance of Hassan's eyeI read great years of victory,And I, who cower mean and smallIn the frequent intervalWhen wisdom not with me resides,Worship Toil's wisdom that abides.I shunned his eyes, that faithful man's,I shunned the toiling Hassan's glance."IVThe civil world will much forgiveTo bards who from its maxims live,But if, grown bold, the poet dareBend his practice to his prayerAnd following his mighty heartShame the times and live apart,—Vae solis!I found this,That of goods I could not missIf I fell within the line,Once a member, all was mine,Houses, banquets, gardens, fountains,Fortune's delectable mountains;But if I would walk alone,Was neither cloak nor crumb my own.And thus the high Muse treated me,Directly never greeted me,But when she spread her dearest spells,Feigned to speak to some one else.I was free to overhear,Or I might at will forbear;Yet mark me well, that idle wordThus at random overheardWas the symphony of spheres,And proverb of a thousand years,The light wherewith all planets shone,The livery all events put on,It fell in rain, it grew in grain,It put on flesh in friendly form,Frowned in my foe and growled in storm,It spoke in Tullius Cicero,In Milton and in Angelo:I travelled and found it at Rome;Eastward it filled all HeathendomAnd it lay on my hearth when I came home.VMask thy wisdom with delight,Toy with the bow, yet hit the white,As Jelaleddin old and gray;He seemed to bask, to dream and playWithout remoter hope or fearThan still to entertain his earAnd pass the burning summer-timeIn the palm-grove with a rhyme;Heedless that each cunning wordTribes and ages overheard:Those idle catches told the lawsHolding Nature to her cause.God only knew how Saadi dined;Roses he ate, and drank the wind;He freelier breathed beside the pine,In cities he was low and mean;The mountain waters washed him cleanAnd by the sea-waves he was strong;He heard their medicinal song,Asked no physician but the wave,No palace but his sea-beat cave.Saadi held the Muse in awe,She was his mistress and his law;A twelvemonth he could silence hold,Nor ran to speak till she him told;He felt the flame, the fanning wings,Nor offered words till they were things,Glad when the solid mountain swimsIn music and uplifting hymns.Charmed from fagot and from steel,Harvests grew upon his tongue,Past and future must revealAll their heart when Saadi sung;Sun and moon must fall amainLike sower's seeds into his brain,There quickened to be born again.The free winds told him what they knew,Discoursed of fortune as they blew;Omens and signs that filled the airTo him authentic witness bare;The birds brought auguries on their wings,And carolled undeceiving thingsHim to beckon, him to warn;Well might then the poet scornTo learn of scribe or courierThings writ in vaster character;And on his mind at dawn of daySoft shadows of the evening lay.* * *Pale genius roves alone,No scout can track his way,None credits him till he have shownHis diamonds to the day.Not his the feaster's wine,Nor land, nor gold, nor power,By want and pain God screeneth himTill his elected hour.Go, speed the stars of ThoughtOn to their shining goals:—The sower scatters broad his seed,The wheat thou strew'st be souls.
I grieve that better souls than mineDocile read my measured line:High destined youths and holy maidsHallow these my orchard shades;Environ me and me baptizeWith light that streams from gracious eyes.I dare not be beloved and known,I ungrateful, I alone.Ever find me dim regards,Love of ladies, love of bards,Marked forbearance, compliments,Tokens of benevolence.What then, can I love myself?Fame is profitless as pelf,A good in Nature not allowedThey love me, as I love a cloudSailing falsely in the sphere,Hated mist if it come near.
For thought, and not praise;Thought is the wagesFor which I sell days,Will gladly sell agesAnd willing grow oldDeaf, and dumb, and blind, and cold,Melting matter into dreams,Panoramas which I sawAnd whatever glows or seemsInto substance, into Law.
For Fancy's giftCan mountains lift;The Muse can knitWhat is past, what is done,With the web that's just begun;Making free with time and size,Dwindles here, there magnifies,Swells a rain-drop to a tun;So to repeatNo word or featCrowds in a day the sum of ages,And blushing Love outwits the sages.
Try the might the Muse affordsAnd the balm of thoughtful words;Bring music to the desolate;Hang roses on the stony fate.
