The weary mill-girl lingersBeside the charmed stream,And the sky and the golden waterShape and color her dream.Fair wave the sunset gardens,The rosy signals fly;Her homestead beckons from the cloud,And love goes sailing by!
Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars,And nursed by winter gales,With petals of the sleeted spars,And leaves of frozen sailsWhat had she in those dreary hours,Within her ice-rimmed bay,In common with the wild-wood flowers,The first sweet smiles of May?Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said,Who saw the blossoms peerAbove the brown leaves, dry anal dead"Behold our Mayflower here!""God wills it: here our rest shall beOur years of wandering o'er;For us the Mayflower of the sea,Shall spread her sails no more."O sacred flowers of faith and hope,As sweetly now as thenYe bloom on many a birchen slope,In many a pine-dark glen.Behind the sea-wall's rugged length,Unchanged, your, leaves unfoldLike love behind the manly strengthOf the brave hearts of old.So live the fathers in their sons,Their sturdy faith be ours,And ours the love that overrunsIts rocky strength with flowers.The Pilgrim's wild and wintry dayIts shadow round us draws;The Mayflower of his stormy bay,Our Freedom's struggling cause.But warmer suns erelong shall bringTo life the frozen sod;And, through dead leaves of hope, shall springAfresh the flowers of Cod!
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going homeThou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.Long through thy weary crowds I roam;A river-ark on the ocean brine,Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;But now, proud world! I'm going home.Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;To Grandeur with his wise grimace;To upstart Wealth's averted eye;To supple Office, low and high;To crowded halls, to court and street;To frozen hearts and hasting feet;To those who go, and those who come;Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.I am going to my own hearth-stone,Bosomed in yon green hills alone,—A secret nook in a pleasant land,Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;Where arches green, the livelong day,Echo the blackbird's roundelay,And vulgar feet have never trodA spot that is sacred to thought and Cod.O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;And when I am stretched beneath the pines,Where the evening star so holy shines,I laugh at the lore and the pride of manAt the sophist schools and the learned clan;For what are they all, in their high conceit,Where man in the bush with God may meet?
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clownOf thee from the hill-top looking down;The heifer that lows in the upland faun,Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,Deems not that great NapoleonStops his horse, and lists with delight,Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;Nor knowest thou what argumentThy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.All are needed by each one;Nothing is fair or good alone.I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,Singing at dawn on the alder bough;I brought him home, in his nest, at even;He sings the song, but it cheers not now,For I did not bring home the river and sky;—He sang to my ear,—they sang to my eye.The delicate shells lay on the shore;The bubbles of the latest waveFresh pearls to their enamel gave,And the bellowing of the savage seaGreeted their safe escape to me.I wiped away the weeds and foam,I fetched my sea-born treasures home,But the poor, unsightly, noisome thingsHad left their beauty on the shoreWith the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.The lover watched his graceful maid,As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,Nor knew her beauty's best attireWas woven still by the snow-white choir.At last she came to his hermitage,Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;—The gay enchantment was undone,A gentle wife, but fairy none.Then I said, "I covet truth;Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;I leave it behind with the games of youth:—As I spoke, beneath my feetThe ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,Running over the club-moss burrs;I inhaled the violet's breath;Around me stood the oaks and firs;Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;Over me soared the eternal sky,Full of light and of deity;Again I saw, again I heard,The rolling river, the morning bird;—Beauty through my senses stole;I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
I like a church; I like a cowl;I love a prophet of the soul;And on my heart monastic aislesFall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;Yet not for all his faith can seeWould I that cowled churchman be.Why should the vest on him allure,Which I could not on me endure?Not from a vain or shallow thoughtHis awful Jove young Phidias brought;Never from lips of cunning fellThe thrilling Delphic oracle;Out from the heart of nature rolledThe burdens of the Bible old;The litanies of nations came,Like the volcano's tongue of flame,Up from the burning core below,—The canticles of love and woeThe hand that rounded Peter's domeAnd groined the aisles of Christian Rome;Wrought in a sad sincerity;Himself from God he could not free;He budded better than he knew;—The conscious stone to beauty grew.Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nestOf leaves, and feathers from her breast?Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,Painting with morn each annual cell?Or how the sacred pine-tree addsTo her old leaves new myriads?Such and so grew these holy piles,Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,As the best gem upon her zone,And Morning opes with haste her lidsTo gaze upon the Pyramids;O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,As on its friends, with kindred eye;For out of Thought's interior sphereThese wonders rose to upper air;And Nature gladly gave them place,Adopted them into her race,And granted them an equal dateWith Andes and With Ararat.These temples grew as grows the grassesArt might obey, but not surpass.The passive Master lent his handTo the vast soul that o'er him planned;And the same power that reared the shrineBestrode the tribes that knelt within.Ever the fiery PentecostGirds with one flame the countless host,Trances the heart through chanting choirs,And through the priest the mind inspires.The word unto the prophet spokenWas writ on tables yet unbroken;The word by seers or sibyls told,In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,Still floats upon the morning wind,Still whispers to the willing mind.One accent of the Holy GhostThe heedless world hath never lost.I know what say the fathers wise,The book itself before me lies,Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,And he who blent both in his line,The younger Golden Lips or mines,Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines.His words are music in my ear,I see his cowled portrait dear;And yet, for all his faith could see,I would not the good bishop be.
