I cannot spare water or wine,Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;From the earth-poles to the Line,All between that works or grows,Every thing is kin of mine.Give me agates for my meat;Give me cantharids to eat;From air and ocean bring me foods,From all zones and altitudes;—From all natures, sharp and slimy,Salt and basalt, wild and tame:Tree and lichen, ape, sea-lion,Bird, and reptile, be my game.Ivy for my fillet band;Blinding dog-wood in my hand;Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,And the prussic juice to lull me;Swing me in the upas boughs,Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse.Too long shut in strait and few,Thinly dieted on dew,I will use the world, and sift it,To a thousand humors shift it,As you spin a cherry.O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry!O all you virtues, methods, mights,Means, appliances, delights,Reputed wrongs and braggart rights,Smug routine, and things allowed,Minorities, things under cloud!Hither! take me, use me, fill me,Vein and artery, though ye kill me!
Set not thy foot on graves;Hear what wine and roses say;The mountain chase, the summer waves,The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.Set not thy foot on graves;Nor seek to unwind the shroudWhich charitable TimeAnd Nature have allowedTo wrap the errors of a sage sublime.Set not thy foot on graves;Care not to strip the deadOf his sad ornament,His myrrh, and wine, and rings,His sheet of lead,And trophies buried:Go, get them where he earned them when alive;As resolutely dig or dive.Life is too short to wasteIn critic peep or cynic bark,Quarrel or reprimand:'T will soon be dark;Up! mind thine own aim, andGod speed the mark!
That you are fair or wise is vain,Or strong, or rich, or generous;You must add the untaught strainThat sheds beauty on the rose.There's a melody born of melody,Which melts the world into a sea.Toil could never compass it;Art its height could never hit;It came never out of wit;But a music music-bornWell may Jove and Juno scorn.Thy beauty, if it lack the fireWhich drives me mad with sweet desire,What boots it? What the soldier's mail,Unless he conquer and prevail?What all the goods thy pride which lift,If thou pine for another's gift?Alas! that one is born in blight,Victim of perpetual slight:When thou lookest on his face,Thy heart saith, 'Brother, go thy ways!None shall ask thee what thou doest,Or care a rush for what thou knowest,Or listen when thou repliest,Or remember where thou liest,Or how thy supper is sodden;'And another is bornTo make the sun forgotten.Surely he carries a talismanUnder his tongue;Broad his shoulders are and strong;And his eye is scornful,Threatening and young.I hold it of little matterWhether your jewel be of pure water,A rose diamond or a white,But whether it dazzle me with light.I care not how you are dressed,In coarsest weeds or in the best;Nor whether your name is base or brave:Nor for the fashion of your behavior;But whether you charm me,Bid my bread feed and my fire warm meAnd dress up Nature in your favor.One thing is forever good;That one thing is Success,—Dear to the Eumenides,And to all the heavenly brood.Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.
Mortal mixed of middle clay,Attempered to the night and day,Interchangeable with things,Needs no amulets nor rings.Guy possessed the talismanThat all things from him began;And as, of old, PolycratesChained the sunshine and the breeze,So did Guy betimes discoverFortune was his guard and lover;In strange junctures, felt, with awe,His own symmetry with law;That no mixture could withstandThe virtue of his lucky hand.He gold or jewel could not lose,Nor not receive his ample dues.Fearless Guy had never foes,He did their weapons decompose.Aimed at him, the blushing bladeHealed as fast the wounds it made.If on the foeman fell his gaze,Him it would straightway blind or craze,In the street, if he turned round,His eye the eye 't was seeking found.It seemed his Genius discreetWorked on the Maker's own receipt,And made each tide and elementStewards of stipend and of rent;So that the common waters fellAs costly wine into his well.He had so sped his wise affairsThat he caught Nature in his snares.Early or late, the falling rainArrived in time to swell his grain;Stream could not so perversely windBut corn of Guy's was there to grind:The siroc found it on its way,To speed his sails, to dry his hay;And the world's sun seemed to riseTo drudge all day for Guy the wise.In his rich nurseries, timely skillStrong crab with nobler blood did fill;The zephyr in his garden rolledFrom plum-trees vegetable gold;And all the hours of the yearWith their own harvest honored were.There was no frost but welcome came,Nor freshet, nor midsummer flame.Belonged to wind and world the toilAnd venture, and to Guy the oil.
Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,Possessed the land which rendered to their toilHay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,Saying, ''Tis mine, my children's and my name's.How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!I fancy these pure waters and the flagsKnow me, as does my dog: we sympathize;And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.'Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boysEarth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feetClear of the grave.They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,And sighed for all that bounded their domain;'This suits me for a pasture; that's my park;We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,And misty lowland, where to go for peat.The land is well,—lies fairly to the south.'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,To find the sitfast acres where you left them.'Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who addsHim to his land, a lump of mould the more.Hear what the Earth says:—EARTH-SONG'Mine and yours;Mine, not yours.Earth endures;Stars abide—Shine down in the old sea;Old are the shores;But where are old men?I who have seen much,Such have I never seen.'The lawyer's deedRan sure,In tail,To them, and to their heirsWho shall succeed,Without fail,Forevermore.'Here is the land,Shaggy with wood,With its old valley,Mound and flood.But the heritors?—Fled like the flood's foam.The lawyer, and the laws,And the kingdom,Clean swept herefrom.'They called me theirs,Who so controlled me;Yet every oneWished to stay, and is gone,How am I theirs,If they cannot hold me,But I hold them?'When I heard the Earth-songI was no longer brave;My avarice cooledLike lust in the chill of the grave.
ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,To please the desert and the sluggish brook.The purple petals, fallen in the pool,Made the black water with their beauty gay;Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool.And court the flower that cheapens his array.Rhodora! if the sages ask thee whyThis charm is wasted on the earth and sky,Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!I never thought to ask, I never knew:But, in my simple ignorance, supposeThe self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
Burly, dozing humble-bee,Where thou art is clime for me.Let them sail for Porto Rique,Far-off heats through seas to seek;I will follow thee alone,Thou animated torrid-zone!Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,Let me chase thy waving lines;Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,Singing over shrubs and vines.Insect lover of the sun,Joy of thy dominion!Sailor of the atmosphere;Swimmer through the waves of air;Voyager of light and noon;Epicurean of June;Wait, I prithee, till I comeWithin earshot of thy hum,—All without is martyrdom.When the south wind, in May days,With a net of shining hazeSilvers the horizon wall,And with softness touching all,Tints the human countenanceWith a color of romance,And infusing subtle heats,Turns the sod to violets,Thou, in sunny solitudes,Rover of the underwoods,The green silence dost displaceWith thy mellow, breezy bass.Hot midsummer's petted crone,Sweet to me thy drowsy toneTells of countless sunny hours,Long days, and solid banks of flowers;Of gulfs of sweetness without boundIn Indian wildernesses found;Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.Aught unsavory or uncleanHath my insect never seen;But violets and bilberry bells,Maple-sap and daffodels,Grass with green flag half-mast high,Succory to match the sky,Columbine with horn of honey,Scented fern, and agrimony,Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongueAnd brier-roses, dwelt among;All beside was unknown waste,All was picture as he passed.Wiser far than human seer,Yellow-breeched philosopher!Seeing only what is fair,Sipping only what is sweet,Thou dost mock at fate and care,Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.When the fierce northwestern blastCools sea and land so far and fast,Thou already slumberest deep;Woe and want thou canst outsleep;Want and woe, which torture us,Thy sleep makes ridiculous.
'May be true what I had heard,—Earth's a howling wilderness,Truculent with fraud and force,'Said I, strolling through the pastures,And along the river-side.Caught among the blackberry vines,Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,Pleasant fancies overtook me.I said, 'What influence me preferred,Elect, to dreams thus beautiful?'The vines replied, 'And didst thou deemNo wisdom from our berries went?'
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,Seems nowhere to alight: the whited airHides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feetDelayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sitAround the radiant fireplace, enclosedIn a tumultuous privacy of storm.Come see the north wind's masonry.Out of an unseen quarryFurnished with tile, the fierce artificerCurves his white bastions with projected roofRound every windward stake, or tree, or door.Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild workSo fanciful, so savage, nought cares heFor number or proportion. Mockingly,On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gateA tapering turret overtops the work.And when his hours are numbered, and the worldIs all his own, retiring, as he were not,Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished ArtTo mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,The frolic architecture of the snow.
