BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.. . come i gru van cantando lor lai, Facendo in aer di se lunga riga. — DANTEFLIGHT THE FIRSTBIRDS OF PASSAGEBlack shadows fallFrom the lindens tall,That lift aloft their massive wallAgainst the southern sky;And from the realmsOf the shadowy elmsA tide-like darkness overwhelmsThe fields that round us lie.But the night is fair,And everywhereA warm, soft vapor fills the air,And distant sounds seem near,And above, in the lightOf the star-lit night,Swift birds of passage wing their flightThrough the dewy atmosphere.I hear the beatOf their pinions fleet,As from the land of snow and sleetThey seek a southern lea.I hear the cryOf their voices highFalling dreamily through the sky,But their forms I cannot see.O, say not so!Those sounds that flowIn murmurs of delight and woeCome not from wings of birds.They are the throngsOf the poet's songs,Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,The sound of winged words.This is the cryOf souls, that highOn toiling, beating pinions, fly,Seeking a warmer clime,From their distant flightThrough realms of lightIt falls into our world of night,With the murmuring sound of rhyme.PROMETHEUSOR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHTOf Prometheus, how undauntedOn Olympus' shining bastionsHis audacious foot he planted,Myths are told and songs are chanted,Full of promptings and suggestions.Beautiful is the traditionOf that flight through heavenly portals,The old classic superstitionOf the theft and the transmissionOf the fire of the Immortals!First the deed of noble daring,Born of heavenward aspiration,Then the fire with mortals sharing,Then the vulture,—the despairingCry of pain on crags Caucasian.All is but a symbol paintedOf the Poet, Prophet, Seer;Only those are crowned and saintedWho with grief have been acquainted,Making nations nobler, freer.In their feverish exultations,In their triumph and their yearning,In their passionate pulsations,In their words among the nations,The Promethean fire is burning.Shall it, then, be unavailing,All this toil for human culture?Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing,Must they see above them sailingO'er life's barren crags the vulture?Such a fate as this was Dante's,By defeat and exile maddened;Thus were Milton and Cervantes,Nature's priests and Corybantes,By affliction touched and saddened.But the glories so transcendentThat around their memories cluster,And, on all their steps attendant,Make their darkened lives resplendentWith such gleams of inward lustre!All the melodies mysterious,Through the dreary darkness chanted;Thoughts in attitudes imperious,Voices soft, and deep, and serious,Words that whispered, songs that haunted!All the soul in rapt suspension,All the quivering, palpitatingChords of life in utmost tension,With the fervor of invention,With the rapture of creating!Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling!In such hours of exultationEven the faintest heart, unquailing,Might behold the vulture sailingRound the cloudy crags Caucasian!Though to all there is not givenStrength for such sublime endeavor,Thus to scale the walls of heaven,And to leaven with fiery leavenAll the hearts of men for ever;Yet all bards, whose hearts unblightedHonor and believe the presage,Hold aloft their torches lighted,Gleaming through the realms benighted,As they onward bear the message!EPIMETHEUSOR THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHTHave I dreamed? or was it real,What I saw as in a vision,When to marches hymenealIn the land of the IdealMoved my thought o'er Fields Elysian?What! are these the guests whose glancesSeemed like sunshine gleaming round me?These the wild, bewildering fancies,That with dithyrambic dancesAs with magic circles bound me?Ah! how cold are their caresses!Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms!Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,And from loose dishevelled tressesFall the hyacinthine blossoms!O my songs! whose winsome measuresFilled my heart with secret rapture!Children of my golden leisures!Must even your delights and pleasuresFade and perish with the capture?Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,When they came to me unbidden;Voices single, and in chorus,Like the wild birds singing o'er usIn the dark of branches hidden.Disenchantment!  Disillusion!Must each noble aspirationCome at last to this conclusion,Jarring discord, wild confusion,Lassitude, renunciation?Not with steeper fall nor faster,From the sun's serene dominions,Not through brighter realms nor vaster,In swift ruin and disaster,Icarus fell with shattered pinions!Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!Why did mighty Jove create theeCoy as Thetis, fair as Flora,Beautiful as young Aurora,If to win thee is to hate thee?No, not hate thee! for this feelingOf unrest and long resistanceIs but passionate appealing,A prophetic whisper stealingO'er the chords of our existence.Him whom thou dost once enamour,Thou, beloved, never leavest;In life's discord, strife, and clamor,Still he feels thy spell of glamour;Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.Weary hearts by thee are lifted,Struggling souls by thee are strengthened,Clouds of fear asunder rifted,Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!Therefore art thou ever clearer,O my Sibyl, my deceiver!For thou makest each mystery clearer,And the unattained seems nearer,When thou fillest my heart with fever!Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!Though the fields around us wither,There are ampler realms and spaces,Where no foot has left its traces:Let us turn and wander thither!THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINESaint Augustine! well hast thou said,That of our vices we can frameA ladder, if we will but treadBeneath our feet each deed of shame!All common things, each day's events,That with the hour begin and end,Our pleasures and our discontents,Are rounds by which we may ascend.The low desire, the base design,That makes another's virtues less;The revel of the ruddy wine,And all occasions of excess;The longing for ignoble things;The strife for triumph more than truth;The hardening of the heart, that bringsIrreverence for the dreams of youth;All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,That have their root in thoughts of ill;Whatever hinders or impedesThe action of the nobler will;—All these must first be trampled downBeneath our feet, if we would gainIn the bright fields of fair renownThe right of eminent domain.We have not wings, we cannot soar;But we have feet to scale and climbBy slow degrees, by more and more,The cloudy summits of our time.The mighty pyramids of stoneThat wedge-like cleave the desert airs,When nearer seen, and better known,Are but gigantic flights of stairs.The distant mountains, that uprearTheir solid bastions to the skies,Are crossed by pathways, that appearAs we to higher levels rise.The heights by great men reached and keptWere not attained by sudden flight,But they, while their companions slept,Were toiling upward in the night.Standing on what too long we boreWith shoulders bent and downcast eyes,We may discern—unseen before—A path to higher destinies.Nor deem the irrevocable Past,As wholly wasted, wholly vain,If, rising on its wrecks, at lastTo something nobler we attain.THE PHANTOM SHIPIn Mather's Magnalia Christi,Of the old colonial time,May be found in prose the legendThat is here set down in rhyme.A ship sailed from New Haven,And the keen and frosty airs,That filled her sails at parting,Were heavy with good men's prayers."O Lord! if it be thy pleasure"—Thus prayed the old divine—"To bury our friends in the ocean,Take them, for they are thine!"But Master Lamberton muttered,And under his breath said he,"This ship is so crank and waltyI fear our grave she will be!"And the ships that came from England,When the winter months were gone,Brought no tidings of this vesselNor of Master Lamberton.This put the people to prayingThat the Lord would let them hearWhat in his greater wisdomHe had done with friends so dear.And at last their prayers were answered:—It was in the month of June,An hour before the sunsetOf a windy afternoon,When, steadily steering landward,A ship was seen below,And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,Who sailed so long ago.On she came, with a cloud of canvas,Right against the wind that blew,Until the eye could distinguishThe faces of the crew.Then fell her straining topmasts,Hanging tangled in the shrouds,And her sails were loosened and lifted,And blown away like clouds.And the masts, with all their rigging,Fell slowly, one by one,And the hulk dilated and vanished,As a sea-mist in the sun!And the people who saw this marvelEach said unto his friend,That this was the mould of their vessel,And thus her tragic end.And the pastor of the villageGave thanks to God in prayer,That, to quiet their troubled spirits,He had sent this Ship of Air.THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTSA mist was driving down the British Channel,The day was just begun,And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,Streamed the red autumn sun.It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,And the white sails of ships;And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannonHailed it with feverish lips.Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and DoverWere all alert that day,To see the French war-steamers speeding over,When the fog cleared away.Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,Their cannon, through the night,Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,The sea-coast opposite.And now they roared at drum-beat from their stationsOn every citadel;Each answering each, with morning salutations,That all was well.And down the coast, all taking up the burden,Replied the distant forts,As if to summon from his sleep the WardenAnd Lord of the Cinque Ports.Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,No drum-beat from the wall,No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure,Awaken with its call!No more, surveying with an eye impartialThe long line of the coast,Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field MarshalBe seen upon his post!For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,In sombre harness mailed,Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,The rampart wall has scaled.He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,The dark and silent room,And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,The silence and the gloom.He did not pause to parley or dissemble,But smote the Warden hoar;Ah! what a blow! that made all England trembleAnd groan from shore to shore.Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,The sun rose bright o'erhead;Nothing in Nature's aspect intimatedThat a great man was dead.HAUNTED HOUSESAll houses wherein men have lived and diedAre haunted houses.  Through the open doorsThe harmless phantoms on their errands glide,With feet that make no sound upon the floors.We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,Along the passages they come and go,Impalpable impressions on the air,A sense of something moving to and fro.There are more guests at table, than the hostsInvited; the illuminated hallIs thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,As silent as the pictures on the wall.The stranger at my fireside cannot seeThe forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;He but perceives what is; while unto meAll that has been is visible and clear.We have no title-deeds to house or lands;Owners and occupants of earlier datesFrom graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,And hold in mortmain still their old estates.The spirit-world around this world of senseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapors denseA vital breath of more ethereal air.Our little lives are kept in equipoiseBy opposite attractions and desires;The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,And the more noble instinct that aspires.These perturbations, this perpetual jarOf earthly wants and aspirations high,Come from the influence of an unseen star,An undiscovered planet in our sky.And as the moon from some dark gate of cloudThrows o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowdInto the realm of mystery and night,—So from the world of spirits there descendsA bridge of light, connecting it with this,O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.IN THE CHURCHYARD AT CAMBRIDGEIn the village churchyard she lies,Dust is in her beautiful eyes,No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;At her feet and at her headLies a slave to attend the dead,But their dust is white as hers.Was she a lady of high degree,So much in love with the vanityAnd foolish pomp of this world of ours?Or was it Christian charity,And lowliness and humility,The richest and rarest of all dowers?Who shall tell us?  