IN THE HARBORBECALMEDBecalmed upon the sea of Thought, Still unattained the land it sought, My mind, with loosely-hanging sails, Lies waiting the auspicious gales.On either side, behind, before, The ocean stretches like a floor,— A level floor of amethyst, Crowned by a golden dome of mist.Blow, breath of inspiration, blow! Shake and uplift this golden glow! And fill the canvas of the mind With wafts of thy celestial wind.Blow, breath of song! until I feel The straining sail, the lifting keel, The life of the awakening sea, Its motion and its mystery!THE POET'S CALENDARJANUARYJanus am I; oldest of potentates;Forward I look, and backward, and belowI count, as god of avenues and gates,The years that through my portals come and go.I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.FEBRUARYI am lustration, and the sea is mine.I wash the sands and headlands with my tide;My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.By me all things unclean are purified,By me the souls of men washed white again;E'en the unlovely tombs of those who diedWithout a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.MARCHI Martius am! Once first, and now the third!To lead the Year was my appointed place;A mortal dispossessed me by a word,And set there Janus with the double face.Hence I make war on all the human race;I shake the cities with my hurricanes;I flood the rivers and their banks efface,And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.APRILI open wide the portals of the SpringTo welcome the procession of the flowers,With their gay banners, and the birds that singTheir song of songs from their aerial towers.I soften with my sunshine and my showersThe heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glideInto the hearts of men; and with the HoursUpon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.MAYHark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaimMy coming, and the swarming of the bees.These are my heralds, and behold! my nameIs written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;I waft o'er all the land from far awayThe breath and bloom of the Hesperides,My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.JUNEMine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mineThe Month of Marriages! All pleasant sightsAnd scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,The foliage of the valleys and the heights.Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;I am the mother of all dear delights;I am the fairest daughter of the year.JULYMy emblem is the Lion, and I breatheThe breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,And bent before me the pale harvests stand.The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,And there is thirst and fever in the air;The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;I am the Emperor whose name I bear.AUGUSTThe Emperor Octavian, called the August,I being his favorite, bestowed his nameUpon me, and I hold it still in trust,In memory of him and of his fame.I am the Virgin, and my vestal flameBurns less intensely than the Lion's rage;Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claimThe golden Harvests as my heritage.SEPTEMBERI bear the Scales, where hang in equipoiseThe night and day; and when unto my lipsI put my trumpet, with its stress and noiseFly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;The hedges are all red with haws and hips,The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.OCTOBERMy ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves,O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,The dreamy air is full, and overflowsWith tender memories of the summer-tide,And mingled voices of the doves and crows.NOVEMBERThe Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,A steed Thessalian with a human face.Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chaseThe leaves, half dead already with affright;I shroud myself in gloom; and to the raceOf mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.DECEMBERRiding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair,I come, the last of all. This crown of mineIs of the holly; in my hand I bearThe thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine.I celebrate the birth of the Divine,And the return of the Saturnian reign;—My songs are carols sung at every shrine,Proclaiming "Peace on earth, good will to men."AUTUMN WITHINIt is autumn; not without,But within me is the cold.Youth and spring are all about;It is I that have grown old.Birds are darting through the air,Singing, building without rest;Life is stirring everywhere,Save within my lonely breast.There is silence: the dead leavesFall and rustle and are still;Beats no flail upon the sheavesComes no murmur from the mill.THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISONFour limpid lakes,—four NaiadesOr sylvan deities are these,In flowing robes of azure dressed;Four lovely handmaids, that upholdTheir shining mirrors, rimmed with gold,To the fair city in the West.By day the coursers of the sunDrink of these waters as they runTheir swift diurnal round on high;By night the constellations glowFar down the hollow deeps below,And glimmer in another sky.Fair lakes, serene and full of light,Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,How visionary ye appear!All like a floating landscape seemsIn cloud-land or the land of dreams,Bathed in a golden atmosphere!VICTOR AND VANQUISHEDAs one who long hath fled with panting breathBefore his foe, bleeding and near to fall,I turn and set my back against the wall,And look thee in the face, triumphant Death,I call for aid, and no one answereth;I am alone with thee, who conquerest all;Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall,For thou art but a phantom and a wraith.Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,With armor shattered, and without a shield,I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;I can resist no more, but will not yield.This is no tournament where cowards tilt;The vanquished here is victor of the field.MOONLIGHTAs a pale phantom with a lampAscends some ruin's haunted stair,So glides the moon along the dampMysterious chambers of the air.Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,As if this phantom, full of pain,Were by the crumbling walls concealed,And at the windows seen again.Until at last, serene and proudIn all the splendor of her light,She walks the terraces of cloud,Supreme as Empress of the Night.I look, but recognize no moreObjects familiar to my view;The very pathway to my doorIs an enchanted avenue.All things are changed. One mass of shade,The elm-trees drop their curtains down;By palace, park, and colonnadeI walk as in a foreign town.The very ground beneath my feetIs clothed with a diviner air;White marble paves the silent streetAnd glimmers in the empty square.Illusion! Underneath there liesThe common life of every day;Only the spirit glorifiesWith its own tints the sober gray.In vain we look, in vain upliftOur eyes to heaven, if we are blind,We see but what we have the giftOf seeing; what we bring we find.THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE[A FRAGMENT.]IWhat is this I read in history, Full of marvel, full of mystery, Difficult to understand? Is it fiction, is it truth? Children in the flower of youth, Heart in heart, and hand in hand, Ignorant of what helps or harms, Without armor, without arms, Journeying to the Holy Land!Who shall answer or divine? Never since the world was made Such a wonderful crusade Started forth for Palestine. Never while the world shall last Will it reproduce the past; Never will it see again Such an army, such a band, Over mountain, over main, Journeying to the Holy Land.Like a shower of blossoms blown From the parent trees were they; Like a flock of birds that fly Through the unfrequented sky, Holding nothing as their own, Passed they into lands unknown, Passed to suffer and to die.O the simple, child-like trust! O the faith that could believe What the harnessed, iron-mailed Knights of Christendom had failed, By their prowess, to achieve, They the children, could and must?Little thought the Hermit, preaching Holy Wars to knight and baron, That the words dropped in his teaching, His entreaty, his beseeching, Would by children's hands be gleaned, And the staff on which he leaned Blossom like the rod of Aaron.As a summer wind upheaves The innumerable leaves In the bosom of a wood,— Not as separate leaves, but massed All together by the blast,— So for evil or for good His resistless breath upheaved All at once the many-leaved, Many-thoughted multitude.In the tumult of the air Rock the boughs with all the nests Cradled on their tossing crests; By the fervor of his prayer Troubled hearts were everywhere Rocked and tossed in human breasts.For a century, at least, His prophetic voice had ceased; But the air was heated still By his lurid words and will, As from fires in far-off woods, In the autumn of the year, An unwonted fever broods In the sultry atmosphere.IIIn Cologne the bells were ringing, In Cologne the nuns were singing Hymns and canticles divine; Loud the monks sang in their stalls, And the thronging streets were loud With the voices of the crowd;— Underneath the city walls Silent flowed the river Rhine.From the gates, that summer day, Clad in robes of hodden gray, With the red cross on the breast, Azure-eyed and golden-haired, Forth the young crusaders fared; While above the band devoted Consecrated banners floated, Fluttered many a flag and streamer, And the cross o'er all the rest! Singing lowly, meekly, slowly, "Give us, give us back the holy Sepulchre of the Redeemer!" On the vast procession pressed, Youths and maidens. . . .IIIAh! what master hand shall paint How they journeyed on their way, How the days grew long and dreary, How their little feet grew weary, How their little hearts grew faint!Ever swifter day by day Flowed the homeward river; ever More and more its whitening current Broke and scattered into spray, Till the calmly-flowing river Changed into a mountain torrent, Rushing from its glacier green Down through chasm and black ravine. Like a phoenix in its nest, Burned the red sun in the West, Sinking in an ashen cloud; In the East, above the crest Of the sea-like mountain chain, Like a phoenix from its shroud, Came the red sun back again.Now around them, white with snow, Closed the mountain peaks. Below, Headlong from the precipice Down into the dark abyss, Plunged the cataract, white with foam; And it said, or seemed to say: "Oh return, while yet you may, Foolish children, to your home, There the Holy City is!"But the dauntless leader said: "Faint not, though your bleeding feet O'er these slippery paths of sleet Move but painfully and slowly; Other feet than yours have bled; Other tears than yours been shed Courage! lose not heart or hope; On the mountains' southern slope Lies Jerusalem the Holy!"As a white rose in its pride, By the wind in summer-tide Tossed and loosened from the branch, Showers its petals o'er the ground, From the distant mountain's side, Scattering all its snows around, With mysterious, muffled sound, Loosened, fell the avalanche. Voices, echoes far and near, Roar of winds and waters blending, Mists uprising, clouds impending, Filled them with a sense of fear, Formless, nameless, never ending.SUNDOWNThe summer sun is sinking low;Only the tree-tops redden and glow:Only the weathercock on the spireOf the neighboring church is a flame of fire;All is in shadow below.O beautiful, awful summer day,What hast thou given, what taken away?Life and death, and love and hate,Homes made happy or desolate,Hearts made sad or gay!On the road of life one mile-stone more!In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!Like a red seal is the setting sunOn the good and the evil men have done,—Naught can to-day restore!CHIMESSweet chimes! that in the loneliness of nightSalute the passing hour, and in the darkAnd silent chambers of the household markThe movements of the myriad orbs of light!Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,I see the constellations in the arcOf their great circles moving on, and hark!I almost hear them singing in their flight.Better than sleep it is to lie awakeO'er-canopied by the vast starry domeOf the immeasurable sky; to feelThe slumbering world sink under us, and makeHardly an eddy,—a mere rush of foamOn the great sea beneath a sinking keel.FOUR BY THE CLOCK."NAHANT, September 8, 1880, Four o'clock in the morning."Four by the clock! and yet not day; But the great world rolls and wheels away, With its cities on land, and its ships at sea, Into the dawn that is to be!Only the lamp in the anchored bark Sends its glimmer across the dark, And the heavy breathing of the sea Is the only sound that comes to me.AUF WIEDERSEHEN.IN MEMORY OF J.T.F.Until we meet again! That is the meaningOf the familiar words, that men repeatAt parting in the street.Ah yes, till then! but when death interveningRends us asunder, with what ceaseless painWe wait for the Again!The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrowOf parting, as we feel it, who must stayLamenting day by day,And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,We shall not find in its accustomed placeThe one beloved face.It were a double grief, if the departed,Being released from earth, should still retainA sense of earthly pain;It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,Who loved us here, should on the farther shoreRemember us no more.Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,That death is a beginning, not an end,We cry to them, and sendFarewells, that better might be called predictions,Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrownInto the vast Unknown.Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,And if by faith, as in old times was said,Women received their deadRaised up to life, then only for a seasonOur partings are, nor shall we wait in vainUntil we meet again!ELEGIAC VERSEIPeradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac,Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations,Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats,So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous,Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows?IINot in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poetBloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.IIINot in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.IVLet us be grateful to writers for what is left in the inkstand;When to leave off is an art only attained by the few.VHow can the Three be One? you ask me; I answer by asking,Hail and snow and rain, are they not three, and yet one?VIBy the mirage uplifted the land floats vague in the ether,Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the motionless air;So by the art of the poet our common life is uplifted,So, transfigured, the world floats in a luminous haze.VIILike a French poem is Life; being only perfect in structureWhen with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.VIIIDown from the mountain descends the brooklet, rejoicing infreedom;Little it dreams of the mill hid in the valley below;Glad with the joy of existence, the child goes singing andlaughing,Little dreaming what toils lie in the future concealed.IXAs the ink from our pen, so flow our thoughts and our feelingsWhen we begin to write, however sluggish before.XLike the Kingdom of Heaven, the Fountain of Youth is within us;If we seek it elsewhere, old shall we grow in the search.XIIf you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.XIIWisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense in their language;While we are speaking the word, it is is already the Past.XIIIIn the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal,As between daylight and dark ghost-like the landscape appears.XIVGreat is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.THE CITY AND THE SEAThe panting City cried to the Sea, "I am faint with heat,—O breathe on me!"And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath To some will be life, to others death!"As to Prometheus, bringing ease In pain, come the Oceanides,So to the City, hot with the flame Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.It came from the heaving breast of the deep, Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be; O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?MEMORIESOft I remember those whom I have knownIn other days, to whom my heart was ledAs by a magnet, and who are not dead,But absent, and their memories overgrownWith other thoughts and troubles of my own,As graves with grasses are, and at their headThe stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,Nothing is legible but the name alone.And is it so with them? After long years,Do they remember me in the same way,And is the memory pleasant as to me?I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,And yet the root perennial may be.HERMES TRISMEGISTUSAs Seleucus narrates, Hermes describes the principles that rankas wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are informed byManetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriadssix thousand five hundred and twenty-five volumes. . . .. . . Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom tothis deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name ofHermes.—IAMBLICUS.Still through Egypt's desert placesFlows the lordly Nile,From its banks the great stone facesGaze with patient smile.Still the pyramids imperiousPierce the cloudless skies,And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,Solemn, stony eyes.But where are the old EgyptianDemi-gods and kings?Nothing left but an inscriptionGraven on stones and rings.Where are Helios and Hephæstus,Gods of eldest eld?Where is Hermes Trismegistus,Who their secrets held?Where are now the many hundredThousand books he wrote?By the Thaumaturgists plundered,Lost in lands remote;In oblivion sunk forever,As when o'er the landBlows a storm-wind, in the riverSinks the scattered sand.Something unsubstantial, ghostly,Seems this Theurgist,In deep meditation mostlyWrapped, as in a mist.Vague, phantasmal, and unrealTo our thought he seems,Walking in a world ideal,In a land of dreams.Was he one, or many, mergingName and fame in one,Like a stream, to which, convergingMany streamlets run?Till, with gathered power proceeding,Ampler sweep it takes,Downward the sweet waters leadingFrom unnumbered lakes.By the Nile I see him wandering,Pausing now and then,On the mystic union ponderingBetween gods and men;Half believing, wholly feeling,With supreme delight,How the gods, themselves concealing,Lift men to their height.Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,In the thoroughfareBreathing, as if consecrated,A diviner air;And amid discordant noises,In the jostling throng,Hearing far, celestial voicesOf Olympian song.Who shall call his dreams fallacious?Who has searched or soughtAll the unexplored and spaciousUniverse of thought?Who, in his own skill confiding,Shall with rule and lineMark the border-land dividingHuman and divine?Trismegistus! three times greatest!How thy name sublimeHas descended to this latestProgeny of time!Happy they whose written pagesPerish with their lives,If amid the crumbling agesStill their name survives!Thine, O priest of Egypt, latelyFound I in the vast,Weed-encumbered sombre, stately,Grave-yard of the Past;And a presence moved before meOn that gloomy shore,As a waft of wind, that o'er meBreathed, and was no more.TO THE AVONFlow on, sweet river! like his verse Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse Nor wait beside the churchyard wall For him who cannot hear thy call.Thy playmate once; I see him now A boy with sunshine on his brow, And hear in Stratford's quiet street The patter of his little feet.I see him by thy shallow edge Wading knee-deep amid the sedge; And lost in thought, as if thy stream Were the swift river of a dream.He wonders whitherward it flows; And fain would follow where it goes, To the wide world, that shall erelong Be filled with his melodious song.Flow on, fair stream! That dream is o'er; He stands upon another shore; A vaster river near him flows, And still he follows where it goes.PRESIDENT GARFIELD"E venni dal martirio a questa pace."These words the poet heard in Paradise,Uttered by one who, bravely dying here,In the true faith was living in that sphereWhere the celestial cross of sacrificeSpread its protecting arms athwart the skies;And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,Were not