Beside that milestone where the level sun,Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low raysOn word and work irrevocably done,Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun,I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise,Half doubtful if myself or otherwise.Like him who, in the old Arabian joke,A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke.Thanks not the less. With not unglad surpriseI see my life-work through your partial eyes;Assured, in giving to my home-taught songsA higher value than of right belongs,You do but read between the written linesThe finer grace of unfulfilled designs.
Poor and inadequate the shadow-playOf gain and loss, of waking and of dream,Against life's solemn background needs must seemAt this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully,I call to mind the fountains by the way,The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray,Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of givingAnd of receiving, the great boon of livingIn grand historic years when LibertyHad need of word and work, quick sympathiesFor all who fail and suffer, song's relief,Nature's uncloying loveliness; and chief,The kind restraining hand of Providence,The inward witness, the assuring senseOf an Eternal Good which overliesThe sorrow of the world, Love which outlivesAll sin and wrong, Compassion which forgivesTo the uttermost, and Justice whose clear eyesThrough lapse and failure look to the intent,And judge our frailty by the life we meant.1878.
The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the author himself they have a special interest from the fact that they were written, or improvised, under the eye and for the amusement of a beloved invalid friend whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich.
A shallow stream, from fountainsDeep in the Sandwich mountains,Ran lake ward Bearcamp River;And, between its flood-torn shores,Sped by sail or urged by oarsNo keel had vexed it ever.Alone the dead trees yieldingTo the dull axe Time is wielding,The shy mink and the otter,And golden leaves and red,By countless autumns shed,Had floated down its water.From the gray rocks of Cape Ann,Came a skilled seafaring man,With his dory, to the right place;Over hill and plain he brought her,Where the boatless Beareamp waterComes winding down from White-Face.Quoth the skipper: "Ere she floats forth;I'm sure my pretty boat's worth,At least, a name as pretty."On her painted side he wrote it,And the flag that o'er her floatedBore aloft the name of Jettie.On a radiant morn of summer,Elder guest and latest comerSaw her wed the Bearcamp water;Heard the name the skipper gave her,And the answer to the favorFrom the Bay State's graceful daughter.Then, a singer, richly gifted,Her charmed voice uplifted;And the wood-thrush and song-sparrowListened, dumb with envious pain,To the clear and sweet refrainWhose notes they could not borrow.Then the skipper plied his oar,And from off the shelving shore,Glided out the strange explorer;Floating on, she knew not whither,—The tawny sands beneath her,The great hills watching o'er her.On, where the stream flows quietAs the meadows' margins by it,Or widens out to borrow aNew life from that wild water,The mountain giant's daughter,The pine-besung Chocorua.Or, mid the tangling cumberAnd pack of mountain lumberThat spring floods downward force,Over sunken snag, and barWhere the grating shallows are,The good boat held her course.Under the pine-dark highlands,Around the vine-hung islands,She ploughed her crooked furrowAnd her rippling and her lurchesScared the river eels and perches,And the musk-rat in his burrow.Every sober clam below her,Every sage and grave pearl-grower,Shut his rusty valves the tighter;Crow called to crow complaining,And old tortoises sat craningTheir leathern necks to sight her.So, to where the still lake glassesThe misty mountain massesRising dim and distant northward,And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures,Low shores, and dead pine spectres,Blends the skyward and the earthward,On she glided, overladen,With merry man and maidenSending back their song and laughter,—While, perchance, a phantom crew,In a ghostly birch canoe,Paddled dumb and swiftly after!And the bear on OssipeeClimbed the topmost crag to seeThe strange thing drifting under;And, through the haze of August,Passaconaway and PaugusLooked down in sleepy wonder.All the pines that o'er her hungIn mimic sea-tones sungThe song familiar to her;And the maples leaned to screen her,And the meadow-grass seemed greener,And the breeze more soft to woo her.The lone stream mystery-haunted,To her the freedom grantedTo scan its every feature,Till new and old were blended,And round them both extendedThe loving arms of Nature.Of these hills the little vesselHenceforth is part and parcel;And on Bearcamp shall her logBe kept, as if by George'sOr Grand Menan, the surgesTossed her skipper through the fog.And I, who, half in sadness,Recall the morning gladnessOf life, at evening time,By chance, onlooking idly,Apart from all so widely,Have set her voyage to rhyme.Dies now the gay persistenceOf song and laugh, in distance;Alone with me remainingThe stream, the quiet meadow,The hills in shine and shadow,The sombre pines complaining.And, musing here, I dreamOf voyagers on a streamFrom whence is no returning,Under sealed orders going,Looking forward little knowing,Looking back with idle yearning.And I pray that every ventureThe port of peace may enter,That, safe from snag and fallAnd siren-haunted islet,And rock, the Unseen PilotMay guide us one and all.1880.