1When the pine tosses its conesTo the song of its waterfall tones,Who speeds to the woodland walks?To birds and trees who talks?Caesar of his leafy Rome,There the poet is at home.He goes to the river-side,—Not hook nor line hath he;He stands in the meadows wide,—Nor gun nor scythe to see.Sure some god his eye enchants:What he knows nobody wants.In the wood he travels glad,Without better fortune had,Melancholy without bad.Knowledge this man prizes bestSeems fantastic to the rest:Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds,Boughs on which the wild bees settle,Tints that spot the violet's petal,Why Nature loves the number five,And why the star-form she repeats:Lover of all things alive,Wonderer at all he meets,Wonderer chiefly at himself,Who can tell him what he is?Or how meet in human elfComing and past eternities?2And such I knew, a forest seer,A minstrel of the natural year,Foreteller of the vernal ides,Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,A lover true, who knew by heartEach joy the mountain dales impart;It seemed that Nature could not raiseA plant in any secret place,In quaking bog, on snowy hill,Beneath the grass that shades the rill,Under the snow, between the rocks,In damp fields known to bird and fox.But he would come in the very hourIt opened in its virgin bower,As if a sunbeam showed the place,And tell its long-descended race.It seemed as if the breezes brought him,It seemed as if the sparrows taught him;As if by secret sight he knewWhere, in far fields, the orchis grew.Many haps fall in the fieldSeldom seen by wishful eyes,But all her shows did Nature yield,To please and win this pilgrim wise.He saw the partridge drum in the woods;He heard the woodcock's evening hymn;He found the tawny thrushes' broods;And the shy hawk did wait for him;What others did at distance hear,And guessed within the thicket's gloom,Was shown to this philosopher,And at his bidding seemed to come.3In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gangWhere from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang;He trode the unplanted forest floor, whereonThe all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone;Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear,And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker.He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds,The slight Linnaea hang its twin-born heads,And blessed the monument of the man of flowers,Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers.He heard, when in the grove, at intervals,With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls,—One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree,Declares the close of its green century.Low lies the plant to whose creation wentSweet influence from every element;Whose living towers the years conspired to build,Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild.Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed,He roamed, content alike with man and beast.Where darkness found him he lay glad at night;There the red morning touched him with its light.Three moons his great heart him a hermit made,So long he roved at will the boundless shade.The timid it concerns to ask their way,And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray,To make no step until the event is known,And ills to come as evils past bemoan.Not so the wise; no coward watch he keepsTo spy what danger on his pathway creeps;Go where he will, the wise man is at home,His hearth the earth,—his hall the azure dome;Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his roadBy God's own light illumined and foreshowed.4'T was one of the charmèd daysWhen the genius of God doth flow;The wind may alter twenty ways,A tempest cannot blow;It may blow north, it still is warm;Or south, it still is clear;Or east, it smells like a clover-farm;Or west, no thunder fear.The musing peasant, lowly great,Beside the forest water sate;The rope-like pine-roots crosswise grownComposed the network of his throne;The wide lake, edged with sand and grass,Was burnished to a floor of glass,Painted with shadows green and proudOf the tree and of the cloud.He was the heart of all the scene;On him the sun looked more serene;To hill and cloud his face was known,—It seemed the likeness of their own;They knew by secret sympathyThe public child of earth and sky.'You ask,' he said, 'what guideMe through trackless thickets led,Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide.I found the water's bed.The watercourses were my guide;I travelled grateful by their side,Or through their channel dry;They led me through the thicket damp,Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp,Through beds of granite cut my road,And their resistless friendship showed.The falling waters led me,The foodful waters fed me,And brought me to the lowest land,Unerring to the ocean sand.The moss upon the forest barkWas pole-star when the night was dark;The purple berries in the woodSupplied me necessary food;For Nature ever faithful isTo such as trust her faithfulness.When the forest shall mislead me,When the night and morning lie,When sea and land refuse to feed me,'T will be time enough to die;Then will yet my mother yieldA pillow in her greenest field,Nor the June flowers scorn to coverThe clay of their departed lover.'