the suffering followed by the senseOf infinite rest and infinite release!This is our consolation; and againA great soul cries to us in our suspense,"I came from martyrdom unto this peace!"MY BOOKSSadly as some old mediaeval knightGazed at the arms he could no longer wield,The sword two-handed and the shining shieldSuspended in the hall, and full in sight,While secret longings for the lost delightOf tourney or adventure in the fieldCame over him, and tears but half concealedTrembled and fell upon his beard of white,So I behold these books upon their shelf,My ornaments and arms of other days;Not wholly useless, though no longer used,For they remind me of my other self,Younger and stronger, and the pleasant waysIn which I walked, now clouded and confused.MAD RIVERIN THE WHITE MOUNTAINSTRAVELLERWhy dost thou wildly rush and roar,Mad River, O Mad River?Wilt thou not pause and cease to pourThy hurrying, headlong waters o'erThis rocky shelf forever?What secret trouble stirs thy breast?Why all this fret and flurry?Dost thou not know that what is bestIn this too restless world is restFrom over-work and worry?THE RIVERWhat wouldst thou in these mountains seek,O stranger from the city?Is it perhaps some foolish freakOf thine, to put the words I speakInto a plaintive ditty?TRAVELLERYes; I would learn of thee thy song,With all its flowing number;And in a voice as fresh and strongAs thine is, sing it all day long,And hear it in my slumbers.THE RIVERA brooklet nameless and unknownWas I at first, resemblingA little child, that all aloneComes venturing down the stairs of stone,Irresolute and trembling.Later, by wayward fancies led,For the wide world I panted;Out of the forest dark and dreadAcross the open fields I fled,Like one pursued and haunted.I tossed my arms, I sang aloud,My voice exultant blendingWith thunder from the passing cloud,The wind, the forest bent and bowed,The rush of rain descending.I heard the distant ocean call,Imploring and entreating;Drawn onward, o'er this rocky wallI plunged, and the loud waterfallMade answer to the greeting.And now, beset with many ills,A toilsome life I follow;Compelled to carry from the hillsThese logs to the impatient millsBelow there in the hollow.Yet something ever cheers and charmsThe rudeness of my labors;Daily I water with these armsThe cattle of a hundred farms,And have the birds for neighbors.Men call me Mad, and well they may,When, full of rage and trouble,I burst my banks of sand and clay,And sweep their wooden bridge away,Like withered reeds or stubble.Now go and write thy little rhyme,As of thine own creating.Thou seest the day is past its prime;I can no longer waste my time;The mills are tired of waiting.POSSIBILITIESWhere are the Poets, unto whom belongThe Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sentStraight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,But with the utmost tension of the thong?Where are the stately argosies of song,Whose rushing keels made music as they wentSailing in search of some new continent,With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaughtIn schools, some graduate of the field or street,Who shall become a master of the art,An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,Fearless and first and steering with his fleetFor lands not yet laid down in any chart.DECORATION DAYSleep, comrades, sleep and restOn this Field of the Grounded Arms,Where foes no more molest,Nor sentry's shot alarms!Ye have slept on the ground before,And started to your feetAt the cannon's sudden roar,Or the drum's redoubling beat.But in this camp of DeathNo sound your slumber breaks;Here is no fevered breath,No wound that bleeds and aches.All is repose and peace,Untrampled lies the sod;The shouts of battle cease,It is the Truce of God!Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!The thoughts of men shall beAs sentinels to keepYour rest from danger free.Your silent tents of greenWe deck with fragrant flowers;Yours has the suffering been,The memory shall be ours.A FRAGMENTAwake! arise! the hour is late!Angels are knocking at thy door!They are in haste and cannot wait,And once departed come no more.Awake! arise! the athlete's armLoses its strength by too much rest;The fallow land, the untilled farmProduces only weeds at best.LOSS AND GAINWhen I compareWhat I have lost with what I have gained,What I have missed with what attained,Little room do I find for pride.I am awareHow many days have been idly spent;How like an arrow the good intentHas fallen short or been turned aside.But who shall dareTo measure loss and gain in this wise?Defeat may be victory in disguise;The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.INSCRIPTION ON THE SHANKLIN FOUNTAINO traveller, stay thy weary feet;Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet;It flows for rich and poor the same.Then go thy way, remembering stillThe wayside well beneath the hill,The cup of water in His name.THE BELLS OF SAN BLASWhat say the Bells of San BlasTo the ships that southward passFrom the harbor of Mazatlan?To them it is nothing moreThan the sound of surf on the shore,—Nothing more to master or man.But to me, a dreamer of dreams,To whom what is and what seemsAre often one and the same,—The Bells of San Blas to meHave a strange, wild melody,And are something more than a name.For bells are the voice of the church;They have tones that touch and searchThe hearts of young and old;One sound to all, yet eachLends a meaning to their speech,And the meaning is manifold.They are a voice of the Past,Of an age that is fading fast,Of a power austere and grand,When the flag of Spain unfurledIts folds o'er this western world,And the Priest was lord of the land.The chapel that once looked downOn the little seaport townHas crumbled into the dust;And on oaken beams belowThe bells swing to and fro,And are green with mould and rust."Is, then, the old faith dead,"They say, "and in its steadIs some new faith proclaimed,That we are forced to remainNaked to sun and rain,Unsheltered and ashamed?"Once, in our tower aloof,We rang over wall and roofOur warnings and our complaints;And round about us thereThe white doves filled the air,Like the white souls of the saints."The saints! Ah, have they grownForgetful of their own?Are they asleep, or dead,That open to the skyTheir ruined Missions lie,No longer tenanted?"Oh, bring us back once moreThe vanished days of yore,When the world with faith was filled;Bring back the fervid zeal,The hearts of fire and steel,The hands that believe and build."Then from our tower againWe will send over land and mainOur voices of command,Like exiled kings who returnTo their thrones, and the people learnThat the Priest is lord of the land!"O Bells of San Blas in vainYe call back the Past again;The Past is deaf to your prayer!Out of the shadows of nightThe world rolls into light;It is daybreak everywhere.