A picture memory brings to meI look across the years and seeMyself beside my mother's knee.I feel her gentle hand restrainMy selfish moods, and know againA child's blind sense of wrong and pain.But wiser now, a man gray grown,My childhood's needs are better known,My mother's chastening love I own.Gray grown, but in our Father's sightA child still groping for the lightTo read His works and ways aright.I wait, in His good time to seeThat as my mother dealt with meSo with His children dealeth He.I bow myself beneath His handThat pain itself was wisely plannedI feel, and partly understand.The joy that comes in sorrow's guise,The sweet pains of self-sacrifice,I would not have them otherwise.And what were life and death if sinKnew not the dread rebuke within,The pang of merciful discipline?Not with thy proud despair of old,Crowned stoic of Rome's noblest mould!Pleasure and pain alike I hold.I suffer with no vain pretenceOf triumph over flesh and sense,Yet trust the grievous providence,How dark soe'er it seems, may tend,By ways I cannot comprehend,To some unguessed benignant end;That every loss and lapse may gainThe clear-aired heights by steps of pain,And never cross is borne in vain.1880.
Addressed to my grand-nephew, Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. Jonathan Greenleaf, in A Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family, says briefly: "From all that can be gathered, it is believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who left France on account of their religious principles some time in the course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was probably translated from the French Feuillevert."
The name the Gallic exile bore,St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,Became upon our Western shoreGreenleaf for Feuillevert.A name to hear in soft accordOf leaves by light winds overrun,Or read, upon the greening swardOf May, in shade and sun.The name my infant ear first heardBreathed softly with a mother's kiss;His mother's own, no tenderer wordMy father spake than this.No child have I to bear it on;Be thou its keeper; let it takeFrom gifts well used and duty doneNew beauty for thy sake.The fair ideals that outranMy halting footsteps seek and find—The flawless symmetry of man,The poise of heart and mind.Stand firmly where I felt the swayOf every wing that fancy flew,See clearly where I groped my way,Nor real from seeming knew.And wisely choose, and bravely holdThy faith unswerved by cross or crown,Like the stout Huguenot of oldWhose name to thee comes down.As Marot's songs made glad the heartOf that lone exile, haply mineMay in life's heavy hours impartSome strength and hope to thine.Yet when did Age transfer to YouthThe hard-gained lessons of its day?Each lip must learn the taste of truth,Each foot must feel its way.We cannot hold the hands of choiceThat touch or shun life's fateful keys;The whisper of the inward voiceIs more than homilies.Dear boy! for whom the flowers are born,Stars shine, and happy song-birds sing,What can my evening give to morn,My winter to thy spring!A life not void of pure intent,With small desert of praise or blame,The love I felt, the good I meant,I leave thee with my name.1880.