But over all his crowning grace,Wherefor thanks God his daily praise,Is the purging of his eyeTo see the people of the sky:From blue mount and headland dimFriendly hands stretch forth to him,Him they beckon, him adviseOf heavenlier prosperitiesAnd a more excelling graceAnd a truer bosom-glowThan the wine-fed feasters know.They turn his heart from lovely maids,And make the darlings of the earthSwainish, coarse and nothing worth:Teach him gladly to postponePleasures to another stageBeyond the scope of human age,Freely as task at eve undoneWaits unblamed to-morrow's sun.
By thoughts I leadBards to say what nations need;What imports, what irks and what behooves,Framed afar as Fates and Loves.
And as the light divides the darkThrough with living swords,So shall thou pierce the distant ageWith adamantine words.
I framed his tongue to music,I armed his hand with skill,I moulded his face to beautyAnd his heart the throne of Will.
For every GodObeys the hymn, obeys the ode.
For art, for music over-thrilled,The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled.
Hold of the Maker, not the Made;Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad.
That book is goodWhich puts me in a working mood.Unless to Thought is added Will,Apollo is an imbecile.What parts, what gems, what colors shine,—Ah, but I miss the grand design.
Like vaulters in a circus roundWho leap from horse to horse, but never touch the ground.
For Genius made his cabin wide,And Love led Gods therein to bide.
The atom displaces all atoms beside,And Genius unspheres all souls that abide.
To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stemThe vice of Japhet by the thought of Shem.
He could condense cerulean etherInto the very best sole-leather.
Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread,In mercy, on one little head.
I have no brothers and no peers,And the dearest interferes:When I would spend a lonely day,Sun and moon are in my way.
The brook sings on, but sings in vainWanting the echo in my brain.
He planted where the deluge ploughed.His hired hands were wind and cloud;His eyes detect the Gods concealedIn the hummock of the field.
For what need I of book or priest,Or sibyl from the mummied East,When every star is Bethlehem star?I count as many as there areCinquefoils or violets in the grass,So many saints and saviors,So many high behaviorsSalute the bard who is aliveAnd only sees what he doth give.
Coin the day-dawn into linesIn which its proper splendor shines;Coin the moonlight into verseWhich all its marvel shall rehearse,Chasing with words fast-flowing things; nor tryTo plant thy shrivelled pedantryOn the shoulders of the sky.
Ah, not to me those dreams belong!A better voice peals through my song.
The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded,A bolder foot is still rewarded.
His instant thought a poet spoke,And filled the age his fame;An inch of ground the lightning strookBut lit the sky with flame.
If bright the sun, he tarries,All day his song is heard;And when he goes he carriesNo more baggage than a bird.
The Asmodean feat is mine,To spin my sand-heap into twine.
Slighted Minerva's learnèd tongue,But leaped with joy when on the windThe shell of Clio rung.
The patient Pan,Drunken with nectar,Sleeps or feigns slumber,Drowsily hummingMusic to the march of time.This poor tooting, creaking cricket,Pan, half asleep, rolling overHis great body in the grass,Tooting, creaking,Feigns to sleep, sleeping never;'T is his manner,Well he knows his own affair,Piling mountain chains of phlegmOn the nervous brain of man,As he holds down central firesUnder Alps and Andes cold;Haply else we could not live,Life would be too wild an ode.
Come search the wood for flowers,—Wild tea and wild pea,Grapevine and succory,CoreopsisAnd liatris,Flaunting in their bowers;Grass with green flag half-mast high,Succory to match the sky,Columbine with horn of honey,Scented fern and agrimony;Forest full of essencesFit for fairy presences,Peppermint and sassafras,Sweet fern, mint and vernal grass,Panax, black birch, sugar maple,Sweet and scent for Dian's table,Elder-blow, sarsaparilla,Wild rose, lily, dry vanilla,—Spices in the plants that runTo bring their first fruits to the sun.Earliest heats that follow froreNervèd leaf of hellebore,Sweet willow, checkerberry red,With its savory leaf for bread.Silver birch and blackWith the selfsame spiceFound in polygala root and rind,Sassafras, fern, benzöine,Mouse-ear, cowslip, wintergreen,Which by aroma may compelThe frost to spare, what scents so well.
