Then swelled the organ: up through choir and naveThe music trembled with an inward thrillOf bliss at its own grandeur; wave on waveIts flood of mellow thunder rose, untilThe hushed air shivered with the throb it gave,Then, poising for a moment, it stood still, 510And sank and rose again, to burst in sprayThat wandered into silence far away.
Like to a mighty heart the music seemed,That yearns with melodies it cannot speak,Until, in grand despair of what it dreamed,In the agony of effort it doth break,Yet triumphs breaking; on it rushed and streamedAnd wantoned in its might, as when a lake,Long pent among the mountains, bursts its wallsAnd in one crowding gash leaps forth and falls. 520
Deeper and deeper shudders shook the air,As the huge bass kept gathering heavily,Like thunder when it rouses in its lair,And with its hoarse growl shakes the low-hung sky,It grew up like a darkness everywhere,Filling the vast cathedral;—suddenly,From the dense mass a boy's clear treble brokeLike lightning, and the full-toned choir awoke.
Through gorgeous windows shone the sun aslant,Brimming the church with gold and purple mist, 530Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant.Where fifty voices in one strand did twistTheir varicolored tones, and left no wantTo the delighted soul, which sank abyssedIn the warm music cloud, while, far below,The organ heaved its surges to and fro.
As if a lark should suddenly drop deadWhile the blue air yet trembled with its song,So snapped at once that music's golden thread,Struck by a nameless fear that leapt along 540From heart to heart, and like a shadow spreadWith instantaneous shiver through the throng,So that some glanced behind, as half awareA hideous shape of dread were standing there.
As when a crowd of pale men gather round,Watching an eddy in the leaden deep,From which they deem the body of one drownedWill be cast forth, from face to face doth creepAn eager dread that holds all tongues fast boundUntil the horror, with a ghastly leap, 550Starts up, its dead blue arms stretched aimlessly,Heaved with the swinging of the careless sea,—
So in the faces of all these there grew,As by one impulse, a dark, freezing awe,Which with a fearful fascination drewAll eyes toward the altar; damp and rawThe air grew suddenly, and no man knewWhether perchance his silent neighbor sawThe dreadful thing which all were sure would riseTo scare the strained lids wider from their eyes. 560
The incense trembled as it upward sentIts slow, uncertain thread of wandering blue,As't were the only living elementIn all the church, so deep the stillness grew;It seemed one might have heard it, as it went,Give out an audible rustle, curling throughThe midnight silence of that awestruck air,More hushed than death, though so much life was there.
Nothing they saw, but a low voice was heardThreading the ominous silence of that fear, 570Gentle and terrorless as if a bird,Wakened by some volcano's glare, should cheerThe murk air with his song; yet every wordIn the cathedral's farthest arch seemed near,As if it spoke to every one apart,Like the clear voice of conscience in each heart.
'O Rest, to weary hearts thou art most dear!O Silence, after life's bewildering din,Thou art most welcome, whether in the searDays of our age thou comest, or we win 580Thy poppy-wreath in youth! then wherefore hereLinger I yet, once free to enter inAt that wished gate which gentle Death doth ope,Into the boundless realm of strength and hope?
'Think not in death my love could ever cease;If thou wast false, more need there is for meStill to be true; that slumber were not peace,If't were unvisited with dreams of thee:And thou hadst never heard such words as these,Save that in heaven I must forever be 590Most comfortless and wretched, seeing thisOur unbaptized babe shut out from bliss.
'This little spirit with imploring eyesWanders alone the dreary wild of space;The shadow of his pain forever liesUpon my soul in this new dwelling-place;His loneliness makes me in ParadiseMore lonely, and, unless I see his face,Even here for grief could I lie down and die, 599Save for my curse of immortality.
'World after world he sees around him swimCrowded with happy souls, that take no heedOf the sad eyes that from the night's faint rimGaze sick with longing on them as they speedWith golden gates, that only shut on him;And shapes sometimes from hell's abysses freedFlap darkly by him, with enormous sweepOf wings that roughen wide the pitchy deep.
'I am a mother,—spirits do not shakeThis much of earth from them,—and I must pine 610Till I can feel his little hands, and takeHis weary head upon this heart of mine;And, might it be, full gladly for his sakeWould I this solitude of bliss resignAnd be shut out of heaven to dwell with himForever in that silence drear and dim.