I spread a scanty board too late;The old-time guests for whom I waitCome few and slow, methinks, to-day.Ah! who could hear my messagesAcross the dim unsounded seasOn which so many have sailed away!Come, then, old friends, who linger yet,And let us meet, as we have met,Once more beneath this low sunshine;And grateful for the good we 've known,The riddles solved, the ills outgrown,Shake bands upon the border line.The favor, asked too oft before,From your indulgent ears, once moreI crave, and, if belated laysTo slower, feebler measures move,The silent, sympathy of loveTo me is dearer now than praise.And ye, O younger friends, for whomMy hearth and heart keep open room,Come smiling through the shadows long,Be with me while the sun goes down,And with your cheerful voices drownThe minor of my even-song.For, equal through the day and night,The wise Eternal oversightAnd love and power and righteous willRemain: the law of destinyThe best for each and all must be,And life its promise shall fulfil.1881.
I write my name as one,On sands by waves o'errunOr winter's frosted pane,Traces a record vain.Oblivion's blankness claimsWiser and better names,And well my own may passAs from the strand or glass.Wash on, O waves of time!Melt, noons, the frosty rime!Welcome the shadow vast,The silence that shall last.When I and all who knowAnd love me vanish so,What harm to them or meWill the lost memory be?If any words of mine,Through right of life divine,Remain, what matters itWhose hand the message writ?Why should the "crowner's quest"Sit on my worst or best?Why should the showman claimThe poor ghost of my name?Yet, as when dies a soundIts spectre lingers round,Haply my spent life willLeave some faint echo still.A whisper giving breathOf praise or blame to death,Soothing or saddening suchAs loved the living much.Therefore with yearnings vainAnd fond I still would fainA kindly judgment seek,A tender thought bespeak.And, while my words are read,Let this at least be said"Whate'er his life's defeatures,He loved his fellow-creatures."If, of the Law's stone table,To hold he scarce was ableThe first great precept fast,He kept for man the last."Through mortal lapse and dulnessWhat lacks the Eternal Fulness,If still our weakness canLove Him in loving man?"Age brought him no despairingOf the world's future faring;In human nature stillHe found more good than ill."To all who dumbly suffered,His tongue and pen he offered;His life was not his own,Nor lived for self alone."Hater of din and riotHe lived in days unquiet;And, lover of all beauty,Trod the hard ways of duty."He meant no wrong to anyHe sought the good of many,Yet knew both sin and folly,—May God forgive him wholly!"1882.
'Midst the men and things which willHaunt an old man's memory still,Drollest, quaintest of them all,With a boy's laugh I recallGood old Abram Morrison.When the Grist and Rolling MillGround and rumbled by Po Hill,And the old red school-house stoodMidway in the Powow's flood,Here dwelt Abram Morrison.From the Beach to far beyondBear-Hill, Lion's Mouth and Pond,Marvellous to our tough old stock,Chips o' the Anglo-Saxon block,Seemed the Celtic Morrison.Mudknock, Balmawhistle, allOnly knew the Yankee drawl,Never brogue was heard till when,Foremost of his countrymen,Hither came Friend Morrison;Yankee born, of alien blood,Kin of his had well withstoodPope and King with pike and ballUnder Derry's leaguered wall,As became the Morrisons.Wandering down from Nutfield woodsWith his household and his goods,Never was it clearly toldHow within our quiet foldCame to be a Morrison.Once a soldier, blame him notThat the Quaker he forgot,When, to think of battles won,And the red-coats on the run,Laughed aloud Friend Morrison.From gray Lewis over seaBore his sires their family tree,On the rugged boughs of itGrafting Irish mirth and wit,And the brogue of Morrison.Half a genius, quick to plan,Blundering like an Irishman,But with canny shrewdness lentBy his far-off Scotch descent,Such was Abram Morrison.Back and forth to daily meals,Rode his cherished pig on wheels,And to all who came to see"Aisier for the pig an' me,Sure it is," said Morrison.Simple-hearted, boy o'er-grown,With a humor quite his own,Of our sober-stepping ways,Speech and look and cautious phrase,Slow to learn was Morrison.Much we loved his stories toldOf a country strange and old,Where the fairies danced till dawn,And the goblin LeprecaunLooked, we thought, like Morrison.Or wild tales of feud and fight,Witch and troll and second sightWhispered still where StornowayLooks