Where the fungus broad and redLifts its head,Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread,Where the aster grewWith the social goldenrod,In a chapel, which the dewMade beautiful for God:—O what would Nature say?She spared no speech to-day:The fungus and the bulrush spoke,Answered the pine-tree and the oak,The wizard South blew down the glen,Filled the straits and filled the wide,Each maple leaf turned up its silver side.All things shine in his smoky ray,And all we see are pictures high;Many a high hillside,While oaks of prideClimb to their tops,And boys run out upon their leafy ropes.The maple streetIn the houseless wood,Voices followed after,Every shrub and grape leafRang with fairy laughter.I have heard them fallLike the strain of allKing Oberon's minstrelsy.Would hear the everlastingAnd know the only strong?You must worship fasting,You must listen long.Words of the airWhich birds of the airCarry aloft, below, around,To the isles of the deep,To the snow-capped steep,To the thundercloud.
For Nature, true and like in every place,Will hint her secret in a garden patch,Or in lone corners of a doleful heath,As in the Andes watched by fleets at sea,Or the sky-piercing horns of Himmaleh;And, when I would recall the scenes I dreamedOn Adirondac steeps, I knowSmall need have I of Turner or Daguerre,Assured to find the token once againIn silver lakes that unexhausted gleamAnd peaceful woods beside my cottage door.
What all the books of ages paint, I have.What prayers and dreams of youthful genius feign,I daily dwell in, and am not so blindBut I can see the elastic tent of dayBelike has wider hospitalityThan my few needs exhaust, and bids me readThe quaint devices on its mornings gay.Yet Nature will not be in full possessed,And they who truliest love her, heralds areAnd harbingers of a majestic race,Who, having more absorbed, more largely yield,And walk on earth as the sun walks in the sphere.
But never yet the man was foundWho could the mystery expound,Though Adam, born when oaks were young,Endured, the Bible says, as long;But when at last the patriarch diedThe Gordian noose was still untied.He left, though goodly centuries old,Meek Nature's secret still untold.
Atom from atom yawns as farAs moon from earth, or star from star.
When all their blooms the meadows flauntTo deck the morning of the year,Why tinge thy lustres jubilantWith forecast or with fear?Teach me your mood, O patient stars!Who climb each night the ancient sky,Leaving on space no shade, no scars,No trace of age, no fear to die.
The sun athwart the cloud thought it no sinTo use my land to put his rainbows in.
For joy and beauty planted it,With faerie gardens cheered,And boding Fancy haunted itWith men and women weird.
What central flowing forces, say,Make up thy splendor, matchless day?
Day by day for her darlings to her much she added more;In her hundred-gated Thebes every chamber was a door,A door to something grander,—loftier walls, and vaster floor.
She paints with white and red the moorsTo draw the nations out of doors.
A score of airy miles will smoothRough Monadnoc to a gem.
Our eyeless bark sails freeThough with boom and sparAndes, Alp or Himmalee,Strikes never moon or star.
Wisp and meteor nightly falling,But the Stars of God remain.
See yonder leafless trees against the sky,How they diffuse themselves into the air,And, ever subdividing, separateLimbs into branches, branches into twigs.As if they loved the element, and hastedTo dissipate their being into it.
Parks and ponds are good by day;I do not delightIn black acres of the night,Nor my unseasoned step disturbsThe sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs.
In Walden wood the chickadeeRuns round the pine and maple treeIntent on insect slaughter:O tufted entomologist!Devour as many as you list,Then drink in Walden water.
The low December vault in June be lifted high,And largest clouds be flakes of down in that enormous sky.
Many things the garden shows,And pleased I strayFrom tree to treeWatching the white pear-bloom,Bee-infested quince or plum.I could walk days, years, awayTill the slow ripening, secular treeHad reached its fruiting-time,Nor think it long.
Solar insect on the wingIn the garden murmuring,Soothing with thy summer hornSwains by winter pinched and worn.
Darlings of children and of bard,Perfect kinds by vice unmarred,All of worth and beauty setGems in Nature's cabinet;These the fables she esteemsReality most like to dreams.Welcome back, you little nations,Far-travelled in the south plantations;Bring your music and rhythmic flight,Your colors for our eyes' delight:Freely nestle in our roof,Weave your chamber weatherproof;And your enchanting manners bringAnd your autumnal gathering.Exchange in conclave generalGreetings kind to each and all,Conscious each of duty doneAnd unstainèd as the sun.