'I strove to hush my soul, and would not speakAt first, for thy dear sake; a woman's loveIs mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,And by its weakness overcomes; I strove 620To smother bitter thoughts with patience meek,But still in the abyss my soul would rove,Seeking my child, and drove me here to claimThe rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name.
'I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing;I can but long and pine the while they praise,And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I flingMy voice to where I deem my infant strays,Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bringHer nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace; 630But still he answers not, and I but knowThat heaven and earth are both alike in woe.'
Then the pale priests, with ceremony due,Baptized the child within its dreadful tombBeneath that mother's heart, whose instinct trueStar-like had battled down the triple gloomOf sorrow, love, and death: young maidens, too.Strewed the pale corpse with many a milkwhite bloom,And parted the bright hair, and on the breastCrossed the unconscious hands in sign of rest. 640
Some said, that, when the priest had sprinkled o'erThe consecrated drops, they seemed to hearA sigh, as of some heart from travail soreReleased, and then two voices singing clear,Misereatur Deus, more and moreFading far upward, and their ghastly fearFell from them with that sound, as bodies fallFrom souls upspringing to celestial hall.
One after one the stars have risen and set,Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain:The Bear, that prowled all night about the foldOf the North-star, hath shrunk into his den.Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn,Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient;And now bright Lucifer grows less and less,Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn.Sunless and starless all, the desert skyArches above me, empty as this heart 10For ages hath been empty of all joy,Except to brood upon its silent hope,As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now.All night have I heard voices: deeper yetThe deep low breathing of the silence grew,While all about, muffled in awe, there stoodShadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart,But, when I turned to front them, far alongOnly a shudder through the midnight ran,And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 20But still I heard them wander up and downThat solitude, and flappings of dusk wingsDid mingle with them, whether of those hagsLet slip upon me once from Hades deep,Or of yet direr torments, if such be,I could but guess; and then toward me cameA shape as of a woman: very paleIt was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move,And mine moved not, but only stared on them.Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice; 30A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart,And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fogSuddenly closed me in, was all I felt:And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh,A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lipsStiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thoughtSome doom was close upon me, and I lookedAnd saw the red moon through the heavy mist,Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling,Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead 40And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds mergedInto the rising surges of the pines,Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loinsOf ancient Caucasus with hairy strength,Sent up a murmur in the morning wind,Sad as the wail that from the populous earthAll day and night to high Olympus soars.Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove!
Thy hated name is tossed once more in scornFrom off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 50And are these tears? Nay, do not triumph, Jove!They are wrung from me but by the agoniesOf prophecy, like those sparse drops which fallFrom clouds in travail of the lightning, whenThe great wave of the storm high-curled and blackRolls steadily onward to its thunderous break.Why art thou made a god of, thou poor typeOf anger, and revenge, and cunning force?True Power was never born of brutish Strength,Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs 60Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunderbolts,That quell the darkness for a space, so strongAs the prevailing patience of meek Light,Who, with the invincible tenderness of peace,Wins it to be a portion of herself?Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hastThe never-sleeping terror at thy heart,That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bearThan this thy ravening bird on which I smile?Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold 70What kind of doom it is whose omen flitsAcross thy heart, as o'er a troop of dovesThe fearful shadow of the kite. What needTo know that truth whose knowledge cannot save?Evil its errand hath, as well as Good;When thine is finished, thou art known no more:There is a higher purity than thou,And higher purity is greater strength;Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heartTrembles behind the thick wall of thy might. 80Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilledWith thought of that drear silence and deep nightWhich, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine:Let man but will, and thou art god no more,More capable of ruin than the goldAnd ivory that image thee on earth.He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-broodBlinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned,Is weaker than a simple human thought.My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, 90That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair,Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole;For I am still Prometheus, and foreknowIn my wise heart the end and doom of all.
Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grownBy years of solitude,—that holds apartThe past and future, giving the soul roomTo search into itself,—and long communeWith this eternal silence;—more a god,In my long-suffering and strength to meet 100With equal front the direst shafts of fate,Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism,Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath.Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought downThe light to man, which thou, in selfish fear,Hadst to thy self usurped,—his by sole right,For Man hath right to all save Tyranny,—And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne.Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance,Begotten by the slaves they trample on, 110Who, could they win a glimmer of the light,And see that Tyranny is always weakness,Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease,Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chainWhich their own blindness feigned for adamant.Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the RightTo the firm centre lays its moveless base.The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirThe innocent ringlets of a child's free hair,And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, 120With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale.Over men's hearts, as over standing corn,Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will.So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth,And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove!