across its stormy bay,Once the home of Morrisons.First was he to sing the praiseOf the Powow's winding ways;And our straggling village tookCity grandeur to the lookOf its poet Morrison.All his words have perished. ShameOn the saddle-bags of Fame,That they bring not to our timeOne poor couplet of the rhymeMade by Abram Morrison!When, on calm and fair First Days,Rattled down our one-horse chaise,Through the blossomed apple-boughsTo the old, brown meeting-house,There was Abram Morrison.Underneath his hat's broad brimPeered the queer old face of him;And with Irish jauntinessSwung the coat-tails of the dressWorn by Abram Morrison.Still, in memory, on his feet,Leaning o'er the elders' seat,Mingling with a solemn drone,Celtic accents all his own,Rises Abram Morrison."Don't," he's pleading, "don't ye go,Dear young friends, to sight and show,Don't run after elephants,Learned pigs and presidentsAnd the likes!" said Morrison.On his well-worn theme intent,Simple, child-like, innocent,Heaven forgive the half-checked smileOf our careless boyhood, whileListening to Friend Morrison!We have learned in later daysTruth may speak in simplest phrase;That the man is not the lessFor quaint ways and home-spun dress,Thanks to Abram Morrison!Not to pander nor to pleaseCome the needed homilies,With no lofty argumentIs the fitting message sent,Through such lips as Morrison's.Dead and gone! But while its trackPowow keeps to Merrimac,While Po Hill is still on guard,Looking land and ocean ward,They shall tell of Morrison!After half a century's lapse,We are wiser now, perhaps,But we miss our streets amidSomething which the past has hid,Lost with Abram Morrison.Gone forever with the queerCharacters of that old yearNow the many are as one;Broken is the mould that runMen like Abram Morrison.1884.
Friend of my many yearsWhen the great silence falls, at last, on me,Let me not leave, to pain and sadden thee,A memory of tears,But pleasant thoughts aloneOf one who was thy friendship's honored guestAnd drank the wine of consolation pressedFrom sorrows of thy own.I leave with thee a senseOf hands upheld and trials rendered less—The unselfish joy which is to helpfulnessIts own great recompense;The knowledge that from thine,As from the garments of the Master, stoleCalmness and strength, the virtue which makes wholeAnd heals without a sign;Yea more, the assurance strongThat love, which fails of perfect utterance here,Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphereWith its immortal song.1887.
Where Time the measure of his hoursBy changeful bud and blossom keeps,And, like a young bride crowned with flowers,Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;Where, to her poet's turban stone,The Spring her gift of flowers imparts,Less sweet than those his thoughts have sownIn the warm soil of Persian hearts:There sat the stranger, where the shadeOf scattered date-trees thinly lay,While in the hot clear heaven delayedThe long and still and weary day.Strange trees and fruits above him hung,Strange odors filled the sultry air,Strange birds upon the branches swung,Strange insect voices murmured there.And strange bright blossoms shone around,Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers,As if the Gheber's soul had foundA fitting home in Iran's flowers.Whate'er he saw, whate'er he heard,Awakened feelings new and sad,—No Christian garb, nor Christian word,Nor church with Sabbath-bell chimes glad,But Moslem graves, with turban stones,And mosque-spires gleaming white, in view,And graybeard Mollahs in low tonesChanting their Koran service through.The flowers which smiled on either hand,Like tempting fiends, were such as theyWhich once, o'er all that Eastern land,As gifts on demon altars lay.As if the burning eye of BaalThe servant of his Conqueror knew,From skies which knew no cloudy veil,The Sun's hot glances smote him through."Ah me!" the lonely stranger said,"The hope which led my footsteps on,And light from heaven around them shed,O'er weary wave and waste, is gone!"Where are the harvest fields all white,For Truth to thrust her sickle in?Where flock the souls, like doves in flight,From the dark hiding-place of sin?"A silent-horror broods o'er all,—The burden of a hateful spell,—The very flowers around recallThe hoary magi's rites of hell!"And what am I, o'er such a landThe banner of the Cross to bear?Dear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand,Thy strength with human weakness share!"He ceased; for at his very feetIn mild rebuke a floweret smiled;How thrilled