As sunbeams stream through liberal spaceAnd nothing jostle or displace,So waved the pine-tree through my thoughtAnd fanned the dreams it never brought.'Whether is better, the gift or the donor?Come to me,'Quoth the pine-tree,'I am the giver of honor.My garden is the cloven rock,And my manure the snow;And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock,In summer's scorching glow.He is great who can live by me:The rough and bearded foresterIs better than the lord;God fills the script and canister,Sin piles the loaded board.The lord is the peasant that was,The peasant the lord that shall be;The lord is hay, the peasant grass,One dry, and one the living tree.Who liveth by the ragged pineFoundeth a heroic line;Who liveth in the palace hallWaneth fast and spendeth all.He goes to my savage haunts,With his chariot and his care;My twilight realm he disenchants,And finds his prison there.'What prizes the town and the tower?Only what the pine-tree yields;Sinew that subdued the fields;The wild-eyed boy, who in the woodsChants his hymn to hills and floods,Whom the city's poisoning spleenMade not pale, or fat, or lean;Whom the rain and the wind purgeth,Whom the dawn and the day-star urgeth,In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth,In whose feet the lion rusheth,Iron arms, and iron mould,That know not fear, fatigue, or cold.I give my rafters to his boat,My billets to his boiler's throat,And I will swim the ancient seaTo float my child to victory,And grant to dwellers with the pineDominion o'er the palm and vine.Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend,Unnerves his strength, invites his end.Cut a bough from my parent stem,And dip it in thy porcelain vase;A little while each russet gemWill swell and rise with wonted grace;But when it seeks enlarged supplies,The orphan of the forest dies.Whoso walks in solitudeAnd inhabiteth the wood,Choosing light, wave, rock and bird,Before the money-loving herd,Into that forester shall pass,From these companions, power and grace.Clean shall he be, without, within,From the old adhering sin,All ill dissolving in the lightOf his triumphant piercing sight:Not vain, sour, nor frivolous;Not mad, athirst, nor garrulous;Grave, chaste, contented, though retired,And of all other men desired.On him the light of star and moonShall fall with purer radiance down;All constellations of the skyShed their virtue through his eye.Him Nature giveth for defenceHis formidable innocence;The mounting sap, the shells, the sea,All spheres, all stones, his helpers be;He shall meet the speeding year,Without wailing, without fear;He shall be happy in his love,Like to like shall joyful prove;He shall be happy whilst he wooes,Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse.But if with gold she bind her hair,And deck her breast with diamond,Take off thine eyes, thy heart forbear,Though thou lie alone on the ground.'Heed the old oracles,Ponder my spells;Song wakes in my pinnaclesWhen the wind swells.Soundeth the prophetic wind,The shadows shake on the rock behind,And the countless leaves of the pine are stringsTuned to the lay the wood-god sings.Hearken! Hearken!If thou wouldst know the mystic songChanted when the sphere was young.Aloft, abroad, the paean swells;O wise man! hear'st thou half it tells?O wise man! hear'st thou the least part?'Tis the chronicle of art.To the open ear it singsSweet the genesis of things,Of tendency through endless ages,Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages,Of rounded worlds, of space and time,Of the old flood's subsiding slime,Of chemic matter, force and form,Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm:The rushing metamorphosisDissolving all that fixture is,Melts things that be to things that seem,And solid nature to a dream.O, listen to the undersong,The ever old, the ever young;And, far within those cadent pauses,The chorus of the ancient Causes!Delights the dreadful DestinyTo fling his voice into the tree,And shock thy weak ear with a noteBreathed from the everlasting throat.In music he repeats the pangWhence the fair flock of Nature sprang.O mortal! thy ears are stones;These echoes are laden with tonesWhich only the pure can hear;Thou canst not catch what they reciteOf Fate and Will, of Want and Right,Of man to come, of human life,Of Death and Fortune, Growth and Strife.'Once again the pine-tree sung:—'Speak not thy speech my boughs among:Put off thy years, wash in the breeze;My hours are peaceful centuries.Talk no more with feeble tongue;No more the fool of space and time,Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme.Only thy AmericansCan read thy line, can meet thy glance,But the runes that I rehearseUnderstands the universe;The least breath my boughs which tossedBrings again the Pentecost;To every soul resounding clearIn a voice of solemn cheer,—"Am I not thine? Are not these thine?"And they reply, "Forever mine!"My branches speak Italian,English, German, Basque, Castilian,Mountain speech to Highlanders,Ocean tongues to islanders,To Fin and Lap and swart Malay,To each his bosom-secret say.'Come learn with me the fatal songWhich knits the world in music strong,Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes,Of things with things, of times with times,Primal chimes of sun and shade,Of sound and echo, man and maid,The land reflected in the flood,Body with shadow still pursued.For Nature beats in perfect tune,And rounds with rhyme her every rune,Whether she work in land or sea,Or hide underground her alchemy.Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,Or dip thy paddle in the lake,But it carves the bow of beauty there,And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.The wood is wiser far than thou;The wood and wave each other knowNot unrelated, unaffied,But to each thought and thing allied,Is perfect Nature's every part,Rooted in the mighty Heart,But thou, poor child! unbound, unrhymed,Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed,Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded?Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded?Who thee divorced, deceived and left?Thee of thy faith who hath bereft,And torn the ensigns from thy brow,And sunk the immortal eye so low?Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender,Thy gait too slow, thy habits tenderFor royal man;—they thee confessAn exile from the wilderness,—The hills where health with health agrees,And the wise soul expels disease.Hark! in thy ear I will tell the signBy which thy hurt thou may'st divine.When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff,Or see the wide shore from thy skiff,To thee the horizon shall expressBut emptiness on emptiness;There lives no man of Nature's worthIn the circle of the earth;And to thine eye the vast skies fall,Dire and satirical,On clucking hens and prating fools,On thieves, on drudges and on dolls.And thou shalt say to the Most High,"Godhead! all this astronomy,And fate and practice and invention,Strong art and beautiful pretension,This radiant pomp of sun and star,Throes that were, and worlds that are,Behold! were in vain and in vain;—It cannot be,—I will look again.Surely now will the curtain rise,And earth's fit tenant me surprise;—But the curtain dothnotrise,And Nature has miscarried whollyInto failure, into folly."'Alas! thine is the bankruptcy,Blessed Nature so to see.Come, lay thee in my soothing shade,And heal the hurts which sin has made.I see thee in the crowd alone;I will be thy companion.Quit thy friends as the dead in doom,And build to them a final tomb;Let the starred shade that nightly fallsStill celebrate their funerals,And the bell of beetle and of beeKnell their melodious memory.Behind thee leave thy merchandise,Thy churches and thy charities;And leave thy peacock wit behind;Enough for thee the primal mindThat flows in streams, that breathes in wind:Leave all thy pedant lore apart;God hid the whole world in thy heart.Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns,Gives all to them who all renounce.The rain comes when the wind calls;The river knows the way to the sea;Without a pilot it runs and falls,Blessing all lands with its charity;The sea tosses and foams to findIts way up to the cloud and wind;The shadow sits close to the flying ball;The date fails not on the palm-tree tall;And thou,—go burn thy wormy pages,—Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages.Oft didst thou thread the woods in vainTo find what bird had piped the strain:—Seek not, and the little eremiteFlies gayly forth and sings in sight.'Hearken once more!I will tell thee the mundane lore.Older am I than thy numbers wot,Change I may, but I pass not.Hitherto all things fast abide,And anchored in the tempest ride.Trenchant time behoves to hurryAll to yean and all to bury:All the forms are fugitive,But the substances survive.Ever fresh the broad creation,A divine improvisation,From the heart of God proceeds,A single will, a million deeds.Once slept the world an egg of stone,And pulse, and sound, and light was none;And God said, "Throb!" and there was motionAnd the vast mass became vast ocean.Onward and on, the eternal Pan,Who layeth the world's incessant plan,Halteth never in one shape,But forever doth escape,Like wave or flame, into new formsOf gem, and air, of plants, and worms.I, that to-day am a pine,Yesterday was a bundle of grass.He is free and libertine,Pouring of his power the wineTo every age, to every race;Unto every race and ageHe emptieth the beverage;Unto each, and unto all,Maker and original.The world is the ring of his spells,And the play of his miracles.As he giveth to all to drink,Thus or thus they are and think.With one drop sheds form and feature;With the next a special nature;The third adds heat's indulgent spark;The fourth gives light which eats the dark;Into the fifth himself he flings,And conscious Law is King of kings.As the bee through the garden ranges,From world to world the godhead changes;As the sheep go feeding in the waste,From form to form He maketh haste;This vault which glows immense with lightIs the inn where he lodges for a night.What recks such Traveller if the bowersWhich bloom and fade like meadow flowersA bunch of fragrant lilies be,Or the stars of eternity?Alike to him the better, the worse,—The glowing angel, the outcast corse.Thou metest him by centuries,And lo! he passes like the breeze;Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy,He hides in pure transparency;Thou askest in fountains and in fires,He is the essence that inquires.He is the axis of the star;He is the sparkle of the spar;He is the heart of every creature;He is the meaning of each feature;And his mind is the sky.Than all it holds more deep, more high.'