The water understandsCivilization well;It wets my foot, but prettilyIt chills my life, but wittily,It is not disconcerted,It is not broken-hearted:Well used, it decketh joy,Adorneth, doubleth joy:Ill used, it will destroy,In perfect time and measureWith a face of golden pleasureElegantly destroy.
All day the waves assailed the rock,I heard no church-bell chime,The sea-beat scorns the minster clockAnd breaks the glass of Time.
Would you know what joy is hidIn our green Musketaquid,And for travelled eyes what charmsDraw us to these meadow farms,Come and I will show you allMakes each day a festival.Stand upon this pasture hill,Face the eastern star untilThe slow eye of heaven shall showThe world above, the world below.Behold the miracle!Thou saw'st but now the twilight sadAnd stood beneath the firmament,A watchman in a dark gray tent,Waiting till God create the earth,—Behold the new majestic birth!The mottled clouds, like scraps of wool,Steeped in the light are beautiful.What majestic stillness broodsOver these colored solitudes.Sleeps the vast East in pleasèd peace,Up the far mountain walls the streams increaseInundating the heavenWith spouting streams and waves of lightWhich round the floating isles unite:—See the world belowBaptized with the pure element,A clear and glorious firmamentTouched with life by every beam.I share the good with every flower,I drink the nectar of the hour:—This is not the ancient earthWhereof old chronicles relateThe tragic tales of crime and fate;But rather, like its beads of dewAnd dew-bent violets, fresh and new,An exhalation of the time.* * *
I left my dreary page and sallied forth,Received the fair inscriptions of the night;The moon was making amber of the world,Glittered with silver every cottage pane,The trees were rich, yet ominous with gloom.The meadows broadFrom ferns and grapes and from the folded flowersSent a nocturnal fragrance; harlot fliesFlashed their small fires in air, or held their courtIn fairy groves of herds-grass.
He lives not who can refuse me;All my force saith, Come and use me:A gleam of sun, a summer rain,And all the zone is green again.
Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants,Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell,As if on such stern forms and hauntsA wintry storm more fitly fell.
Put in, drive home the sightless wedgesAnd split to flakes the crystal ledges.
Illusion works impenetrable,Weaving webs innumerable,Her gay pictures never fail,Crowds each on other, veil on veil,Charmer who will be believedBy man who thirsts to be deceived.
Illusions like the tints of pearl,Or changing colors of the sky,Or ribbons of a dancing girlThat mend her beauty to the eye.
The cold gray down upon the quinces liethAnd the poor spinners weave their webs thereonTo share the sunshine that so spicy is.
Samson stark, at Dagon's knee,Gropes for columns strong as he;When his ringlets grew and curled,Groped for axle of the world.
But Nature whistled with all her winds,Did as she pleased and went her way.
A train of gay and clouded daysDappled with joy and grief and praise,Beauty to fire us, saints to save,Escort us to a little grave.
No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low,For God hath writ all dooms magnificent,So guilt not traverses his tender will.
Around the man who seeks a noble end,Not angels but divinities attend.
From high to higher forcesThe scale of power uprears,The heroes on their horses,The gods upon their spheres.
This shining moment is an edificeWhich the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.
Roomy EternityCasts her schemes rarely,And an aeon allowsFor each quality and partOf the multitudinousAnd many-chambered heart.
The beggar begs by God's command,And gifts awake when givers sleep,Swords cannot cut the giving handNor stab the love that orphans keep.
In the chamber, on the stairs,Lurking dumb,Go and comeLemurs and Lars.
Such another peerless queenOnly could her mirror show.
Easy to match what others do,Perform the feat as well as they;Hard to out-do the brave, the true,And find a loftier way:The school decays, the learning spoilsBecause of the sons of wine;How snatch the stripling from their toils?—Yet can one ray of truth divineThe blaze of revellers' feasts outshine.
Of all wit's uses the main oneIs to live well with who has none.
The tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so the pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely say them better.
She walked in flowers around my fieldAs June herself around the sphere.
Friends to me are frozen wine;I wait the sun on them should shine.