Becalmed upon the sea of Thought, Still unattained the land it sought, My mind, with loosely-hanging sails, Lies waiting the auspicious gales.
On either side, behind, before, The ocean stretches like a floor,— A level floor of amethyst, Crowned by a golden dome of mist.
Blow, breath of inspiration, blow! Shake and uplift this golden glow! And fill the canvas of the mind With wafts of thy celestial wind.
Blow, breath of song! until I feel The straining sail, the lifting keel, The life of the awakening sea, Its motion and its mystery!
Janus am I; oldest of potentates;Forward I look, and backward, and belowI count, as god of avenues and gates,The years that through my portals come and go.I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.
I am lustration, and the sea is mine.I wash the sands and headlands with my tide;My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.By me all things unclean are purified,By me the souls of men washed white again;E'en the unlovely tombs of those who diedWithout a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.
I Martius am! Once first, and now the third!To lead the Year was my appointed place;A mortal dispossessed me by a word,And set there Janus with the double face.Hence I make war on all the human race;I shake the cities with my hurricanes;I flood the rivers and their banks efface,And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains.
I open wide the portals of the SpringTo welcome the procession of the flowers,With their gay banners, and the birds that singTheir song of songs from their aerial towers.I soften with my sunshine and my showersThe heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glideInto the hearts of men; and with the HoursUpon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.
Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaimMy coming, and the swarming of the bees.These are my heralds, and behold! my nameIs written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.I tell the mariner when to sail the seas;I waft o'er all the land from far awayThe breath and bloom of the Hesperides,My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.
Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mineThe Month of Marriages! All pleasant sightsAnd scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,The foliage of the valleys and the heights.Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;I am the mother of all dear delights;I am the fairest daughter of the year.
My emblem is the Lion, and I breatheThe breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,And bent before me the pale harvests stand.The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,And there is thirst and fever in the air;The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;I am the Emperor whose name I bear.
The Emperor Octavian, called the August,I being his favorite, bestowed his nameUpon me, and I hold it still in trust,In memory of him and of his fame.I am the Virgin, and my vestal flameBurns less intensely than the Lion's rage;Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claimThe golden Harvests as my heritage.
I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoiseThe night and day; and when unto my lipsI put my trumpet, with its stress and noiseFly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships;The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips;Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight;The hedges are all red with haws and hips,The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night.
My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves,Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed;I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves,O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside.Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride,The dreamy air is full, and overflowsWith tender memories of the summer-tide,And mingled voices of the doves and crows.
The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I,Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace;With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,A steed Thessalian with a human face.Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chaseThe leaves, half dead already with affright;I shroud myself in gloom; and to the raceOf mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.
Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair,I come, the last of all. This crown of mineIs of the holly; in my hand I bearThe thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine.I celebrate the birth of the Divine,And the return of the Saturnian reign;—My songs are carols sung at every shrine,Proclaiming "Peace on earth, good will to men."
It is autumn; not without,But within me is the cold.Youth and spring are all about;It is I that have grown old.
Birds are darting through the air,Singing, building without rest;Life is stirring everywhere,Save within my lonely breast.
There is silence: the dead leavesFall and rustle and are still;Beats no flail upon the sheavesComes no murmur from the mill.
Four limpid lakes,—four NaiadesOr sylvan deities are these,In flowing robes of azure dressed;Four lovely handmaids, that upholdTheir shining mirrors, rimmed with gold,To the fair city in the West.
By day the coursers of the sunDrink of these waters as they runTheir swift diurnal round on high;By night the constellations glowFar down the hollow deeps below,And glimmer in another sky.
Fair lakes, serene and full of light,Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,How visionary ye appear!All like a floating landscape seemsIn cloud-land or the land of dreams,Bathed in a golden atmosphere!
As one who long hath fled with panting breathBefore his foe, bleeding and near to fall,I turn and set my back against the wall,And look thee in the face, triumphant Death,I call for aid, and no one answereth;I am alone with thee, who conquerest all;Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall,For thou art but a phantom and a wraith.Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,With armor shattered, and without a shield,I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;I can resist no more, but will not yield.This is no tournament where cowards tilt;The vanquished here is victor of the field.
As a pale phantom with a lampAscends some ruin's haunted stair,So glides the moon along the dampMysterious chambers of the air.
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,As if this phantom, full of pain,Were by the crumbling walls concealed,And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proudIn all the splendor of her light,She walks the terraces of cloud,Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no moreObjects familiar to my view;The very pathway to my doorIs an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed. One mass of shade,The elm-trees drop their curtains down;By palace, park, and colonnadeI walk as in a foreign town.
The very ground beneath my feetIs clothed with a diviner air;White marble paves the silent streetAnd glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion! Underneath there liesThe common life of every day;Only the spirit glorifiesWith its own tints the sober gray.
In vain we look, in vain upliftOur eyes to heaven, if we are blind,We see but what we have the giftOf seeing; what we bring we find.
[A FRAGMENT.]
What is this I read in history, Full of marvel, full of mystery, Difficult to understand? Is it fiction, is it truth? Children in the flower of youth, Heart in heart, and hand in hand, Ignorant of what helps or harms, Without armor, without arms, Journeying to the Holy Land!