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 beingWhy thou went 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 dominionSailor 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 dolt 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 philosopherSeeing 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 blast,Cools 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.
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 and see the north wind's masonry.Out of an unseen quarry evermoreFurnished 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.
The mountain and the squirrelHad a quarrel,And the former called the latter "Little Prig";Bun replied,"You are doubtless very big;But all sorts of things and weatherMust be taken in together,To make up a yearAnd a sphere.And I think it no disgraceTo occupy my place.If I'm not so large as you,You are not so small as I,And not half so spry.I'll snot deny you makeA very pretty squirrel track;Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;If I cannot carry forests on my back,Neither can you crack a nut."
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse?Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?And loved so well a high behavior,In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,Nobility more nobly to repay?O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!
APRIL 19, 1836
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stoodAnd fired the shot heard round the world.The foe long since in silence slept;Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;And Time the ruined bridge has sweptDown the dark stream which seaward creep.On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set to-day a votive stone;That memory may their deed redeem,When, like our sires, our sons are gone.Spirit, that made those heroes dareTo die, and leave their children free,Time and Nature gently spareThe shaft we raise to them and thee.
The word of the Lord by nightTo the watching Pilgrims came,As they sat beside the seaside,And filled their hearts with flame.Cod said, I am tired of kings,I suffer them no more;Up to my ear the morning bringsThe outrage of the poor.Think ve I made this ballA field of havoc and war,Where tyrants great and tyrants smallMight harry the weak and poor?My angel,—his name is Freedom,Choose him to be your king;He shall cut pathways east and westAnd fend you with his wing.Lo! I uncover the landWhich I hid of old time in the West,As the sculptor uncovers the statueWhen he has wrought his best;I show Columbia, of the rocksWhich dip their foot in the seasAnd soar to the air-borne flocksOf clouds and the boreal fleece.I will divide my goods;Call in the wretch and slaveNone shall rule but the humble,And none but Toil shall have.I will have never a noble,No lineage counted great;Fishers and choppers and ploughmenShall constitute a state.Go, cut down trees in the forestAnd trim the straightest boughs;Cut down trees in the forestAnd build me a wooden house.Call the people together,The young men and the sires,The digger in the harvest-field,Hireling and him that hires;And here in a pine state-houseThey shall choose men to ruleIn every needful faculty,In church and state and school.Lo, now! if these poor menCan govern the land and the seaAnd make just laws below the sun,As planets faithful be.And ye shall succor men;'Tis nobleness to serve;Help them who cannot help againBeware from right to swerve.I break your bonds and masterships,And I unchain the slaveFree be his heart and hand henceforthAs wind and wandering wave.I cause from every creatureHis proper good to flowAs much as he is and doeth,So much he shall bestow.But, laying hands on anotherTo coin his labor and sweat,He goes in pawn to his victimFor eternal years in debt.To-day unbind the captive,So only are ye unbound;Lift up a people from the dust,Trump of their rescue, sound!Pay ransom to the ownerAnd fill the bag to the brim.Who is the owner? The slave is owner,And ever was. Pay him.O North! give him beauty for rags,And honor, O South! for his shame;Nevada! coin thy golden cragsWith Freedom's image and name.Up! and the dusky raceThat sat in darkness long,—Be swift their feet as antelopes,And as behemoth strong.Come, East and West and North,By races, as snow-flakes,And carry my purpose forth,Which neither halts nor shakes.My will fulfilled shall be,For, in daylight or in dark,My thunderbolt has eyes to seeHis way home to the mark.