You shall not love me for what daily spends;You shall not know me in the noisy street,Where I, as others, follow petty ends;Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet;Nor when I'm jaded, sick, anxious or mean.But love me then and only, when you knowMe for the channel of the rivers of GodFrom deep ideal fontal heavens that flow.
To and fro the Genius flies,A light which plays and hoversOver the maiden's headAnd dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.Of her faults I take no note,Fault and folly are not mine;Comes the Genius,—all's forgot,Replunged again into that upper sphereHe scatters wide and wild its lustres here.
LoveAsks nought his brother cannot give;Asks nothing, but does all receive.Love calls not to his aid events;He to his wants can well suffice:Asks not of others soft consents,Nor kind occasion without eyes;Nor plots to ope or bolt a gate,Nor heeds Condition's iron walls,—Where he goes, goes before him Fate;Whom he uniteth, God installs;Instant and perfect his accessTo the dear object of his thought,Though foes and land and seas betweenHimself and his love intervene.
The brave Empedocles, defying fools,Pronounced the word that mortals hate to hear—"I am divine, I am not mortal made;I am superior to my human weeds."Not Sense but Reason is the Judge of truth;Reason's twofold, part human, part divine;That human part may be described and taught,The other portion language cannot speak.
Tell men what they knew before;Paint the prospect from their door.
Him strong Genius urged to roam,Stronger Custom brought him home.
That each should in his house abide.Therefore was the world so wide.
Thou shalt make thy houseThe temple of a nation's vows.Spirits of a higher strainWho sought thee once shall seek again.I detected many a godForth already on the road,Ancestors of beauty comeIn thy breast to make a home.
The archangel HopeLooks to the azure cope,Waits through dark ages for the morn,Defeated day by day, but unto victory born.As the drop feeds its fated flower,As finds its Alp the snowy shower,Child of the omnific Need,Hurled into life to do a deed,Man drinks the water, drinks the light.
Ever the Rock of Ages meltsInto the mineral air,To be the quarry whence to buildThought and its mansions fair.
Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower,Go match thee with thy seeming peers;I will wait Heaven's perfect hourThrough the innumerable years.
Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-strickenShall his own sorrow seem impertinent,A thing that takes no more root in the worldThan doth the traveller's shadow on the rock.
But if thou do thy best,Without remission, without rest,And invite the sunbeam,And abhor to feign or seemEven to those who thee should loveAnd thy behavior approve;If thou go in thine own likeness,Be it health, or be it sickness;If thou go as thy father's son,If thou wear no mask or lie,Dealing purely and nakedly,—* * *
Ascending thorough just degreesTo a consummate holiness,As angel blind to trespass done,And bleaching all souls like the sun.
From the stores of eldest matter,The deep-eyed flame, obedient water,Transparent air, all-feeding earth,He took the flower of all their worth,And, best with best in sweet consent,Combined a new temperament.
The bard and mystic held me for their own,I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids,I took the friendly noble by the hand,I was the trustee of the hand-cart man,The brother of the fisher, porter, swain,And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheldThe service done to me as done to them.
With the key of the secret he marches faster,From strength to strength, and for night brings day;While classes or tribes, too weak to masterThe flowing conditions of life, give way.
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.
If curses be the wage of love,Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove,Not to be named:It is clearWhy the gods will not appear;They are ashamed.
When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port,And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short.
Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift,Sit still and Truth is near:Suddenly it will upliftYour eyelids to the sphere:Wait a little, you shall seeThe portraiture of things to be.
The rules to men made evidentBy Him who built the day,The columns of the firmamentNot firmer based than they.
On bravely through the sunshine and the showers!Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
In many forms we tryTo utter God's infinity,But the boundless hath no form,And the Universal FriendDoth as far transcendAn angel as a worm.The great Idea baffles wit,Language falters under it,It leaves the learned in the lurch;Nor art, nor power, nor toil can findThe measure of the eternal Mind,Nor hymn, nor prayer, nor church.
How much, preventing God, how much I oweTo the defences thou hast round me set;Example, custom, fear, occasion slow,—These scorned bondmen were my parapet.I dare not peep over this parapetTo gauge with glance the roaring gulf below,The depths of sin to which I had descended,Had not these me against myself defended.