Who shall answer or divine? Never since the world was made Such a wonderful crusade Started forth for Palestine. Never while the world shall last Will it reproduce the past; Never will it see again Such an army, such a band, Over mountain, over main, Journeying to the Holy Land.
Like a shower of blossoms blown From the parent trees were they; Like a flock of birds that fly Through the unfrequented sky, Holding nothing as their own, Passed they into lands unknown, Passed to suffer and to die.
O the simple, child-like trust! O the faith that could believe What the harnessed, iron-mailed Knights of Christendom had failed, By their prowess, to achieve, They the children, could and must?
Little thought the Hermit, preaching Holy Wars to knight and baron, That the words dropped in his teaching, His entreaty, his beseeching, Would by children's hands be gleaned, And the staff on which he leaned Blossom like the rod of Aaron.
As a summer wind upheaves The innumerable leaves In the bosom of a wood,— Not as separate leaves, but massed All together by the blast,— So for evil or for good His resistless breath upheaved All at once the many-leaved, Many-thoughted multitude.
In the tumult of the air Rock the boughs with all the nests Cradled on their tossing crests; By the fervor of his prayer Troubled hearts were everywhere Rocked and tossed in human breasts.
For a century, at least, His prophetic voice had ceased; But the air was heated still By his lurid words and will, As from fires in far-off woods, In the autumn of the year, An unwonted fever broods In the sultry atmosphere.
In Cologne the bells were ringing, In Cologne the nuns were singing Hymns and canticles divine; Loud the monks sang in their stalls, And the thronging streets were loud With the voices of the crowd;— Underneath the city walls Silent flowed the river Rhine.
From the gates, that summer day, Clad in robes of hodden gray, With the red cross on the breast, Azure-eyed and golden-haired, Forth the young crusaders fared; While above the band devoted Consecrated banners floated, Fluttered many a flag and streamer, And the cross o'er all the rest! Singing lowly, meekly, slowly, "Give us, give us back the holy Sepulchre of the Redeemer!" On the vast procession pressed, Youths and maidens. . . .
Ah! what master hand shall paint How they journeyed on their way, How the days grew long and dreary, How their little feet grew weary, How their little hearts grew faint!
Ever swifter day by day Flowed the homeward river; ever More and more its whitening current Broke and scattered into spray, Till the calmly-flowing river Changed into a mountain torrent, Rushing from its glacier green Down through chasm and black ravine. Like a phoenix in its nest, Burned the red sun in the West, Sinking in an ashen cloud; In the East, above the crest Of the sea-like mountain chain, Like a phoenix from its shroud, Came the red sun back again.
Now around them, white with snow, Closed the mountain peaks. Below, Headlong from the precipice Down into the dark abyss, Plunged the cataract, white with foam; And it said, or seemed to say: "Oh return, while yet you may, Foolish children, to your home, There the Holy City is!"
But the dauntless leader said: "Faint not, though your bleeding feet O'er these slippery paths of sleet Move but painfully and slowly; Other feet than yours have bled; Other tears than yours been shed Courage! lose not heart or hope; On the mountains' southern slope Lies Jerusalem the Holy!"
As a white rose in its pride, By the wind in summer-tide Tossed and loosened from the branch, Showers its petals o'er the ground, From the distant mountain's side, Scattering all its snows around, With mysterious, muffled sound, Loosened, fell the avalanche. Voices, echoes far and near, Roar of winds and waters blending, Mists uprising, clouds impending, Filled them with a sense of fear, Formless, nameless, never ending.
The summer sun is sinking low;Only the tree-tops redden and glow:Only the weathercock on the spireOf the neighboring church is a flame of fire;All is in shadow below.
O beautiful, awful summer day,What hast thou given, what taken away?Life and death, and love and hate,Homes made happy or desolate,Hearts made sad or gay!
On the road of life one mile-stone more!In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!Like a red seal is the setting sunOn the good and the evil men have done,—Naught can to-day restore!
Sweet chimes! that in the loneliness of nightSalute the passing hour, and in the darkAnd silent chambers of the household markThe movements of the myriad orbs of light!Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,I see the constellations in the arcOf their great circles moving on, and hark!I almost hear them singing in their flight.Better than sleep it is to lie awakeO'er-canopied by the vast starry domeOf the immeasurable sky; to feelThe slumbering world sink under us, and makeHardly an eddy,—a mere rush of foamOn the great sea beneath a sinking keel.
"NAHANT, September 8, 1880, Four o'clock in the morning."
Four by the clock! and yet not day; But the great world rolls and wheels away, With its cities on land, and its ships at sea, Into the dawn that is to be!
Only the lamp in the anchored bark Sends its glimmer across the dark, And the heavy breathing of the sea Is the only sound that comes to me.
IN MEMORY OF J.T.F.
Until we meet again! That is the meaningOf the familiar words, that men repeatAt parting in the street.Ah yes, till then! but when death interveningRends us asunder, with what ceaseless painWe wait for the Again!
The friends who leave us do not feel the sorrowOf parting, as we feel it, who must stayLamenting day by day,And knowing, when we wake upon the morrow,We shall not find in its accustomed placeThe one beloved face.
It were a double grief, if the departed,Being released from earth, should still retainA sense of earthly pain;It were a double grief, if the true-hearted,Who loved us here, should on the farther shoreRemember us no more.
Believing, in the midst of our afflictions,That death is a beginning, not an end,We cry to them, and sendFarewells, that better might be called predictions,Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrownInto the vast Unknown.