Thousand minstrels woke within me,'Our music's in the hills;'—Gayest pictures rose to win me,Leopard-colored rills.'Up!—If thou knew'st who callsTo twilight parks of beech and pine,High over the river intervals,Above the ploughman's highest line,Over the owner's farthest walls!Up! where the airy citadelO'erlooks the surging landscape's swell!Let not unto the stones the DayHer lily and rose, her sea and land display.Read the celestial sign!Lo! the south answers to the north;Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;A greater spirit bids thee forthThan the gray dreams which thee detain.Mark how the climbing OreadsBeckon thee to their arcades;Youth, for a moment free as they,Teach thy feet to feel the ground,Ere yet arrives the wintry dayWhen Time thy feet has bound.Take the bounty of thy birth,Taste the lordship of the earth.'I heard, and I obeyed,—Assured that he who made the claim,Well known, but loving not a name,Was not to be gainsaid.Ere yet the summoning voice was still,I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowedLike ample banner flung abroadTo all the dwellers in the plainsRound about, a hundred miles,With salutation to the sea and to the bordering isles.In his own loom's garment dressed,By his proper bounty blessed,Fast abides this constant giver,Pouring many a cheerful river;To far eyes, an aerial isleUnploughed, which finer spirits pile,Which morn and crimson evening paintFor bard, for lover and for saint;An eyemark and the country's core,Inspirer, prophet evermore;Pillar which God aloft had setSo that men might it not forget;It should be their life's ornament,And mix itself with each event;Gauge and calendar and dial,Weatherglass and chemic phial,Garden of berries, perch of birds,Pasture of pool-haunting herds,Graced by each change of sum untold,Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.The Titan heeds his sky-affairs,Rich rents and wide alliance shares;Mysteries of color daily laidBy morn and eve in light and shade;And sweet varieties of chance,And the mystic seasons' dance;And thief-like step of liberal hoursThawing snow-drift into flowers.O, wondrous craft of plant and stoneBy eldest science wrought and shown!'Happy,' I said, 'whose home is here!Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!Boon Nature to his poorest shedHas royal pleasure-grounds outspread.'Intent, I searched the region round,And in low hut the dweller found:Woe is me for my hope's downfall!Is yonder squalid peasant allThat this proud nursery could breedFor God's vicegerency and stead?Time out of mind, this forge of ores;Quarry of spars in mountain pores;Old cradle, hunting-ground and bierOf wolf and otter, bear and deer;Well-built abode of many a race;Tower of observance searching space;Factory of river and of rain;Link in the Alps' globe-girding chain;By million changes skilled to tellWhat in the Eternal standeth well,And what obedient Nature can;—Is this colossal talismanKindly to plant and blood and kind,But speechless to the master's mind?I thought to find the patriotsIn whom the stock of freedom roots;To myself I oft recountTales of many a famous mount,—Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells:Bards, Roys, Scanderbegs and Tells;And think how Nature in these towersUplifted shall condense her powers,And lifting man to the blue deepWhere stars their perfect courses keep,Like wise preceptor, lure his eyeTo sound the science of the sky,And carry learning to its heightOf untried power and sane delight:The Indian cheer, the frosty skies,Rear purer wits, inventive eyes,—Eyes that frame cities where none be,And hands that stablish what these see:And by the moral of his placeHint summits of heroic grace;Man in these crags a fastness findTo fight pollution of the mind;In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,Adhere like this foundation strong,The insanity of towns to stemWith simpleness for stratagem.But if the brave old mould is broke,And end in churls the mountain folkIn tavern cheer and tavern joke,Sink, O mountain, in the swamp!Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lamp!Perish like leaves, the highland breedNo sire survive, no son succeed!Soft! let not the offended museToil's hard hap with scorn accuse.Many hamlets sought I then,Many farms of mountain men.Rallying round a parish steepleNestle warm the highland people,Coarse and boisterous, yet mild,Strong as giant, slow as child.Sweat and season are their arts,Their talismans are ploughs and carts;And well the youngest can commandHoney from the frozen land;With cloverheads the swamp adorn,Change the running sand to corn;For wolf and fox, bring lowing herds,And for cold mosses, cream and curds:Weave wood to canisters and mats;Drain sweet maple juice in vats.No bird is safe that cuts the airFrom their rifle or their snare;No fish, in river or in lake,But their long hands it thence will take;Whilst the country's flinty face,Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays,To fill the hollows, sink the hills,Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills,And fit the bleak and howling wasteFor homes of virtue, sense and taste.The World-soul knows his own affair,Forelooking, when he would prepareFor the next ages, men of mouldWell embodied, well ensouled,He cools the present's fiery glow,Sets the life-pulse strong but slow:Bitter winds and fasts austereHis quarantines and grottoes, whereHe slowly cures decrepit flesh,And brings it infantile and fresh.Toil and tempest are the toysAnd games to breathe his stalwart boys:They bide their time, and well can prove,If need were, their line from Jove;Of the same stuff, and so allayed,As that whereof the sun is made,And of the fibre, quick and strong,Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song.Now in sordid weeds they sleep,In dulness now their secret keep;Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,These the masters who can teach.Fourscore or a hundred wordsAll their vocal muse affords;But they turn them in a fashionPast clerks' or statesmen's art or passion.I can spare the college bell,And the learned lecture, well;Spare the clergy and libraries,Institutes and dictionaries,For that hardy English rootThrives here, unvalued, underfoot.Rude poets of the tavern hearth,Squandering your unquoted mirth,Which keeps the ground and never soars,While Jake retorts and Reuben roars;Scoff of yeoman strong and stark,Goes like bullet to its mark;While the solid curse and jeerNever balk the waiting ear.On the summit as I stood,O'er the floor of plain and floodSeemed to me, the towering hillWas not altogether still,But a quiet sense conveyed:If I err not, thus it said:—'Many feet in summer seek,Oft, my far-appearing peak;In the dreaded winter time,None save dappling shadows climb,Under clouds, my lonely head,Old as the sun, old almost as the shade;And comest thouTo see strange forests and new snow,And tread uplifted land?And leavest thou thy lowland race,Here amid clouds to stand?And wouldst be my companionWhere I gaze, and still shall gaze,Through tempering nights and flashing days,When forests fall, and man is gone,Over tribes and over times,At the burning Lyre,Nearing me,With its stars of northern fire,In many a thousand years?'Gentle pilgrim, if thou knowThe gamut old of Pan,And how the hills began,The frank blessings of the hillFall on thee, as fall they will.'Let him heed who can and will;Enchantment fixed me hereTo stand the hurts of time, untilIn mightier chant I disappear.If thou trowestHow the chemic eddies play,Pole to pole, and what they say;And that these gray cragsNot on crags are hung,But beads are of a rosaryOn prayer and music strung;And, credulous, through the granite seeming,Seest the smile of Reason beaming;—Can thy style-discerning eyeThe hidden-working Builder spy,Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din,With hammer soft as snowflake's flight;—Knowest thou this?O pilgrim, wandering not amiss!Already my rocks lie light,And soon my cone will spin.'For the world was built in order,And the atoms march in tune;Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder,The sun obeys them and the moon.Orb and atom forth they prance,When they hear from far the rune;None so backward in the troop,When the music and the danceReach his place and circumstance,But knows the sun-creating sound,And, though a pyramid, will bound.'Monadnoc is a mountain strong,Tall and good my kind among;But well I know, no mountain can,Zion or Meru, measure with man.For it is on zodiacs writ,Adamant is soft to wit:And when the greater comes againWith my secret in his brain,I shall pass, as glides my shadowDaily over hill and meadow.'Through all time, in light, in gloomWell I hear the approaching feetOn the flinty pathway beatOf him that cometh, and shall come;Of him who shall