You shall not be overboldWhen you deal with arctic cold,As late I found my lukewarm bloodChilled wading in the snow-choked wood.How should I fight? my foeman fineHas million arms to one of mineEast, west, for aid I looked in vain,East, west, north, south, are his domain,Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;Must borrow his winds who there would come.Up and away for life! be fleet!—The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,Sings in my ears, my hands are stonesCurdles the blood to the marble bones,Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,And hems in life with narrowing fence.Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,—The punctual stars will vigil keep,—Embalmed by purifying cold;The winds shall sing their dead-march old,The snow is no ignoble shroud,The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.Softly—but this way fate was pointing,'Twas coming fast to such anointing,When piped a tiny voice hard by,Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,Chic-chic-a-dee-dee! saucy noteOut of sound heart and merry throat,As if it said, "Good day, good sir!Fine afternoon, old passenger!Happy to meet you in these placesWhere January brings few faces."This poet, though he lived apart,Moved by his hospitable heart,Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,To do the honors of his court,As fits a feathered lord of land;Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,Prints his small impress on the snow,Shows feats of his gymnastic play,Head downward, clinging to the spray.Here was this atom in full breath,Hurling defiance at vast death;This scrap of valor just for playFronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray,As if to shame my weak behavior;I greeted loud my little savior,"You pet! what dost here? and what for?In these woods, thy small Labrador,At this pinch, wee San Salvador!What fire burns in that little chestSo frolic, stout and self-possest?Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine;Ashes and jet all hues outshine.Why are not diamonds black and gray,To ape thy dare-devil array?And I affirm, the spacious NorthExists to draw thy virtue forth.I think no virtue goes with size;The reason of all cowardiceIs, that men are overgrown,And, to be valiant, must come downTo the titmouse dimension."'Tis good will makes intelligence,And I began to catch the senseOf my bird's song: "Live out of doorsIn the great woods, on prairie floors.I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,I too have a hole in a hollow tree;And I like less when Summer beatsWith stifling beams on these retreats,Than noontide twilights which snow makesWith tempest of the blinding flakes.For well the soul, if stout within,Can arm impregnably the skin;And polar frost my frame defied,Made of the air that blows outside."With glad remembrance of my debt,I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!When here again thy pilgrim comes,He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs,Doubt not, so long as earth has bread,Thou first and foremost shah be fed;The Providence that is most largeTakes hearts like throe in special charge,Helps who for their own need are strong,And the sky dotes on cheerful song.Henceforth I prize thy wiry chantO'er all that mass and minster vaunt;For men mis-hear thy call in Spring,As 'twould accost some frivolous wing,Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be!And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee!I think old Caesar must have heardIn northern Gaul my dauntless bird,And, echoed in some frosty wold,Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.And I will write our annals new,And thank thee for a better clew,I, who dreamed not when I came herTo find the antidote of fear,Now hear thee say in Roman key.Paean! Veni, vidi, vici.
Then Thorstein looked at Hakon, where he sate,Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall,And said: "O Skald, sing now an olden song,Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;And, as the bravest on a shield is borneAlong the waving host that shouts him king,So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!"Then the old man arose; white-haired he stood,White-bearded with eyes that looked afarFrom their still region of perpetual snow,Over the little smokes and stirs of men:His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years,As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine,But something triumphed in his brow and eye,Which whoso saw it, could not see and crouch:Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused,Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an eagleCircles smooth-winged above the wind-vexed woods,So wheeled his soul into the air of songHigh o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang:"The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks outWood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as light;And, from a quiver full of such as these,The wary bow-man, matched against his peers,Long doubting, singles yet once more the best.Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate?What archer of his arrows is so choice,Or hits the white so surely? They are men,The chosen of her quiver; nor for herWill every reed suffice, or cross-grained stickAt random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:Such answer household ends; but she will haveSouls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, soundDown to the heart of heart; from these she stripsAll needless stuff, all sapwood; hardens them;From circumstance untoward feathers plucksCrumpled and cheap; and barbs with iron will:The hour that passes is her quiver-boy;When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind,Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow sings,For sun and wind have plighted faith to herEre men have heard the sinew twang, behold,In the butt's heart her trembling messenger!"The song is old and simple that I sing;Good were the days of yore, when men were triedBy ring of shields, as now by ring of gold;But, while the gods are left, and hearts of men,And the free ocean, still the days are good;Through the broad Earth roams OpportunityAnd knocks at every door of but or hall,Until she finds the brave soul that she wants."He ceased, and instantly the frothy tideOf interrupted wassail roared along;But Leif, the son of Eric, sat apartMusing, and, with his eyes upon the fire,Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen;lint then with that resolve his heart was bent,Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripeOf day and night across the unventured seas,Shot the brave prow to cut on Vinland sandsThe first rune in the Saga of the West.
O poet! above all men blest,Take heed that thus thou store them;Love, Hope, and Faith shall ever rest,Sweet birds (upon how sweet a nest!)Watchfully brooding o'er them.And from those flowers of ParadiseScatter thou many a blessed seed,Wherefrom an offspring may ariseTo cheer the hearts and light the eyesOf after-voyagers in their need.They shall not fall on stony ground,But, yielding all their hundred-fold,Shall shed a peacefulness around,Whose strengthening joy may not be told!So shall thy name be blest of all,And thy remembrance never die;For of that seed shall surely fallIn the fair garden of Eternity,Exult then m the noblenessOf this thy work so holy,Yet be not thou one jot the lessHumble and meek and lowly,But let throe exultation beThe reverence of a bended knee;And by thy life a poem write,Built strongly day by day—on the rock of Truth and RightIts deep foundations lay.