Faith overleaps the confines of our reason,And if by faith, as in old times was said,Women received their deadRaised up to life, then only for a seasonOur partings are, nor shall we wait in vainUntil we meet again!
Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian Islands,Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves,Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac,Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea.
For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations,Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats,So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous,Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows?
Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poetBloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring.
Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet;Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas! are the hands.
Let us be grateful to writers for what is left in the inkstand;When to leave off is an art only attained by the few.
How can the Three be One? you ask me; I answer by asking,Hail and snow and rain, are they not three, and yet one?
By the mirage uplifted the land floats vague in the ether,Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the motionless air;So by the art of the poet our common life is uplifted,So, transfigured, the world floats in a luminous haze.
Like a French poem is Life; being only perfect in structureWhen with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.
Down from the mountain descends the brooklet, rejoicing infreedom;Little it dreams of the mill hid in the valley below;Glad with the joy of existence, the child goes singing andlaughing,Little dreaming what toils lie in the future concealed.
As the ink from our pen, so flow our thoughts and our feelingsWhen we begin to write, however sluggish before.
Like the Kingdom of Heaven, the Fountain of Youth is within us;If we seek it elsewhere, old shall we grow in the search.
If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.
Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense in their language;While we are speaking the word, it is is already the Past.
In the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal,As between daylight and dark ghost-like the landscape appears.
Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending;Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.
The panting City cried to the Sea, "I am faint with heat,—O breathe on me!"
And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath To some will be life, to others death!"
As to Prometheus, bringing ease In pain, come the Oceanides,
So to the City, hot with the flame Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.
It came from the heaving breast of the deep, Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.
Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be; O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?
Oft I remember those whom I have knownIn other days, to whom my heart was ledAs by a magnet, and who are not dead,But absent, and their memories overgrownWith other thoughts and troubles of my own,As graves with grasses are, and at their headThe stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,Nothing is legible but the name alone.And is it so with them? After long years,Do they remember me in the same way,And is the memory pleasant as to me?I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,And yet the root perennial may be.
As Seleucus narrates, Hermes describes the principles that rankas wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are informed byManetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriadssix thousand five hundred and twenty-five volumes. . . .. . . Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom tothis deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name ofHermes.—IAMBLICUS.
Still through Egypt's desert placesFlows the lordly Nile,From its banks the great stone facesGaze with patient smile.Still the pyramids imperiousPierce the cloudless skies,And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,Solemn, stony eyes.
But where are the old EgyptianDemi-gods and kings?Nothing left but an inscriptionGraven on stones and rings.Where are Helios and Hephæstus,Gods of eldest eld?Where is Hermes Trismegistus,Who their secrets held?
Where are now the many hundredThousand books he wrote?By the Thaumaturgists plundered,Lost in lands remote;In oblivion sunk forever,As when o'er the landBlows a storm-wind, in the riverSinks the scattered sand.
Something unsubstantial, ghostly,Seems this Theurgist,In deep meditation mostlyWrapped, as in a mist.Vague, phantasmal, and unrealTo our thought he seems,Walking in a world ideal,In a land of dreams.
Was he one, or many, mergingName and fame in one,Like a stream, to which, convergingMany streamlets run?Till, with gathered power proceeding,Ampler sweep it takes,Downward the sweet waters leadingFrom unnumbered lakes.
By the Nile I see him wandering,Pausing now and then,On the mystic union ponderingBetween gods and men;Half believing, wholly feeling,With supreme delight,How the gods, themselves concealing,Lift men to their height.
Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,In the thoroughfareBreathing, as if consecrated,A diviner air;And amid discordant noises,In the jostling throng,Hearing far, celestial voicesOf Olympian song.
Who shall call his dreams fallacious?Who has searched or soughtAll the unexplored and spaciousUniverse of thought?Who, in his own skill confiding,Shall with rule and lineMark the border-land dividingHuman and divine?
Trismegistus! three times greatest!How thy name sublimeHas descended to this latestProgeny of time!Happy they whose written pagesPerish with their lives,If amid the crumbling agesStill their name survives!
Thine, O priest of Egypt, latelyFound I in the vast,Weed-encumbered sombre, stately,Grave-yard of the Past;And a presence moved before meOn that gloomy shore,As a waft of wind, that o'er meBreathed, and was no more.
Flow on, sweet river! like his verse Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse Nor wait beside the churchyard wall For him who cannot hear thy call.
Thy playmate once; I see him now A boy with sunshine on his brow, And hear in Stratford's quiet street The patter of his little feet.
I see him by thy shallow edge Wading knee-deep amid the sedge; And lost in thought, as if thy stream Were the swift river of a dream.
He wonders whitherward it flows; And fain would follow where it goes, To the wide world, that shall erelong Be filled with his melodious song.
Flow on, fair stream! That dream is o'er; He stands upon another shore; A vaster river near him flows, And still he follows where it goes.
"E venni dal martirio a questa pace."
These words the poet heard in Paradise,Uttered by one who, bravely dying here,In the true faith was living in that sphereWhere the celestial cross of sacrificeSpread its protecting arms athwart the skies;And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,Were not the suffering followed by the senseOf infinite rest and infinite release!This is our consolation; and againA great soul cries to us in our suspense,"I came from martyrdom unto this peace!"
Sadly as some old mediaeval knightGazed at the arms he could no longer wield,The sword two-handed and the shining shieldSuspended in the hall, and full in sight,While secret longings for the lost delightOf tourney or adventure in the fieldCame over him, and tears but half concealedTrembled and fell upon his beard of white,So I behold these books upon their shelf,My ornaments and arms of other days;Not wholly useless, though no longer used,For they remind me of my other self,Younger and stronger, and the pleasant waysIn which I walked, now clouded and confused.