No one speaks;No color shoots into those cheeks,Either of anger or of pride,At the rude question we have asked;Nor will the mystery be unmaskedBy those who are sleeping at her side.Hereafter?—And do you think to lookOn the terrible pages of that BookTo find her failings, faults, and errors?Ah, you will then have other cares,In your own short-comings and despairs,In your own secret sins and terrors!THE EMPEROR'S BIRD'S-NESTOnce the Emperor Charles of Spain,With his swarthy, grave commanders,I forget in what campaign,Long besieged, in mud and rain,Some old frontier town of Flanders.Up and down the dreary camp,In great boots of Spanish leather,Striding with a measured tramp,These Hidalgos, dull and damp,Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.Thus as to and fro they went,Over upland and through hollow,Giving their impatience vent,Perched upon the Emperor's tent,In her nest, they spied a swallow.Yes, it was a swallow's nest,Built of clay and hair of horses,Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest,Found on hedge-rows east and west,After skirmish of the forces.Then an old Hidalgo said,As he twirled his gray mustachio,"Sure this swallow overheadThinks the Emperor's tent a shed,And the Emperor but a Macho!"Hearing his imperial nameCoupled with those words of malice,Half in anger, half in shame,Forth the great campaigner cameSlowly from his canvas palace."Let no hand the bird molest,"Said he solemnly, "nor hurt her!"Adding then, by way of jest,"Golondrina is my guest,'Tis the wife of some deserter!"Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft,Through the camp was spread the rumor,And the soldiers, as they quaffedFlemish beer at dinner, laughedAt the Emperor's pleasant humor.So unharmed and unafraidSat the swallow still and brooded,Till the constant cannonadeThrough the walls a breach had made,And the siege was thus concluded.Then the army, elsewhere bent,Struck its tents as if disbanding,Only not the Emperor's tent,For he ordered, ere he went,Very curtly, "Leave it standing!"So it stood there all alone,Loosely flapping, torn and tattered,Till the brood was fledged and flown,Singing o'er those walls of stoneWhich the cannon-shot had shattered.THE TWO ANGELSTwo angels, one of Life and one of Death,Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.Their attitude and aspect were the same,Alike their features and their robes of white;But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.I saw them pause on their celestial way;Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betrayThe place where thy beloved are at rest!"And he who wore the crown of asphodels,Descending, at my door began to knock,And my soul sank within me, as in wellsThe waters sink before an earthquake's shock.I recognized the nameless agony,The terror and the tremor and the pain,That oft before had filled or haunted me,And now returned with threefold strength again.The door I opened to my heavenly guest,And listened, for I thought I heard God's voice;And, knowing whatsoe'er he sent was best,Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.Then with a smile, that filled the house with light,"My errand is not Death, but Life," he said;And ere I answered, passing out of sight,On his celestial embassy he sped.'T was at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,The angel with the amaranthine wreath,Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,A shadow on those features fair and thin;And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,Two angels issued, where but one went in.All is of God!  If he but wave his hand,The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.Angels of Life and Death alike are his;Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er;Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,Against his messengers to shut the door?DAYLIGHT AND MOONLIGHTIn broad daylight, and at noon, Yesterday I saw the moon Sailing high, but faint and white, As a school-boy's paper kite.In broad daylight, yesterday, I read a Poet's mystic lay; And it seemed to me at most As a phantom, or a ghost.But at length the feverish day Like a passion died away, And the night, serene and still, Fell on village, vale, and hill.Then the moon, in all her pride, Like a spirit glorified, Filled and overflowed the night With revelations of her light.And the Poet's song again Passed like music through my brain; Night interpreted to me All its grace and mystery.THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORTHow strange it seems!  These Hebrews in their graves,Close by the street of this fair seaport town,Silent beside the never-silent waves,At rest in all this moving up and down!The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleepWave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,While underneath such leafy tents they keepThe long, mysterious Exodus of Death.And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,That pave with level flags their burial-place,Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown downAnd broken by Moses at the mountain's base.The very names recorded here are strange,Of foreign accent, and of different climes;Alvares and Rivera interchangeWith Abraham and Jacob of old times."Blessed be God! for he created Death!"The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace";Then added, in the certainty of faith,"And giveth Life that never more shall cease."Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,No Psalms of David now the silence break,No Rabbi reads the ancient DecalogueIn the grand dialect the Prophets spake.Gone are the living, but the dead remain,And not neglected; for a hand unseen,Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.How came they here?  What burst of Christian hate,What persecution, merciless and blind,Drove o'er the sea—that desert desolate—These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;Taught in the school of patience to endureThe life of anguish and the death of fire.All their lives long, with the unleavened breadAnd bitter herbs of exile and its fears,The wasting famine of the heart they fed,And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.Anathema maranatha! was the cryThat rang from town to town, from street to street;At every gate the accursed MordecaiWas mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.Pride and humiliation hand in handWalked with them through the world where'er they went;Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,And yet unshaken as the continent.For in the background figures vague and vastOf patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,And all the great traditions of the PastThey saw reflected in the coming time.And thus for ever with reverted lookThe mystic volume of the world they read,Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,Till life became a Legend of the Dead.But ah! what once has been shall be no more!The groaning earth in travail and in painBrings forth its races, but does not restore,And the dead nations never rise again.OLIVER BASSELINIn the Valley of the VireStill is seen an ancient mill,With its gables quaint and queer,And beneath the window-sill,On the stone,These words alone:"Oliver Basselin lived here."Far above it, on the steep,Ruined stands the old Chateau;Nothing but the donjon-keepLeft for shelter or for show.Its vacant eyesStare at the skies,Stare at the valley green and deep.Once a convent, old and brown,Looked, but ah! it looks no more,From the neighboring hillside downOn the rushing and the roarOf the streamWhose sunny gleamCheers the little Norman town.In that darksome mill of stone,To the water's dash and din,Careless, humble, and unknown,Sang the poet BasselinSongs that fillThat ancient millWith a splendor of its own.Never feeling of unrestBroke the pleasant dream he dreamed;Only made to be his nest,All the lovely valley seemed;No desireOf soaring higherStirred or fluttered in his breast.True, his songs were not divine;Were not songs of that high art,Which, as winds do in the pine,Find an answer in each heart;But the mirthOf this green earthLaughed and revelled in his line.From the alehouse and the inn,Opening on the narrow street,Came the loud, convivial din,Singing and applause of feet,The laughing laysThat in those daysSang the poet Basselin.In the castle, cased in steel,Knights, who fought at Agincourt,Watched and waited, spur on heel;But the poet sang for sportSongs that rangAnother clang,Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.In the convent, clad in gray,Sat the monks in lonely cells,Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,And the poet heard their bells;But his rhymesFound other chimes,Nearer to the earth than they.Gone are all the barons bold,Gone are all the knights and squires,Gone the abbot stern and cold,And the brotherhood of friars;Not a nameRemains to fame,From those mouldering days of old!But the poet's memory hereOf the landscape makes a part;Like the river, swift and clear,Flows his song through many a heart;Haunting stillThat ancient mill,In the Valley of the Vire.VICTOR GALBRAITHUnder the walls of MontereyAt daybreak the bugles began to play,Victor Galbraith!In the mist of the morning damp and gray,These were the words they seemed to say:"Come forth to thy death,Victor Galbraith!"Forth he came, with a martial tread;Firm was his step, erect his head;Victor Galbraith,He who so well the bugle played,Could not mistake the words it said:"Come forth to thy death,Victor Galbraith!"He looked at the earth, he looked at the sky,He looked at the files of musketry,Victor Galbraith!And he said, with a steady voice and eye,"Take good aim; I am ready to die!"Thus challenges deathVictor Galbraith.Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and red,Six leaden balls on their errand sped;Victor GalbraithFalls to the ground, but he is not dead;His name was not stamped on those balls of lead,And they only scathVictor Galbraith.Three balls are in his breast and brain,But he rises out of the dust again,Victor Galbraith!The water he drinks has a bloody stain;"O kill me, and put me out of my pain!"In his agony prayethVictor Galbraith.Forth dart once more those tongues of flame,And the bugler has died a death of shame,Victor Galbraith!His soul has gone back to whence it came,And no one answers to the name,When the Sergeant saith,"Victor Galbraith!"Under the walls of MontereyBy night a bugle is heard to play,Victor Galbraith!Through the mist of the valley damp and grayThe sentinels hear the sound, and say,"That is the wraithOf Victor Galbraith!"MY LOST YOUTHOften I think of the beautiful townThat is seated by the sea;Often in thought go up and downThe pleasant streets of that dear old town,And my youth comes back to me.And a verse of a Lapland songIs haunting my memory still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,And catch, in sudden gleams,The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,And islands that were the HersperidesOf all my boyish dreams.And the burden of that old song,It murmurs and whispers still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."I remember the black wharves and the slips,And the sea-tides tossing free;And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,And the beauty and mystery of the ships,And the magic of the sea.And the voice of that wayward songIs singing and saying still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."I remember the bulwarks by the shore,And the fort upon the hill;The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,And the bugle wild and shrill.And the music of that old songThrobs in my memory still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."I remember the sea-fight far away,How it thundered o'er the tide!And the dead captains, as they layIn their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,Where they in battle died.And the sound of that mournful songGoes through me with a thrill:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."I can see the breezy dome of groves,The shadows of Deering's Woods;And the friendships old and the early lovesCome back with a sabbath sound, as of dovesIn quiet neighborhoods.And the verse of that sweet old song,It flutters and murmurs still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."I remember the gleams and glooms that dartAcross the schoolboy's brain;The song and the silence in the heart,That in part are prophecies, and in partAre longings wild and vain.And the voice of that fitful songSings on, and is never still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."There are things of which I may not speak;There are dreams that cannot die;There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,And bring a pallor into the cheek,And a mist before the eye.And the words of that fatal songCome over me like a chill:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."Strange to me now are the forms I meetWhen I visit the dear old town;But the native air is pure and sweet,And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,As they balance up and down,Are singing the beautiful song,Are sighing and whispering still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,And with joy that is almost painMy heart goes back to wander there,And among the dreams of the days that were,I find my lost youth again.And the strange and beautiful song,The groves are repeating it still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."THE ROPEWALKIn that building, long and low,With its windows all a-row,Like the port-holes of a hulk,Human spiders spin and spin,Backward down their threads so thinDropping, each a hempen bulk.At the end, an open door;Squares of sunshine on the floorLight the long and dusky lane;And the whirring of a wheel,Dull and drowsy, makes me feelAll its spokes are in my brain.As the spinners to the endDownward go and reascend,Gleam the long threads in the sun;While within this brain of mineCobwebs brighter and more fineBy the busy wheel are spun.Two fair maidens in a swing,Like white doves upon the wing,First before my vision pass;Laughing, as their gentle handsClosely clasp the twisted strands,At their shadow on the grass.Then a booth of mountebanks,With its smell of tan and planks,And a girl poised high in airOn a cord, in spangled dress,With a faded loveliness,And a weary look of care.Then a homestead among farms,And a woman with bare armsDrawing water from a well;As the bucket mounts apace,With it mounts her own fair face,As at some magician's spell.Then an old man in a tower,Ringing loud the noontide hour,While the rope coils round and roundLike a serpent at his feet,And again, in swift retreat,Nearly lifts him from the ground.Then within a prison-yard,Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,Laughter and indecent mirth;Ah! it is the gallows-tree!Breath of Christian charity,Blow, and sweep it from the earth!Then a school-boy, with his kiteGleaming in a sky of light,And an eager, upward look;Steeds pursued through lane and field;Fowlers with their snares concealed;And an angler by a brook.Ships rejoicing in the breeze,Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,Anchors dragged through faithless sand;Sea-fog drifting overhead,And, with lessening line and lead,Sailors feeling for the land.All these scenes do I behold,These, and many left untold,In that building long and low;While the wheel goes round and round,With a drowsy, dreamy sound,And the spinners backward go.THE GOLDEN MILE-STONELeafless are the trees; their purple branchesSpread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,Rising silentIn the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.From the hundred chimneys of the village,Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,Smoky columnsTower aloft into the air of amber.At the window winks the flickering fire-light;Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,Social watch-firesAnswering one another through the darkness.On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,And like Ariel in the cloven pine-treeFor its freedomGroans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.By the fireside there are old men seated,Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,Asking sadlyOf the Past what it can ne'er restore them.By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,Building castles fair, with stately stairways,Asking blindlyOf the Future what it cannot give them.By the fireside tragedies are actedIn whose scenes appear two actors only,Wife and husband,And above them God the sole spectator.By the fireside there are peace and comfort,Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,Waiting, watchingFor a well-known footstep in the passage.Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone;Is the central point, from which he measuresEvery distanceThrough the gateways of the world around him.In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,As he heard themWhen he sat with those who were, but are not.Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,Nor the march of the encroaching city,Drives an exileFrom the hearth of his ancestral homestead.We may build more splendid habitations,Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,But we cannotBuy with gold the old associations!CATAWBA WINEThis song of mineIs a Song of the Vine,To be sung by the glowing embersOf wayside inns,When the rain beginsTo darken the drear Novembers.It is not a songOf the Scuppernong,From warm Carolinian valleys,Nor the IsabelAnd the MuscadelThat bask in our garden alleys.Nor the red Mustang,Whose clusters hangO'er the waves of the Colorado,And the fiery floodOf whose purple bloodHas a dash of Spanish bravado.For richest and bestIs the wine of the West,That grows by the Beautiful River;Whose sweet perfumeFills all the roomWith a benison on the giver.And as hollow treesAre the haunts of bees,For ever going and coming;So this crystal hiveIs all aliveWith a swarming and buzzing and humming.Very good in its wayIs the Verzenay,Or the Sillery soft and creamy;But Catawba wineHas a taste more divine,More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.There grows no vineBy the haunted Rhine,By Danube or Guadalquivir,Nor on island or cape,That bears such a grapeAs grows by the Beautiful River.Drugged is their juiceFor foreign use,When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,To rack our brainsWith the fever pains,That have driven the Old World frantic.To the sewers and sinksWith all such drinks,And after them tumble the mixer;For a poison malignIs such Borgia wine,Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.While pure as a springIs the wine I sing,And to praise it, one needs but name it;For Catawba wineHas need of no sign,No tavern-bush to proclaim it.And this Song of the Vine,This greeting of mine,The winds and the birds shall deliverTo the Queen of the West,In her garlands dressed,On the banks of the Beautiful River.SANTA FILOMENAWhene'er a noble deed is wrought,Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,Our hearts, in glad surprise,To higher levels rise.The tidal wave of deeper soulsInto our inmost being rolls,And lifts us unawaresOut of all meaner cares.Honor to those whose words or deedsThus help us in our daily needs,And by their overflowRaise us from what is low!Thus thought I, as by night I readOf the great army of the dead,The trenches cold and damp,The starved and frozen camp,—The wounded from the battle-plain,In dreary hospitals of pain,The cheerless corridors,The cold and stony floors.Lo! in that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I seePass through the glimmering gloom,And flit from room to room.And slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.As if a door in heaven should beOpened and then closed suddenly,The vision came and went,The light shone and was spent.On England's annals, through the longHereafter of her speech and song,That light its rays shall castFrom portals of the past.A Lady with a Lamp shall standIn the great history of the land,A noble type of good,Heroic womanhood.Nor even shall be wanting hereThe palm, the lily, and the spear,The symbols that of yoreSaint Filomena bore.THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPEA LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUSOthere, the old sea-captain,Who dwelt in Helgoland,To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth,Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,Which he held in his brown right hand.His figure was tall and stately,Like a boy's his eye appeared;His hair was yellow as hay,But threads of a silvery grayGleamed in his tawny beard.Hearty and hale was Othere,His cheek had the color of oak;With a kind of laugh in his speech,Like the sea-tide on a beach,As unto the King he spoke.And Alfred, King of the Saxons,Had a book upon his knees,And wrote down the wondrous taleOf him who was first to sailInto the Arctic seas."So far I live to the northward,No man lives north of me;To the east are wild mountain-chains;And beyond them meres and plains;To the westward all is sea."So far I live to the northward,From the harbor of Skeringes-hale,If you only sailed by day,With a fair wind all the way,More than a month would you sail."I own six hundred reindeer,With sheep and swine beside;I have tribute from the Finns,Whalebone and reindeer-skins,And ropes of walrus-hide."I ploughed the land with horses,But my heart was ill at ease,For the old seafaring menCame to me now and then,With their sagas of the seas;—"Of Iceland and of Greenland,And the stormy Hebrides,And the undiscovered deep;—I could not eat nor sleepFor thinking of those seas."To the northward stretched the desert,How far I fain would know;So at last I sallied forth,And three days sailed due north,As far as the whale-ships go."To the west of me was the ocean,To the right the desolate shore,But I did not slacken sailFor the walrus or the whale,Till after three days more."The days grew longer and longer,Till they became as one,And southward through the hazeI saw the sullen blazeOf the red midnight sun."And then uprose before me,Upon the water's edge,The huge and haggard shapeOf that unknown North Cape,Whose form is like a wedge."The sea was rough and stormy,The tempest howled and wailed,And the sea-fog, like a ghost,Haunted that dreary coast,But onward still I sailed."Four days I steered to eastward,Four days without a night:Round in a fiery ringWent the great sun, O King,With red and lurid light."Here Alfred, King of the Saxons,Ceased writing for a while;And raised his eyes from his book,With a strange and puzzled look,And an incredulous smile.But Othere, the old sea-captain,He neither paused nor stirred,Till the King listened, and thenOnce more took up his pen,And wrote down every word."And now the land," said Othere,"Bent southward suddenly,And I followed the curving shoreAnd ever southward boreInto a nameless sea."And there we hunted the walrus,The narwhale, and the seal;Ha! 