his sinking heart to greetThe Star-flower of the Virgin's child!Sown by some wandering Frank, it drewIts life from alien air and earth,And told to Paynim sun and dewThe story of the Saviour's birth.From scorching beams, in kindly mood,The Persian plants its beauty screened,And on its pagan sisterhood,In love, the Christian floweret leaned.With tears of joy the wanderer feltThe darkness of his long despairBefore that hallowed symbol melt,Which God's dear love had nurtured there.From Nature's face, that simple flowerThe lines of sin and sadness swept;And Magian pile and Paynim bowerIn peace like that of Eden slept.Each Moslem tomb, and cypress old,Looked holy through the sunset air;And, angel-like, the Muezzin toldFrom tower and mosque the hour of prayer.With cheerful steps, the morrow's dawnFrom Shiraz saw the stranger part;The Star-flower of the Virgin-BornStill blooming in his hopeful heart!1830.
"Get ye up from the wrath of God's terrible day!Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and away!'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the fulness of time,And vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime!"The warning was spoken—the righteous had gone,And the proud ones of Sodom were feasting alone;All gay was the banquet—the revel was long,With the pouring of wine and the breathing of song.'T was an evening of beauty; the air was perfume,The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom;And softly the delicate viol was heard,Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird.And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance,With the magic of motion and sunshine of glanceAnd white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell freeAs the plumage of birds in some tropical tree.Where the shrines of foul idols were lighted on high,And wantonness tempted the lust of the eye;Midst rites of obsceneness, strange, loathsome, abhorred,The blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord.Hark! the growl of the thunder,—the quaking of earth!Woe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth!The black sky has opened; there's flame in the air;The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare!Then the shriek of the dying rose wild where the songAnd the low tone of love had been whispered along;For the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace and bower,Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and devour!Down, down on the fallen the red ruin rained,And the reveller sank with his wine-cup undrained;The foot of the dancer, the music's loved thrill,And the shout and the laughter grew suddenly still.The last throb of anguish was fearfully given;The last eye glared forth in its madness on Heaven!The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain,And death brooded over the pride of the Plain!1831.
Not always as the whirlwind's rushOn Horeb's mount of fear,Not always as the burning bushTo Midian's shepherd seer,Nor as the awful voice which cameTo Israel's prophet bards,Nor as the tongues of cloven flame,Nor gift of fearful words,—Not always thus, with outward signOf fire or voice from Heaven,The message of a truth divine,The call of God is given!Awaking in the human heartLove for the true and right,—Zeal for the Christian's better part,Strength for the Christian's fight.Nor unto manhood's heart aloneThe holy influence stealsWarm with a rapture not its own,The heart of woman feels!As she who by Samaria's wallThe Saviour's errand sought,—As those who with the fervent PaulAnd meek Aquila wrought:Or those meek ones whose martyrdomRome's gathered grandeur sawOr those who in their Alpine homeBraved the Crusader's war,When the green Vaudois, trembling, heard,Through all its vales of death,The martyr's song of triumph pouredFrom woman's failing breath.And gently, by a thousand thingsWhich o'er our spirits pass,Like breezes o'er the harp's fine strings,Or vapors o'er a glass,Leaving their token strange and newOf music or of shade,The summons to the right and trueAnd merciful is made.Oh, then, if gleams of truth and lightFlash o'er thy waiting mind,Unfolding to thy mental sightThe wants of human-kind;If, brooding over human grief,The earnest wish is knownTo soothe and gladden with reliefAn anguish not thine own;Though heralded with naught of fear,Or outward sign or show;Though only to the inward earIt whispers soft and low;Though dropping, as the manna fell,Unseen, yet from above,Noiseless as dew-fall, heed it well,—-Thy Father's call of love!