as lightly bearMy daily load of woods and streams,As doth this round sky-cleaving boatWhich never strains its rocky beams;Whose timbers, as they silent float,Alps and Caucasus uprear,And the long Alleghanies here,And all town-sprinkled lands that be,Sailing through stars with all their history.'Every morn I lift my head,See New England underspread,South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,From Katskill east to the sea-bound.Anchored fast for many an age,I await the bard and sage,Who, in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed,Shall string Monadnoc like a bead.Comes that cheerful troubadour,This mound shall throb his face before,As when, with inward fires and pain,It rose a bubble from the plain.When he cometh, I shall shed,From this wellspring in my head,Fountain-drop of spicier worthThan all vintage of the earth.There's fruit upon my barren soilCostlier far than wine or oil.There's a berry blue and gold,—Autumn-ripe, its juices holdSparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart,Asia's rancor, Athens' art,Slowsure Britain's secular might,And the German's inward sight.I will give my son to eatBest of Pan's immortal meat,Bread to eat, and juice to drain;So the coinage of his brainShall not be forms of stars, but stars,Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars,He comes, but not of that race bredWho daily climb my specular head.Oft as morning wreathes my scarf,Fled the last plumule of the Dark,Pants up hither the spruce clerkFrom South Cove and City Wharf.I take him up my rugged sides,Half-repentant, scant of breath,—Bead-eyes my granite chaos show,And my midsummer snow:Open the daunting map beneath,—All his county, sea and land,Dwarfed to measure of his hand;His day's ride is a furlong space,His city-tops a glimmering haze.I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding;"See there the grim gray roundingOf the bullet of the earthWhereon ye sail,Tumbling steepIn the uncontinented deep."He looks on that, and he turns pale.'T is even so, this treacherous kite,Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,Thoughtless of its anxious freight,Plunges eyeless on forever;And he, poor parasite,Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,—Who is the captain he knows not,Port or pilot trows not,—Risk or ruin he must share.I scowl on him with my cloud,With my north wind chill his blood;I lame him, clattering down the rocks;And to live he is in fear.Then, at last, I let him downOnce more into his dapper town,To chatter, frightened, to his clanAnd forget me if he can.'As in the old poetic fameThe gods are blind and lame,And the simular despiteBetrays the more abounding might,So call not waste that barren coneAbove the floral zone,Where forests starve:It is pure use;—What sheaves like those which here we glean and bindOf a celestial Ceres and the Muse?Ages are thy days,Thou grand affirmer of the present tense,And type of permanence!Firm ensign of the fatal Being,Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief,That will not bide the seeing!Hither we bringOur insect miseries to thy rocks;And the whole flight, with folded wing,Vanish, and end their murmuring,—Vanish beside these dedicated blocks,Which who can tell what mason laid?Spoils of a front none need restore,Replacing frieze and architrave;—Where flowers each stone rosette and metope brave;Still is the haughty pile erectOf the old building Intellect.Complement of human kind,Holding us at vantage still,Our sumptuous indigence,O barren mound, thy plenties fill!We fool and prate;Thou art silent and sedate.To myriad kinds and times one senseThe constant mountain doth dispense;Shedding on all its snows and leaves,One joy it joys, one grief it grieves.Thou seest, O watchman tall,Our towns and races grow and fall,And imagest the stable goodFor which we all our lifetime grope,In shifting form the formless mind,And though the substance us elude,We in thee the shadow find.Thou, in our astronomyAn opaker star,Seen haply from afar,Above the horizon's hoop,A moment, by the railway troop,As o'er some bolder height they speed,—By circumspect ambition,By errant gain,By feasters and the frivolous,—Recallest us,And makest sane.Mute orator! well skilled to plead,And send conviction without phrase,Thou dost succor and remedeThe shortness of our days,And promise, on thy Founder's truth,Long morrow to this mortal youth.