't was a noble game!And like the lightning's flameFlew our harpoons of steel."There were six of us all together,Norsemen of Helgoland;In two days and no moreWe killed of them threescore,And dragged them to the strand!"Here Alfred the Truth-TellerSuddenly closed his book,And lifted his blue eyes,With doubt and strange surmiseDepicted in their look.And Othere the old sea-captainStared at him wild and weird,Then smiled, till his shining teethGleamed white from underneathHis tawny, quivering beard.And to the King of the Saxons,In witness of the truth,Raising his noble head,He stretched his brown hand, and said,"Behold this walrus-tooth!"DAYBREAKA wind came up out of the sea, And said, "O mists, make room for me."It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on, Ye mariners, the night is gone."And hurried landward far away, Crying, "Awake! it is the day."It said unto the forest, "Shout! Hang all your leafy banners out!"It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, And said, "O bird, awake and sing."And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer, Your clarion blow; the day is near."It whispered to the fields of corn, "Bow down, and hail the coming morn."It shouted through the belfry-tower, "Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie."THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZMAY 28, 1857It was fifty years agoIn the pleasant month of May,In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,A child in its cradle lay.And Nature, the old nurse, tookThe child upon her knee,Saying: "Here is a story-bookThy Father has written for thee.""Come, wander with me," she said,"Into regions yet untrod;And read what is still unreadIn the manuscripts of God."And he wandered away and awayWith Nature, the dear old nurse,Who sang to him night and dayThe rhymes of the universe.And whenever the way seemed long,Or his heart began to fail,She would sing a more wonderful song,Or tell a more marvellous tale.So she keeps him still a child,And will not let him go,Though at times his heart beats wildFor the beautiful Pays de Vaud;Though at times he hears in his dreamsThe Ranz des Vaches of old,And the rush of mountain streamsFrom glaciers clear and cold;And the mother at home says, "Hark!For his voice I listen and yearn;It is growing late and dark,And my boy does not return!"CHILDRENCome to me, O ye children!For I hear you at your play,And the questions that perplexed meHave vanished quite away.Ye open the eastern windows,That look towards the sun,Where thoughts are singing swallowsAnd the brooks of morning run.In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,But in mine is the wind of AutumnAnd the first fall of the snow.Ah! what would the world be to usIf the children were no more?We should dread the desert behind usWorse than the dark before.What the leaves are to the forest,With light and air for food,Ere their sweet and tender juicesHave been hardened into wood,—That to the world are children;Through them it feels the glowOf a brighter and sunnier climateThan reaches the trunks below.Come to me, O ye children!And whisper in my earWhat the birds and the winds are singingIn your sunny atmosphere.For what are all our contrivings,And the wisdom of our books,When compared with your caresses,And the gladness of your looks?Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems,And all the rest are dead.SANDALPHONHave you read in the Talmud of old,In the Legends the Rabbins have toldOf the limitless realms of the air,—Have you read it,—the marvellous storyOf Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?How, erect, at the outermost gatesOf the City Celestial he waits,With his feet on the ladder of light,That, crowded with angels unnumbered,By Jacob was seen, as he slumberedAlone in the desert at night?The Angels of Wind and of FireChant only one hymn, and expireWith the song's irresistible stress;Expire in their rapture and wonder,As harp-strings are broken asunderBy music they throb to express.But serene in the rapturous throng,Unmoved by the rush of the song,With eyes unimpassioned and slow,Among the dead angels, the deathlessSandalphon stands listening breathlessTo sounds that ascend from below;—From the spirits on earth that adore,From the souls that entreat and imploreIn the fervor and passion of prayer;From the hearts that are broken with losses,And weary with dragging the crossesToo heavy for mortals to bear.And he gathers the prayers as he stands,And they change into flowers in his hands,Into garlands of purple and red;And beneath the great arch of the portal,Through the streets of the City ImmortalIs wafted the fragrance they shed.It is but a legend, I know,—A fable, a phantom, a show,Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;Yet the old mediaeval tradition,The beautiful, strange superstition,But haunts me and holds me the more.When I look from my window at night,And the welkin above is all white,All throbbing and panting with stars,Among them majestic is standingSandalphon the angel, expandingHis pinions in nebulous bars.And the legend, I feel, is a partOf the hunger and thirst of the heart,The frenzy and fire of the brain,That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,The golden pomegranates of Eden,To quiet its fever and pain.FLIGHT THE SECONDTHE CHILDREN'S HOURBetween the dark and the daylight,When the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day's occupations,That is known as the Children's Hour.I hear in the chamber above meThe patter of little feet,The sound of a door that is opened,And voices soft and sweet.From my study I see in the lamplight,Descending the broad hall stair,Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,And Edith with golden hair.A whisper, and then a silence:Yet I know by their merry eyesThey are plotting and planning togetherTo take me by surprise.A sudden rush from the stairway,A sudden raid from the hall!By three doors left unguardedThey enter my castle wall!They climb up into my turretO'er the arms and back of my chair;If I try to escape, they surround me;They seem to be everywhere.They almost devour me with kisses,Their arms about me entwine,Till I think of the Bishop of BingenIn his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,Because you have scaled the wall,Such an old mustache as I amIs not a match for you all!I have you fast in my fortress,And will not let you depart,But put you down into the dungeonIn the round-tower of my heart.And there will I keep you forever,Yes, forever and a day,Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,And moulder in dust away!ENCELADUSUnder Mount Etna he lies,It is slumber, it is not death;For he struggles at times to arise,And above him the lurid skiesAre hot with his fiery breath.The crags are piled on his breast,The earth is heaped on his head;But the groans of his wild unrest,Though smothered and half suppressed,Are heard, and he is not dead.And the nations far awayAre watching with eager eyes;They talk together and say,"To-morrow, perhaps to-day,Euceladus will arise!"And the old gods, the austereOppressors in their strength,Stand aghast and white with fearAt the ominous sounds they hear,And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"Ah me! for the land that is sownWith the harvest of despair!Where the burning cinders, blownFrom the lips of the overthrownEnceladus, fill the air.Where ashes are heaped in driftsOver vineyard and field and town,Whenever he starts and liftsHis head through the blackened riftsOf the crags that keep him down.See, see! the red light shines!'T is the glare of his awful eyes!And the storm-wind shouts through the pinesOf Alps and of Apennines,"Enceladus, arise!"THE CUMBERLANDAt anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,On board of the cumberland, sloop-of-war;And at times from the fortress across the bayThe alarum of drums swept past,Or a bugle blastFrom the camp on the shore.Then far away to the south uproseA little feather of snow-white smoke,And we knew that the iron ship of our foesWas steadily steering its courseTo try the forceOf our ribs of oak.Down upon us heavily runs,Silent and sullen, the floating fort;Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,And leaps the terrible death,With fiery breath,From each open port.We are not idle, but send her straightDefiance back in a full broadside!As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,Rebounds our heavier hailFrom each iron scaleOf the monster's hide."Strike your flag!" the rebel cries,In his arrogant old plantation strain."Never!" our gallant Morris replies;"It is better to sink than to yield!"And the whole air pealedWith the cheers of our men.Then, like a kraken huge and black,She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,With a sudden shudder of death,And the cannon's breathFor her dying gasp.Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,Still floated our flag at the mainmast head.Lord, how beautiful was Thy day!Every waft of the airWas a whisper of prayer,Or a dirge for the dead.Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seasYe are at peace in the troubled stream;Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,Thy flag, that is rent in twain,Shall be one again,And without a seam!SNOW-FLAKESOut of the bosom of the Air,Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,Over the woodlands brown and bare,Over the harvest-fields forsaken,Silent, and soft, and slowDescends the snow.Even as our cloudy fancies takeSuddenly shape in some divine expression,Even as the troubled heart doth makeIn the white countenance confession,The troubled sky revealsThe grief it feels.This is the poem of the air,Slowly in silent syllables recorded;This is the secret of despair,Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,Now whispered and revealedTo wood and field.A DAY OF SUNSHINEO gift of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be!Through every fibre of my brain, Through every nerve, through every vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch Of life, that seems almost too much.I hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.And over me unrolls on high The splendid scenery of the sky, Where though a sapphire sea the sun Sails like a golden galleon,Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, Whose steep sierra far uplifts Its craggy summits white with drifts.Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms! Blow, winds! and bend within my reach The fiery blossoms of the peach!O Life and Love! O happy throng Of thoughts, whose only speech is song! O heart of man! canst thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free?SOMETHING LEFT UNDONELabor with what zeal we will,Something still remains undone,Something uncompleted stillWaits the rising of the sun.By the bedside, on the stair,At the threshold, near the gates,With its menace or its prayer,Like a mendicant it waits;Waits, and will not go away;Waits, and will not be gainsaid;By the cares of yesterdayEach to-day is heavier made;Till at length the burden seemsGreater than our strength can bear,Heavy as the weight of dreams,Pressing on us everywhere.And we stand from day to day,Like the dwarfs of times gone by,Who, as Northern legends say,On their shoulders held the sky.WEARINESSO little feet! that such long yearsMust wander on through hopes and fears,Must ache and bleed beneath your load;I, nearer to the wayside innWhere toil shall cease and rest begin,Am weary, thinking of your road!O little hands! that, weak or strong,Have still to serve or rule so long,Have still so long to give or ask;I, who so much with book and penHave toiled among my fellow-men,Am weary, thinking of your task.O little hearts! that throb and beatWith such impatient, feverish heat,Such limitless and strong desires;Mine that so long has glowed and burned,With passions into ashes turnedNow covers and conceals its fires.O little souls! as pure and whiteAnd crystalline as rays of lightDirect from heaven, their source divine;Refracted through the mist of years,How red my setting sun appears,How lurid looks this soul of mine!