Sunlight upon Judha's hills!And on the waves of Galilee;On Jordan's stream, and on the rillsThat feed the dead and sleeping sea!Most freshly from the green wood springsThe light breeze on its scented wings;And gayly quiver in the sunThe cedar tops of Lebanon!A few more hours,—a change hath come!The sky is dark without a cloud!The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,And proud knees unto earth are bowed.A change is on the hill of Death,The helmed watchers pant for breath,And turn with wild and maniac eyesFrom the dark scene of sacrifice!That Sacrifice!—the death of Him,—The Christ of God, the holy One!Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim,And blacken the beholding, Sun.The wonted light hath fled away,Night settles on the middle day,And earthquake from his caverned bedIs waking with a thrill of dread!The dead are waking underneath!Their prison door is rent away!And, ghastly with the seal of death,They wander in the eye of day!The temple of the Cherubim,The House of God is cold and dim;A curse is on its trembling walls,Its mighty veil asunder falls!Well may the cavern-depths of EarthBe shaken, and her mountains nod;Well may the sheeted dead come forthTo see the suffering son of God!Well may the temple-shrine grow dim,And shadows veil the Cherubim,When He, the chosen one of Heaven,A sacrifice for guilt is given!And shall the sinful heart, alone,Behold unmoved the fearful hour,When Nature trembled on her throne,And Death resigned his iron power?Oh, shall the heart—whose sinfulnessGave keenness to His sore distress,And added to His tears of blood—Refuse its trembling gratitude!1834.
Blest land of Judaea! thrice hallowed of song,Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng;In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.With the eye of a spirit I look on that shoreWhere pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sodMade bright by the steps of the angels of God.Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hearThy waters, Gennesaret, chime on my ear;Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to seeThe gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!Hark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong,Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along;Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain,And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain.There down from his mountains stern Zebulon came,And Naphthali's stag, with his eyeballs of flame,And the chariots of Jabin rolled harmlessly on,For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son!There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rangTo the song which the beautiful prophetess sang,When the princes of Issachar stood by her side,And the shout of a host in its triumph replied.Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen,With the mountains around, and the valleys between;There rested the shepherds of Judah, and thereThe song of the angels rose sweet on the air.And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throwTheir shadows at noon on the ruins below;But where are the sisters who hastened to greetThe lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet?I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod;I stand where they stood with the chosen of God—Where His blessing was heard and His lessons were taught,Where the blind were restored and the healing was wrought.Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came;These hills He toiled over in grief are the same;The founts where He drank by the wayside still flow,And the same airs are blowing which breathed on His brow!And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet;For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone,And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.But wherefore this dream of the earthly abodeOf Humanity clothed in the brightness of God?Were my spirit but turned from the outward and dim,It could gaze, even now, on the presence of Him!Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when,In love and in meekness, He moved among men;And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the seaIn the hush of my spirit would whisper to me!And what if my feet may not tread where He stood,Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood,Nor my eyes see the cross which he bowed Him to bear,Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer.Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is nearTo the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here;And the voice of Thy love is the same even nowAs at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow.Oh, the outward hath gone! but in glory and power.The spirit surviveth the things of an hour;Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flameOn the heart's secret altar is burning the same1837.
I."Encore un hymne, O ma lyreUn hymn pour le Seigneur,Un hymne dans mon delire,Un hymne dans mon bonheur."