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
TRAVELLERWhy dost thou wildly rush and roar,Mad River, O Mad River?Wilt thou not pause and cease to pourThy hurrying, headlong waters o'erThis rocky shelf forever?
What secret trouble stirs thy breast?Why all this fret and flurry?Dost thou not know that what is bestIn this too restless world is restFrom over-work and worry?
THE RIVERWhat wouldst thou in these mountains seek,O stranger from the city?Is it perhaps some foolish freakOf thine, to put the words I speakInto a plaintive ditty?
TRAVELLERYes; I would learn of thee thy song,With all its flowing number;And in a voice as fresh and strongAs thine is, sing it all day long,And hear it in my slumbers.
THE RIVERA brooklet nameless and unknownWas I at first, resemblingA little child, that all aloneComes venturing down the stairs of stone,Irresolute and trembling.
Later, by wayward fancies led,For the wide world I panted;Out of the forest dark and dreadAcross the open fields I fled,Like one pursued and haunted.
I tossed my arms, I sang aloud,My voice exultant blendingWith thunder from the passing cloud,The wind, the forest bent and bowed,The rush of rain descending.
I heard the distant ocean call,Imploring and entreating;Drawn onward, o'er this rocky wallI plunged, and the loud waterfallMade answer to the greeting.
And now, beset with many ills,A toilsome life I follow;Compelled to carry from the hillsThese logs to the impatient millsBelow there in the hollow.
Yet something ever cheers and charmsThe rudeness of my labors;Daily I water with these armsThe cattle of a hundred farms,And have the birds for neighbors.
Men call me Mad, and well they may,When, full of rage and trouble,I burst my banks of sand and clay,And sweep their wooden bridge away,Like withered reeds or stubble.
Now go and write thy little rhyme,As of thine own creating.Thou seest the day is past its prime;I can no longer waste my time;The mills are tired of waiting.
Where are the Poets, unto whom belongThe Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sentStraight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,But with the utmost tension of the thong?Where are the stately argosies of song,Whose rushing keels made music as they wentSailing in search of some new continent,With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaughtIn schools, some graduate of the field or street,Who shall become a master of the art,An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,Fearless and first and steering with his fleetFor lands not yet laid down in any chart.
Sleep, comrades, sleep and restOn this Field of the Grounded Arms,Where foes no more molest,Nor sentry's shot alarms!
Ye have slept on the ground before,And started to your feetAt the cannon's sudden roar,Or the drum's redoubling beat.
But in this camp of DeathNo sound your slumber breaks;Here is no fevered breath,No wound that bleeds and aches.
All is repose and peace,Untrampled lies the sod;The shouts of battle cease,It is the Truce of God!
Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!The thoughts of men shall beAs sentinels to keepYour rest from danger free.
Your silent tents of greenWe deck with fragrant flowers;Yours has the suffering been,The memory shall be ours.
Awake! arise! the hour is late!Angels are knocking at thy door!They are in haste and cannot wait,And once departed come no more.
Awake! arise! the athlete's armLoses its strength by too much rest;The fallow land, the untilled farmProduces only weeds at best.
When I compareWhat I have lost with what I have gained,What I have missed with what attained,Little room do I find for pride.I am awareHow many days have been idly spent;How like an arrow the good intentHas fallen short or been turned aside.But who shall dareTo measure loss and gain in this wise?Defeat may be victory in disguise;The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
O traveller, stay thy weary feet;Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet;It flows for rich and poor the same.Then go thy way, remembering stillThe wayside well beneath the hill,The cup of water in His name.
What say the Bells of San BlasTo the ships that southward passFrom the harbor of Mazatlan?To them it is nothing moreThan the sound of surf on the shore,—Nothing more to master or man.
But to me, a dreamer of dreams,To whom what is and what seemsAre often one and the same,—The Bells of San Blas to meHave a strange, wild melody,And are something more than a name.
For bells are the voice of the church;They have tones that touch and searchThe hearts of young and old;One sound to all, yet eachLends a meaning to their speech,And the meaning is manifold.
They are a voice of the Past,Of an age that is fading fast,Of a power austere and grand,When the flag of Spain unfurledIts folds o'er this western world,And the Priest was lord of the land.
The chapel that once looked downOn the little seaport townHas crumbled into the dust;And on oaken beams belowThe bells swing to and fro,And are green with mould and rust.
"Is, then, the old faith dead,"They say, "and in its steadIs some new faith proclaimed,That we are forced to remainNaked to sun and rain,Unsheltered and ashamed?
"Once, in our tower aloof,We rang over wall and roofOur warnings and our complaints;And round about us thereThe white doves filled the air,Like the white souls of the saints.
"The saints! Ah, have they grownForgetful of their own?Are they asleep, or dead,That open to the skyTheir ruined Missions lie,No longer tenanted?
"Oh, bring us back once moreThe vanished days of yore,When the world with faith was filled;Bring back the fervid zeal,The hearts of fire and steel,The hands that believe and build.
"Then from our tower againWe will send over land and mainOur voices of command,Like exiled kings who returnTo their thrones, and the people learnThat the Priest is lord of the land!"
O Bells of San Blas in vainYe call back the Past again;The Past is deaf to your prayer!Out of the shadows of nightThe world rolls into light;It is daybreak everywhere.