. . come i gru van cantando lor lai, Facendo in aer di se lunga riga. — DANTE

Black shadows fallFrom the lindens tall,That lift aloft their massive wallAgainst the southern sky;

And from the realmsOf the shadowy elmsA tide-like darkness overwhelmsThe fields that round us lie.

But the night is fair,And everywhereA warm, soft vapor fills the air,And distant sounds seem near,

And above, in the lightOf the star-lit night,Swift birds of passage wing their flightThrough the dewy atmosphere.

I hear the beatOf their pinions fleet,As from the land of snow and sleetThey seek a southern lea.

I hear the cryOf their voices highFalling dreamily through the sky,But their forms I cannot see.

O, say not so!Those sounds that flowIn murmurs of delight and woeCome not from wings of birds.

They are the throngsOf the poet's songs,Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,The sound of winged words.

This is the cryOf souls, that highOn toiling, beating pinions, fly,Seeking a warmer clime,

From their distant flightThrough realms of lightIt falls into our world of night,With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

Of Prometheus, how undauntedOn Olympus' shining bastionsHis audacious foot he planted,Myths are told and songs are chanted,Full of promptings and suggestions.

Beautiful is the traditionOf that flight through heavenly portals,The old classic superstitionOf the theft and the transmissionOf the fire of the Immortals!

First the deed of noble daring,Born of heavenward aspiration,Then the fire with mortals sharing,Then the vulture,—the despairingCry of pain on crags Caucasian.

All is but a symbol paintedOf the Poet, Prophet, Seer;Only those are crowned and saintedWho with grief have been acquainted,Making nations nobler, freer.

In their feverish exultations,In their triumph and their yearning,In their passionate pulsations,In their words among the nations,The Promethean fire is burning.

Shall it, then, be unavailing,All this toil for human culture?Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing,Must they see above them sailingO'er life's barren crags the vulture?

Such a fate as this was Dante's,By defeat and exile maddened;Thus were Milton and Cervantes,Nature's priests and Corybantes,By affliction touched and saddened.

But the glories so transcendentThat around their memories cluster,And, on all their steps attendant,Make their darkened lives resplendentWith such gleams of inward lustre!

All the melodies mysterious,Through the dreary darkness chanted;Thoughts in attitudes imperious,Voices soft, and deep, and serious,Words that whispered, songs that haunted!

All the soul in rapt suspension,All the quivering, palpitatingChords of life in utmost tension,With the fervor of invention,With the rapture of creating!

Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling!In such hours of exultationEven the faintest heart, unquailing,Might behold the vulture sailingRound the cloudy crags Caucasian!

Though to all there is not givenStrength for such sublime endeavor,Thus to scale the walls of heaven,And to leaven with fiery leavenAll the hearts of men for ever;

Yet all bards, whose hearts unblightedHonor and believe the presage,Hold aloft their torches lighted,Gleaming through the realms benighted,As they onward bear the message!

Have I dreamed? or was it real,What I saw as in a vision,When to marches hymenealIn the land of the IdealMoved my thought o'er Fields Elysian?

What! are these the guests whose glancesSeemed like sunshine gleaming round me?These the wild, bewildering fancies,That with dithyrambic dancesAs with magic circles bound me?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms!Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,And from loose dishevelled tressesFall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measuresFilled my heart with secret rapture!Children of my golden leisures!Must even your delights and pleasuresFade and perish with the capture?

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous,When they came to me unbidden;Voices single, and in chorus,Like the wild birds singing o'er usIn the dark of branches hidden.

Disenchantment!  Disillusion!Must each noble aspirationCome at last to this conclusion,Jarring discord, wild confusion,Lassitude, renunciation?

Not with steeper fall nor faster,From the sun's serene dominions,Not through brighter realms nor vaster,In swift ruin and disaster,Icarus fell with shattered pinions!

Sweet Pandora! dear Pandora!Why did mighty Jove create theeCoy as Thetis, fair as Flora,Beautiful as young Aurora,If to win thee is to hate thee?

No, not hate thee! for this feelingOf unrest and long resistanceIs but passionate appealing,A prophetic whisper stealingO'er the chords of our existence.

Him whom thou dost once enamour,Thou, beloved, never leavest;In life's discord, strife, and clamor,Still he feels thy spell of glamour;Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest.

Weary hearts by thee are lifted,Struggling souls by thee are strengthened,Clouds of fear asunder rifted,Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted,Lives, like days in summer, lengthened!

Therefore art thou ever clearer,O my Sibyl, my deceiver!For thou makest each mystery clearer,And the unattained seems nearer,When thou fillest my heart with fever!

Muse of all the Gifts and Graces!Though the fields around us wither,There are ampler realms and spaces,Where no foot has left its traces:Let us turn and wander thither!

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,That of our vices we can frameA ladder, if we will but treadBeneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,That with the hour begin and end,Our pleasures and our discontents,Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,That makes another's virtues less;The revel of the ruddy wine,And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;The strife for triumph more than truth;The hardening of the heart, that bringsIrreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,That have their root in thoughts of ill;Whatever hinders or impedesThe action of the nobler will;—

All these must first be trampled downBeneath our feet, if we would gainIn the bright fields of fair renownThe right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;But we have feet to scale and climbBy slow degrees, by more and more,The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stoneThat wedge-like cleave the desert airs,When nearer seen, and better known,Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprearTheir solid bastions to the skies,Are crossed by pathways, that appearAs we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and keptWere not attained by sudden flight,But they, while their companions slept,Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we boreWith shoulders bent and downcast eyes,We may discern—unseen before—A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past,As wholly wasted, wholly vain,If, rising on its wrecks, at lastTo something nobler we attain.

In Mather's Magnalia Christi,Of the old colonial time,May be found in prose the legendThat is here set down in rhyme.

A ship sailed from New Haven,And the keen and frosty airs,That filled her sails at parting,Were heavy with good men's prayers.

"O Lord! if it be thy pleasure"—Thus prayed the old divine—"To bury our friends in the ocean,Take them, for they are thine!"

But Master Lamberton muttered,And under his breath said he,"This ship is so crank and waltyI fear our grave she will be!"

And the ships that came from England,When the winter months were gone,Brought no tidings of this vesselNor of Master Lamberton.

This put the people to prayingThat the Lord would let them hearWhat in his greater wisdomHe had done with friends so dear.

And at last their prayers were answered:—It was in the month of June,An hour before the sunsetOf a windy afternoon,

When, steadily steering landward,A ship was seen below,And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,Who sailed so long ago.

On she came, with a cloud of canvas,Right against the wind that blew,Until the eye could distinguishThe faces of the crew.

Then fell her straining topmasts,Hanging tangled in the shrouds,And her sails were loosened and lifted,And blown away like clouds.

And the masts, with all their rigging,Fell slowly, one by one,And the hulk dilated and vanished,As a sea-mist in the sun!

And the people who saw this marvelEach said unto his friend,That this was the mould of their vessel,And thus her tragic end.

And the pastor of the villageGave thanks to God in prayer,That, to quiet their troubled spirits,He had sent this Ship of Air.

A mist was driving down the British Channel,The day was just begun,And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,Streamed the red autumn sun.

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,And the white sails of ships;And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannonHailed it with feverish lips.

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and DoverWere all alert that day,To see the French war-steamers speeding over,When the fog cleared away.

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,Their cannon, through the night,Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,The sea-coast opposite.

And now they roared at drum-beat from their stationsOn every citadel;Each answering each, with morning salutations,That all was well.

And down the coast, all taking up the burden,Replied the distant forts,As if to summon from his sleep the WardenAnd Lord of the Cinque Ports.

Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,No drum-beat from the wall,No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure,Awaken with its call!

No more, surveying with an eye impartialThe long line of the coast,Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field MarshalBe seen upon his post!

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,In sombre harness mailed,Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,The rampart wall has scaled.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,The dark and silent room,And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble,But smote the Warden hoar;Ah! what a blow! that made all England trembleAnd groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,The sun rose bright o'erhead;Nothing in Nature's aspect intimatedThat a great man was dead.

All houses wherein men have lived and diedAre haunted houses.  Through the open doorsThe harmless phantoms on their errands glide,With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,Along the passages they come and go,Impalpable impressions on the air,A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table, than the hostsInvited; the illuminated hallIs thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot seeThe forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;He but perceives what is; while unto meAll that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;Owners and occupants of earlier datesFrom graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of senseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapors denseA vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoiseBy opposite attractions and desires;The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jarOf earthly wants and aspirations high,Come from the influence of an unseen star,An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloudThrows o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowdInto the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descendsA bridge of light, connecting it with this,O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

In the village churchyard she lies,Dust is in her beautiful eyes,No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;At her feet and at her headLies a slave to attend the dead,But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,So much in love with the vanityAnd foolish pomp of this world of ours?Or was it Christian charity,And lowliness and humility,The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us?  No one speaks;No color shoots into those cheeks,Either of anger or of pride,At the rude question we have asked;Nor will the mystery be unmaskedBy those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?—And do you think to lookOn the terrible pages of that BookTo find her failings, faults, and errors?Ah, you will then have other cares,In your own short-comings and despairs,In your own secret sins and terrors!

Once the Emperor Charles of Spain,With his swarthy, grave commanders,I forget in what campaign,Long besieged, in mud and rain,Some old frontier town of Flanders.

Up and down the dreary camp,In great boots of Spanish leather,Striding with a measured tramp,These Hidalgos, dull and damp,Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.

Thus as to and fro they went,Over upland and through hollow,Giving their impatience vent,Perched upon the Emperor's tent,In her nest, they spied a swallow.

Yes, it was a swallow's nest,Built of clay and hair of horses,Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest,Found on hedge-rows east and west,After skirmish of the forces.

Then an old Hidalgo said,As he twirled his gray mustachio,"Sure this swallow overheadThinks the Emperor's tent a shed,And the Emperor but a Macho!"

Hearing his imperial nameCoupled with those words of malice,Half in anger, half in shame,Forth the great campaigner cameSlowly from his canvas palace.

"Let no hand the bird molest,"Said he solemnly, "nor hurt her!"Adding then, by way of jest,"Golondrina is my guest,'Tis the wife of some deserter!"

Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft,Through the camp was spread the rumor,And the soldiers, as they quaffedFlemish beer at dinner, laughedAt the Emperor's pleasant humor.

So unharmed and unafraidSat the swallow still and brooded,Till the constant cannonadeThrough the walls a breach had made,And the siege was thus concluded.

Then the army, elsewhere bent,Struck its tents as if disbanding,Only not the Emperor's tent,For he ordered, ere he went,Very curtly, "Leave it standing!"

So it stood there all alone,Loosely flapping, torn and tattered,Till the brood was fledged and flown,Singing o'er those walls of stoneWhich the cannon-shot had shattered.

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same,Alike their features and their robes of white;But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way;Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betrayThe place where thy beloved are at rest!"

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,Descending, at my door began to knock,And my soul sank within me, as in wellsThe waters sink before an earthquake's shock.

I recognized the nameless agony,The terror and the tremor and the pain,That oft before had filled or haunted me,And now returned with threefold strength again.

The door I opened to my heavenly guest,And listened, for I thought I heard God's voice;And, knowing whatsoe'er he sent was best,Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

Then with a smile, that filled the house with light,"My errand is not Death, but Life," he said;And ere I answered, passing out of sight,On his celestial embassy he sped.

'T was at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,The angel with the amaranthine wreath,Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,A shadow on those features fair and thin;And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,Two angels issued, where but one went in.

All is of God!  If he but wave his hand,The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.

Angels of Life and Death alike are his;Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er;Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,Against his messengers to shut the door?

In broad daylight, and at noon, Yesterday I saw the moon Sailing high, but faint and white, As a school-boy's paper kite.

In broad daylight, yesterday, I read a Poet's mystic lay; And it seemed to me at most As a phantom, or a ghost.

But at length the feverish day Like a passion died away, And the night, serene and still, Fell on village, vale, and hill.

Then the moon, in all her pride, Like a spirit glorified, Filled and overflowed the night With revelations of her light.

And the Poet's song again Passed like music through my brain; Night interpreted to me All its grace and mystery.

How strange it seems!  These Hebrews in their graves,Close by the street of this fair seaport town,Silent beside the never-silent waves,At rest in all this moving up and down!

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleepWave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,While underneath such leafy tents they keepThe long, mysterious Exodus of Death.

And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,That pave with level flags their burial-place,Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown downAnd broken by Moses at the mountain's base.

The very names recorded here are strange,Of foreign accent, and of different climes;Alvares and Rivera interchangeWith Abraham and Jacob of old times.

"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace";Then added, in the certainty of faith,"And giveth Life that never more shall cease."

Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,No Psalms of David now the silence break,No Rabbi reads the ancient DecalogueIn the grand dialect the Prophets spake.

Gone are the living, but the dead remain,And not neglected; for a hand unseen,Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.

How came they here?  What burst of Christian hate,What persecution, merciless and blind,Drove o'er the sea—that desert desolate—These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?

They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;Taught in the school of patience to endureThe life of anguish and the death of fire.

All their lives long, with the unleavened breadAnd bitter herbs of exile and its fears,The wasting famine of the heart they fed,And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.

Anathema maranatha! was the cryThat rang from town to town, from street to street;At every gate the accursed MordecaiWas mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.

Pride and humiliation hand in handWalked with them through the world where'er they went;Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,And yet unshaken as the continent.

For in the background figures vague and vastOf patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,And all the great traditions of the PastThey saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus for ever with reverted lookThe mystic volume of the world they read,Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,Till life became a Legend of the Dead.

But ah! what once has been shall be no more!The groaning earth in travail and in painBrings forth its races, but does not restore,And the dead nations never rise again.

In the Valley of the VireStill is seen an ancient mill,With its gables quaint and queer,And beneath the window-sill,On the stone,These words alone:"Oliver Basselin lived here."

Far above it, on the steep,Ruined stands the old Chateau;Nothing but the donjon-keepLeft for shelter or for show.Its vacant eyesStare at the skies,Stare at the valley green and deep.

Once a convent, old and brown,Looked, but ah! it looks no more,From the neighboring hillside downOn the rushing and the roarOf the streamWhose sunny gleamCheers the little Norman town.

In that darksome mill of stone,To the water's dash and din,Careless, humble, and unknown,Sang the poet BasselinSongs that fillThat ancient millWith a splendor of its own.

Never feeling of unrestBroke the pleasant dream he dreamed;Only made to be his nest,All the lovely valley seemed;No desireOf soaring higherStirred or fluttered in his breast.

True, his songs were not divine;Were not songs of that high art,Which, as winds do in the pine,Find an answer in each heart;But the mirthOf this green earthLaughed and revelled in his line.

From the alehouse and the inn,Opening on the narrow street,Came the loud, convivial din,Singing and applause of feet,The laughing laysThat in those daysSang the poet Basselin.

In the castle, cased in steel,Knights, who fought at Agincourt,Watched and waited, spur on heel;But the poet sang for sportSongs that rangAnother clang,Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.

In the convent, clad in gray,Sat the monks in lonely cells,Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,And the poet heard their bells;But his rhymesFound other chimes,Nearer to the earth than they.

Gone are all the barons bold,Gone are all the knights and squires,Gone the abbot stern and cold,And the brotherhood of friars;Not a nameRemains to fame,From those mouldering days of old!

But the poet's memory hereOf the landscape makes a part;Like the river, swift and clear,Flows his song through many a heart;Haunting stillThat ancient mill,In the Valley of the Vire.

Under the walls of MontereyAt daybreak the bugles began to play,Victor Galbraith!In the mist of the morning damp and gray,These were the words they seemed to say:"Come forth to thy death,Victor Galbraith!"

Forth he came, with a martial tread;Firm was his step, erect his head;Victor Galbraith,He who so well the bugle played,Could not mistake the words it said:"Come forth to thy death,Victor Galbraith!"

He looked at the earth, he looked at the sky,He looked at the files of musketry,Victor Galbraith!And he said, with a steady voice and eye,"Take good aim; I am ready to die!"Thus challenges deathVictor Galbraith.

Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and red,Six leaden balls on their errand sped;Victor GalbraithFalls to the ground, but he is not dead;His name was not stamped on those balls of lead,And they only scathVictor Galbraith.

Three balls are in his breast and brain,But he rises out of the dust again,Victor Galbraith!The water he drinks has a bloody stain;"O kill me, and put me out of my pain!"In his agony prayethVictor Galbraith.