One hymn more, O my lyre!Praise to the God above,Of joy and life and love,Sweeping its strings of fire!Oh, who the speed of bird and windAnd sunbeam's glance will lend to me,That, soaring upward, I may findMy resting-place and home in Thee?Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom,Adoreth with a fervent flame,—Mysterious spirit! unto whomPertain nor sign nor name!Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go,Up from the cold and joyless earth,Back to the God who bade them flow,Whose moving spirit sent them forth.But as for me, O God! for me,The lowly creature of Thy will,Lingering and sad, I sigh to Thee,An earth-bound pilgrim still!Was not my spirit born to shineWhere yonder stars and suns are glowing?To breathe with them the light divineFrom God's own holy altar flowing?To be, indeed, whate'er the soulIn dreams hath thirsted for so long,—A portion of heaven's glorious wholeOf loveliness and song?Oh, watchers of the stars at night,Who breathe their fire, as we the air,—Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light,Oh, say, is He, the Eternal, there?Bend there around His awful throneThe seraph's glance, the angel's knee?Or are thy inmost depths His own,O wild and mighty sea?Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go!Swift as the eagle's glance of fire,Or arrows from the archer's bow,To the far aim of your desire!Thought after thought, ye thronging rise,Like spring-doves from the startled wood,Bearing like them your sacrificeOf music unto God!And shall these thoughts of joy and loveCome back again no more to me?Returning like the patriarch's doveWing-weary from the eternal sea,To bear within my longing armsThe promise-bough of kindlier skies,Plucked from the green, immortal palmsWhich shadow Paradise?All-moving spirit! freely forthAt Thy command the strong wind goesIts errand to the passive earth,Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose,Until it folds its weary wingOnce more within the hand divine;So, weary from its wandering,My spirit turns to Thine!Child of the sea, the mountain stream,From its dark caverns, hurries on,Ceaseless, by night and morning's beam,By evening's star and noontide's sun,Until at last it sinks to rest,O'erwearied, in the waiting sea,And moans upon its mother's breast,—So turns my soul to Thee!O Thou who bidst the torrent flow,Who lendest wings unto the wind,—Mover of all things! where art Thou?Oh, whither shall I go to findThe secret of Thy resting-place?Is there no holy wing for me,That, soaring, I may search the spaceOf highest heaven for Thee?Oh, would I were as free to riseAs leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne,—The arrowy light of sunset skies,Or sound, or ray, or star of morn,Which melts in heaven at twilight's close,Or aught which soars unchecked and freeThrough earth and heaven; that I might loseMyself in finding Thee!
II.LE CRI DE L'AME."Quand le souffle divin qui flotte sur le monde."When the breath divine is flowing,Zephyr-like o'er all things going,And, as the touch of viewless fingers,Softly on my soul it lingers,Open to a breath the lightest,Conscious of a touch the slightest,—As some calm, still lake, whereonSinks the snowy-bosomed swan,And the glistening water-ringsCircle round her moving wingsWhen my upward gaze is turningWhere the stars of heaven are burningThrough the deep and dark abyss,Flowers of midnight's wilderness,Blowing with the evening's breathSweetly in their Maker's pathWhen the breaking day is flushingAll the east, and light is gushingUpward through the horizon's haze,Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays,Spreading, until all aboveOverflows with joy and love,And below, on earth's green bosom,All is changed to light and blossom:When my waking fancies overForms of brightness flit and hoverHoly as the seraphs are,Who by Zion's fountains wearOn their foreheads, white and broad,"Holiness unto the Lord!"When, inspired with rapture high,It would seem a single sighCould a world of love create;That my life could know no date,And my eager thoughts could fillHeaven and Earth, o'erflowing still!Then, O Father! Thou alone,From the shadow of Thy throne,To the sighing of my breastAnd its rapture answerest.All my thoughts, which, upward winging,Bathe where Thy own light is springing,—All my yearnings to be freeAre at echoes answering Thee!Seldom upon lips of mine,Father! rests that name of Thine;Deep within my inmost breast,In the secret place of mind,Like an awful presence shrined,Doth the dread idea restHushed and holy dwells it there,Prompter of the silent prayer,Lifting up my spirit's eyeAnd its faint, but earnest cry,From its dark and cold abode,Unto Thee, my Guide and God!1837