Forth dart once more those tongues of flame,And the bugler has died a death of shame,Victor Galbraith!His soul has gone back to whence it came,And no one answers to the name,When the Sergeant saith,"Victor Galbraith!"

Under the walls of MontereyBy night a bugle is heard to play,Victor Galbraith!Through the mist of the valley damp and grayThe sentinels hear the sound, and say,"That is the wraithOf Victor Galbraith!"

Often I think of the beautiful townThat is seated by the sea;Often in thought go up and downThe pleasant streets of that dear old town,And my youth comes back to me.And a verse of a Lapland songIs haunting my memory still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,And catch, in sudden gleams,The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,And islands that were the HersperidesOf all my boyish dreams.And the burden of that old song,It murmurs and whispers still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the slips,And the sea-tides tossing free;And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,And the beauty and mystery of the ships,And the magic of the sea.And the voice of that wayward songIs singing and saying still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,And the fort upon the hill;The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,And the bugle wild and shrill.And the music of that old songThrobs in my memory still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the sea-fight far away,How it thundered o'er the tide!And the dead captains, as they layIn their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,Where they in battle died.And the sound of that mournful songGoes through me with a thrill:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves,The shadows of Deering's Woods;And the friendships old and the early lovesCome back with a sabbath sound, as of dovesIn quiet neighborhoods.And the verse of that sweet old song,It flutters and murmurs still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the gleams and glooms that dartAcross the schoolboy's brain;The song and the silence in the heart,That in part are prophecies, and in partAre longings wild and vain.And the voice of that fitful songSings on, and is never still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

There are things of which I may not speak;There are dreams that cannot die;There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,And bring a pallor into the cheek,And a mist before the eye.And the words of that fatal songCome over me like a chill:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meetWhen I visit the dear old town;But the native air is pure and sweet,And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,As they balance up and down,Are singing the beautiful song,Are sighing and whispering still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,And with joy that is almost painMy heart goes back to wander there,And among the dreams of the days that were,I find my lost youth again.And the strange and beautiful song,The groves are repeating it still:"A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

In that building, long and low,With its windows all a-row,Like the port-holes of a hulk,Human spiders spin and spin,Backward down their threads so thinDropping, each a hempen bulk.

At the end, an open door;Squares of sunshine on the floorLight the long and dusky lane;And the whirring of a wheel,Dull and drowsy, makes me feelAll its spokes are in my brain.

As the spinners to the endDownward go and reascend,Gleam the long threads in the sun;While within this brain of mineCobwebs brighter and more fineBy the busy wheel are spun.

Two fair maidens in a swing,Like white doves upon the wing,First before my vision pass;Laughing, as their gentle handsClosely clasp the twisted strands,At their shadow on the grass.

Then a booth of mountebanks,With its smell of tan and planks,And a girl poised high in airOn a cord, in spangled dress,With a faded loveliness,And a weary look of care.

Then a homestead among farms,And a woman with bare armsDrawing water from a well;As the bucket mounts apace,With it mounts her own fair face,As at some magician's spell.

Then an old man in a tower,Ringing loud the noontide hour,While the rope coils round and roundLike a serpent at his feet,And again, in swift retreat,Nearly lifts him from the ground.

Then within a prison-yard,Faces fixed, and stern, and hard,Laughter and indecent mirth;Ah! it is the gallows-tree!Breath of Christian charity,Blow, and sweep it from the earth!

Then a school-boy, with his kiteGleaming in a sky of light,And an eager, upward look;Steeds pursued through lane and field;Fowlers with their snares concealed;And an angler by a brook.

Ships rejoicing in the breeze,Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas,Anchors dragged through faithless sand;Sea-fog drifting overhead,And, with lessening line and lead,Sailors feeling for the land.

All these scenes do I behold,These, and many left untold,In that building long and low;While the wheel goes round and round,With a drowsy, dreamy sound,And the spinners backward go.

Leafless are the trees; their purple branchesSpread themselves abroad, like reefs of coral,Rising silentIn the Red Sea of the Winter sunset.

From the hundred chimneys of the village,Like the Afreet in the Arabian story,Smoky columnsTower aloft into the air of amber.

At the window winks the flickering fire-light;Here and there the lamps of evening glimmer,Social watch-firesAnswering one another through the darkness.

On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing,And like Ariel in the cloven pine-treeFor its freedomGroans and sighs the air imprisoned in them.

By the fireside there are old men seated,Seeing ruined cities in the ashes,Asking sadlyOf the Past what it can ne'er restore them.

By the fireside there are youthful dreamers,Building castles fair, with stately stairways,Asking blindlyOf the Future what it cannot give them.

By the fireside tragedies are actedIn whose scenes appear two actors only,Wife and husband,And above them God the sole spectator.

By the fireside there are peace and comfort,Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces,Waiting, watchingFor a well-known footstep in the passage.

Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile-stone;Is the central point, from which he measuresEvery distanceThrough the gateways of the world around him.

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it;Hears the talking flame, the answering night-wind,As he heard themWhen he sat with those who were, but are not.

Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion,Nor the march of the encroaching city,Drives an exileFrom the hearth of his ancestral homestead.

We may build more splendid habitations,Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures,But we cannotBuy with gold the old associations!

This song of mineIs a Song of the Vine,To be sung by the glowing embersOf wayside inns,When the rain beginsTo darken the drear Novembers.It is not a songOf the Scuppernong,From warm Carolinian valleys,Nor the IsabelAnd the MuscadelThat bask in our garden alleys.Nor the red Mustang,Whose clusters hangO'er the waves of the Colorado,And the fiery floodOf whose purple bloodHas a dash of Spanish bravado.For richest and bestIs the wine of the West,That grows by the Beautiful River;Whose sweet perfumeFills all the roomWith a benison on the giver.And as hollow treesAre the haunts of bees,For ever going and coming;So this crystal hiveIs all aliveWith a swarming and buzzing and humming.Very good in its wayIs the Verzenay,Or the Sillery soft and creamy;But Catawba wineHas a taste more divine,More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy.There grows no vineBy the haunted Rhine,By Danube or Guadalquivir,Nor on island or cape,That bears such a grapeAs grows by the Beautiful River.Drugged is their juiceFor foreign use,When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic,To rack our brainsWith the fever pains,That have driven the Old World frantic.To the sewers and sinksWith all such drinks,And after them tumble the mixer;For a poison malignIs such Borgia wine,Or at best but a Devil's Elixir.While pure as a springIs the wine I sing,And to praise it, one needs but name it;For Catawba wineHas need of no sign,No tavern-bush to proclaim it.And this Song of the Vine,This greeting of mine,The winds and the birds shall deliverTo the Queen of the West,In her garlands dressed,On the banks of the Beautiful River.

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,Our hearts, in glad surprise,To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper soulsInto our inmost being rolls,And lifts us unawaresOut of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deedsThus help us in our daily needs,And by their overflowRaise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I readOf the great army of the dead,The trenches cold and damp,The starved and frozen camp,—

The wounded from the battle-plain,In dreary hospitals of pain,The cheerless corridors,The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of miseryA lady with a lamp I seePass through the glimmering gloom,And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should beOpened and then closed suddenly,The vision came and went,The light shone and was spent.

On England's annals, through the longHereafter of her speech and song,That light its rays shall castFrom portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall standIn the great history of the land,A noble type of good,Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting hereThe palm, the lily, and the spear,The symbols that of yoreSaint Filomena bore.

A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S OROSIUS

Othere, the old sea-captain,Who dwelt in Helgoland,To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth,Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,Which he held in his brown right hand.

His figure was tall and stately,Like a boy's his eye appeared;His hair was yellow as hay,But threads of a silvery grayGleamed in his tawny beard.

Hearty and hale was Othere,His cheek had the color of oak;With a kind of laugh in his speech,Like the sea-tide on a beach,As unto the King he spoke.

And Alfred, King of the Saxons,Had a book upon his knees,And wrote down the wondrous taleOf him who was first to sailInto the Arctic seas.

"So far I live to the northward,No man lives north of me;To the east are wild mountain-chains;And beyond them meres and plains;To the westward all is sea.

"So far I live to the northward,From the harbor of Skeringes-hale,If you only sailed by day,With a fair wind all the way,More than a month would you sail.

"I own six hundred reindeer,With sheep and swine beside;I have tribute from the Finns,Whalebone and reindeer-skins,And ropes of walrus-hide.

"I ploughed the land with horses,But my heart was ill at ease,For the old seafaring menCame to me now and then,With their sagas of the seas;—

"Of Iceland and of Greenland,And the stormy Hebrides,And the undiscovered deep;—I could not eat nor sleepFor thinking of those seas.

"To the northward stretched the desert,How far I fain would know;So at last I sallied forth,And three days sailed due north,As far as the whale-ships go.

"To the west of me was the ocean,To the right the desolate shore,But I did not slacken sailFor the walrus or the whale,Till after three days more.

"The days grew longer and longer,Till they became as one,And southward through the hazeI saw the sullen blazeOf the red midnight sun.

"And then uprose before me,Upon the water's edge,The huge and haggard shapeOf that unknown North Cape,Whose form is like a wedge.

"The sea was rough and stormy,The tempest howled and wailed,And the sea-fog, like a ghost,Haunted that dreary coast,But onward still I sailed.

"Four days I steered to eastward,Four days without a night:Round in a fiery ringWent the great sun, O King,With red and lurid light."

Here Alfred, King of the Saxons,Ceased writing for a while;And raised his eyes from his book,With a strange and puzzled look,And an incredulous smile.

But Othere, the old sea-captain,He neither paused nor stirred,Till the King listened, and thenOnce more took up his pen,And wrote down every word.

"And now the land," said Othere,"Bent southward suddenly,And I followed the curving shoreAnd ever southward boreInto a nameless sea.

"And there we hunted the walrus,The narwhale, and the seal;Ha! 't was a noble game!And like the lightning's flameFlew our harpoons of steel.

"There were six of us all together,Norsemen of Helgoland;In two days and no moreWe killed of them threescore,And dragged them to the strand!"

Here Alfred the Truth-TellerSuddenly closed his book,And lifted his blue eyes,With doubt and strange surmiseDepicted in their look.

And Othere the old sea-captainStared at him wild and weird,Then smiled, till his shining teethGleamed white from underneathHis tawny, quivering beard.

And to the King of the Saxons,In witness of the truth,Raising his noble head,He stretched his brown hand, and said,"Behold this walrus-tooth!"

A wind came up out of the sea, And said, "O mists, make room for me."

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on, Ye mariners, the night is gone."

And hurried landward far away, Crying, "Awake! it is the day."

It said unto the forest, "Shout! Hang all your leafy banners out!"

It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, And said, "O bird, awake and sing."

And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer, Your clarion blow; the day is near."

It whispered to the fields of corn, "Bow down, and hail the coming morn."

It shouted through the belfry-tower, "Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie."

MAY 28, 1857

It was fifty years agoIn the pleasant month of May,In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,A child in its cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, tookThe child upon her knee,Saying: "Here is a story-bookThy Father has written for thee."

"Come, wander with me," she said,"Into regions yet untrod;And read what is still unreadIn the manuscripts of God."

And he wandered away and awayWith Nature, the dear old nurse,Who sang to him night and dayThe rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,Or his heart began to fail,She would sing a more wonderful song,Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,And will not let him go,Though at times his heart beats wildFor the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreamsThe Ranz des Vaches of old,And the rush of mountain streamsFrom glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, "Hark!For his voice I listen and yearn;It is growing late and dark,And my boy does not return!"

Come to me, O ye children!For I hear you at your play,And the questions that perplexed meHave vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,That look towards the sun,Where thoughts are singing swallowsAnd the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,But in mine is the wind of AutumnAnd the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to usIf the children were no more?We should dread the desert behind usWorse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,With light and air for food,Ere their sweet and tender juicesHave been hardened into wood,—

That to the world are children;Through them it feels the glowOf a brighter and sunnier climateThan reaches the trunks below.

Come to me, O ye children!And whisper in my earWhat the birds and the winds are singingIn your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,And the wisdom of our books,When compared with your caresses,And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the balladsThat ever were sung or said;For ye are living poems,And all the rest are dead.

Have you read in the Talmud of old,In the Legends the Rabbins have toldOf the limitless realms of the air,—Have you read it,—the marvellous storyOf Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gatesOf the City Celestial he waits,With his feet on the ladder of light,That, crowded with angels unnumbered,By Jacob was seen, as he slumberedAlone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of FireChant only one hymn, and expireWith the song's irresistible stress;Expire in their rapture and wonder,As harp-strings are broken asunderBy music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,Unmoved by the rush of the song,With eyes unimpassioned and slow,Among the dead angels, the deathlessSandalphon stands listening breathlessTo sounds that ascend from below;—

From the spirits on earth that adore,From the souls that entreat and imploreIn the fervor and passion of prayer;From the hearts that are broken with losses,And weary with dragging the crossesToo heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,And they change into flowers in his hands,Into garlands of purple and red;And beneath the great arch of the portal,Through the streets of the City ImmortalIs wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend, I know,—A fable, a phantom, a show,Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;Yet the old mediaeval tradition,The beautiful, strange superstition,But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,And the welkin above is all white,All throbbing and panting with stars,Among them majestic is standingSandalphon the angel, expandingHis pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a partOf the hunger and thirst of the heart,The frenzy and fire of the brain,That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,The golden pomegranates of Eden,To quiet its fever and pain.

Between the dark and the daylight,When the night is beginning to lower,Comes a pause in the day's occupations,That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above meThe patter of little feet,The sound of a door that is opened,And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,Descending the broad hall stair,Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:Yet I know by their merry eyesThey are plotting and planning togetherTo take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,A sudden raid from the hall!By three doors left unguardedThey enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turretO'er the arms and back of my chair;If I try to escape, they surround me;They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,Their arms about me entwine,Till I think of the Bishop of BingenIn his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,Because you have scaled the wall,Such an old mustache as I amIs not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,And will not let you depart,But put you down into the dungeonIn the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,Yes, forever and a day,Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,And moulder in dust away!

Under Mount Etna he lies,It is slumber, it is not death;For he struggles at times to arise,And above him the lurid skiesAre hot with his fiery breath.

The crags are piled on his breast,The earth is heaped on his head;But the groans of his wild unrest,Though smothered and half suppressed,Are heard, and he is not dead.

And the nations far awayAre watching with eager eyes;They talk together and say,"To-morrow, perhaps to-day,Euceladus will arise!"

And the old gods, the austereOppressors in their strength,Stand aghast and white with fearAt the ominous sounds they hear,And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"

Ah me! for the land that is sownWith the harvest of despair!Where the burning cinders, blownFrom the lips of the overthrownEnceladus, fill the air.

Where ashes are heaped in driftsOver vineyard and field and town,Whenever he starts and liftsHis head through the blackened riftsOf the crags that keep him down.

See, see! the red light shines!'T is the glare of his awful eyes!And the storm-wind shouts through the pinesOf Alps and of Apennines,"Enceladus, arise!"

At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,On board of the cumberland, sloop-of-war;And at times from the fortress across the bayThe alarum of drums swept past,Or a bugle blastFrom the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uproseA little feather of snow-white smoke,And we knew that the iron ship of our foesWas steadily steering its courseTo try the forceOf our ribs of oak.

Down upon us heavily runs,Silent and sullen, the floating fort;Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,And leaps the terrible death,With fiery breath,From each open port.

We are not idle, but send her straightDefiance back in a full broadside!As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,Rebounds our heavier hailFrom each iron scaleOf the monster's hide.

"Strike your flag!" the rebel cries,In his arrogant old plantation strain."Never!" our gallant Morris replies;"It is better to sink than to yield!"And the whole air pealedWith the cheers of our men.

Then, like a kraken huge and black,She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,With a sudden shudder of death,And the cannon's breathFor her dying gasp.

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,Still floated our flag at the mainmast head.Lord, how beautiful was Thy day!Every waft of the airWas a whisper of prayer,Or a dirge for the dead.

Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seasYe are at peace in the troubled stream;Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,Thy flag, that is rent in twain,Shall be one again,And without a seam!

Out of the bosom of the Air,Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,Over the woodlands brown and bare,Over the harvest-fields forsaken,Silent, and soft, and slowDescends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies takeSuddenly shape in some divine expression,Even as the troubled heart doth makeIn the white countenance confession,The troubled sky revealsThe grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,Slowly in silent syllables recorded;This is the secret of despair,Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,Now whispered and revealedTo wood and field.

O gift of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain, Through every nerve, through every vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent, Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high The splendid scenery of the sky, Where though a sapphire sea the sun Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, Whose steep sierra far uplifts Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms! Blow, winds! and bend within my reach The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng Of thoughts, whose only speech is song! O heart of man! canst thou not be Blithe as the air is, and as free?

Labor with what zeal we will,Something still remains undone,Something uncompleted stillWaits the rising of the sun.

By the bedside, on the stair,At the threshold, near the gates,With its menace or its prayer,Like a mendicant it waits;

Waits, and will not go away;Waits, and will not be gainsaid;By the cares of yesterdayEach to-day is heavier made;

Till at length the burden seemsGreater than our strength can bear,Heavy as the weight of dreams,Pressing on us everywhere.

And we stand from day to day,Like the dwarfs of times gone by,Who, as Northern legends say,On their shoulders held the sky.

O little feet! that such long yearsMust wander on through hopes and fears,Must ache and bleed beneath your load;I, nearer to the wayside innWhere toil shall cease and rest begin,Am weary, thinking of your road!

O little hands! that, weak or strong,Have still to serve or rule so long,Have still so long to give or ask;I, who so much with book and penHave toiled among my fellow-men,Am weary, thinking of your task.

O little hearts! that throb and beatWith such impatient, feverish heat,Such limitless and strong desires;Mine that so long has glowed and burned,With passions into ashes turnedNow covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and whiteAnd crystalline as rays of lightDirect from heaven, their source divine;Refracted through the mist of years,How red my setting sun appears,How lurid looks this soul of mine!

Back to IndexNext