And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge,Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart,Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are,Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak,This never-glutted vulture, and these chains 130Shrink not before it; for it shall befitA sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart.Men, when their death is on them, seem to standOn a precipitous crag that overhangsThe abyss of doom, and in that depth to see,As in a glass, the features dim and vastOf things to come, the shadows, as it seems,Of what have been. Death ever fronts the wise;Not fearfully, but with clear promisesOf larger life, on whose broad vans upborne, 140Their outlook widens, and they see beyondThe horizon of the Present and the Past,Even to the very source and end of things.Such am I now: immortal woe hath madeMy heart a seer, and my soul a judgeBetween the substance and the shadow of Truth.The sure supremeness of the Beautiful,By all the martyrdoms made doubly sureOf such as I am, this is my revenge,Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, 150Through which I see a sceptre and a throne.The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills,Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee;The songs of maidens pressing with white feetThe vintage on thine altars poured no more;The murmurous bliss of lovers underneathDim grapevine bowers whose rosy bunches pressNot half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaledBy thoughts of thy brute lust; the hive-like humOf peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 160Reaps for itself the rich earth made its ownBy its own labor, lightened with glad hymnsTo an omnipotence which thy mad boltsWould cope with as a spark with the vast sea,—Even the spirit of free love and peace,Duty's sure recompense through life and death,—These are such harvests as all master-spiritsReap, haply not on earth, but reap no lessBecause the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs;These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal 170They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge:For their best part of life on earth is when,Long after death, prisoned and pent no more,Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have becomePart of the necessary air men breathe:When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud,They shed down light before us on life's sea,That cheers us to steer onward still in hope.Earth with her twining memories ivies o'erTheir holy sepulchres; the chainless sea, 180In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts;The lightning and the thunder, all free things,Have legends of them for the ears of men.All other glories are as falling stars,But universal Nature watches theirs:Such strength is won by love of humankind.
Not that I feel that hunger after fame,Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with;But that the memory of noble deedsCries shame upon the idle and the vile, 190And keeps the heart of Man forever upTo the heroic level of old time.To be forgot at first is little painTo a heart conscious of such high intentAs must be deathless on the lips of men;But, having been a name, to sink and beA something which the world can do without,Which, having been or not, would never changeThe lightest pulse of fate,—this is indeedA cup of bitterness the worst to taste, 200And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs.Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus,And memory thy vulture; thou wilt findOblivion far lonelier than this peak.Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it muchThat I should brave thee, miserable god!But I have braved a mightier than thou,Even the sharp tempting of this soaring heart,Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou,A god among my brethren weak and blind, 210Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thingTo be down-trodden into darkness soon.But now I am above thee, for thou artThe bungling workmanship of fear, the blockThat awes the swart Barbarian; but IAm what myself have made,—a nature wiseWith finding in itself the types of all,With watching from the dim verge of the timeWhat things to be are visible in the gleamsThrown forward on them from the luminous past, 220Wise with the history of its own frail heart,With reverence and with sorrow, and with love,Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.
Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love,By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease:And, when thou'rt but a weary moaning heardFrom out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, IShall be a power and a memory,A name to fright all tyrants with, a lightUnsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 230Heard in the breathless pauses of the fightBy truth and freedom ever waged with wrong,Clear as a silver trumpet, to awakeFar echoes that from age to age live onIn kindred spirits, giving them a senseOf boundless power from boundless suffering wrung:And many a glazing eye shall smile to seeThe memory of my triumph (for to meetWrong with endurance, and to overcomeThe present with a heart that looks beyond, 240Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perchUpon the sacred banner of the Right.Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed,And feeds the green earth with its swift decay,Leaving it richer for the growth of truth;But Good, once put in action or in thought,Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed downThe ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god,Shalt fade and be forgotten! but this soul,Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, 250In every heaving shall partake, that growsFrom heart to heart among the sons of men,—As the ominous hum before the earthquake runsFar through the Ægean from roused isle to isle,—Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines,And mighty rents in many a cavernous errorThat darkens the free light to man:—This heart,Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truthGrows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and clawsOf Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall 260In all the throbbing exultations, shareThat wait on freedom's triumphs, and in allThe glorious agonies of martyr-spirits,Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged cloudsThat veil the future, snowing them the end,Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth,Girding the temples like a wreath of stars.This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel,Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread boltsFall on me like the silent flakes of snow 270On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus:But, oh, thought far more blissful, they can rendThis cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star!
Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove!Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long,Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still,In its invincible manhood, overtopsThy puny godship, as this mountain dothThe pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now,While from my peak of suffering I look down, 280Beholding with a far-spread gush of hopeThe sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face,Shone all around with love, no man shall lookBut straightway like a god he be upliftUnto the throne long empty for his sake,And clearly oft foreshadowed in brave dreamsBy his free inward nature, which nor thou,Nor any anarch after thee, can bindFrom working its great doom,—now, now set freeThis essence, not to die, but to become 290Part of that awful Presence which doth hauntThe palaces of tyrants, to scare off,With its grim eyes and fearful whisperingsAnd hideous sense of utter loneliness,All hope of safety, all desire of peace,All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,—Part of that spirit which doth ever broodIn patient calm on the unpilfered nestOf man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledgedTo sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, 300Filling with dread such souls as dare not trustIn the unfailing energy of Good,Until they swoop, and their pale quarry makeOf some o'erbloated wrong,—that spirit whichScatters great hopes in the seed-field of man,Like acorns among grain, to grow and beA roof for freedom in all coming time!
But no, this cannot be; for ages yet,In solitude unbroken, shall I hearThe angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 310And Euxine answer with a muffled roar,On either side storming the giant wallsOf Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam(Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow),That draw back baffled but to hurl again,Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil,Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst,My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove,Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broadIn vain emprise. The moon will come and go 320With her monotonous vicissitude;Once beautiful, when I was free to walkAmong my fellows, and to interchangeThe influence benign of loving eyes,But now by aged use grows wearisome;—False thought! most false! for how could I endureThese crawling centuries of lonely woeUnshamed by weak complaining, but for thee,Loneliest, save me, of all created things,Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, 330With thy pale smile of sad benignity?
Year after year will pass away and seemTo me, in mine eternal agony,But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds,Which I have watched so often darkening o'erThe vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first,But, with still swiftness, lessening on and onTill cloud and shadow meet and mingle whereThe gray horizon fades into the sky,Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet 340Must I lie here upon my altar huge,A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be,As it hath been, his portion; endless doom,While the immortal with the mortal linkedDreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams,With upward yearn unceasing. Better so:For wisdom is stern sorrow's patient child,And empire over self, and all the deepStrong charities that make men seem like gods;And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts 350Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood.Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems,Having two faces, as some imagesAre carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill;But one heart lies beneath, and that is good,As are all hearts, when we explore their depths.Therefore, great heart, bear up; thou art but typeOf what all lofty spirits endure, that fainWould win men back to strength and peace through love:Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart 360Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelongWith vulture beak; yet the high soul is left;And faith, which is but hope grown wise, and loveAnd patience which at last shall overcome.
There came a youth upon the earth,Some thousand years ago,Whose slender hands were nothing worth,Whether to plough, or reap, or sow.
Upon an empty tortoise-shellHe stretched some chords, and drewMusic that made men's bosoms swellFearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.
Then King Admetus, one who hadPure taste by right divine,Decreed his singing not too badTo hear between the cups of wine:
And so, well pleased with being soothedInto a sweet half-sleep,Three times his kingly beard he smoothed,And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.
His words were simple words enough,And yet he used them so,That what in other mouths was roughIn his seemed musical and low.
Men called him but a shiftless youth,In whom no good they saw;And yet, unwittingly, in truth,They made his careless words their law.
They knew not how he learned at all,For idly, hour by hour,He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,Or mused upon a common flower.
It seemed the loveliness of thingsDid teach him all their use,For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,He found a healing power profuse.
Men granted that his speech was wise,But, when a glance they caughtOf his slim grace and woman's eyes,They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.
Yet after he was dead and gone,And e'en his memory dim,Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,More full of love, because of him.
And day by day more holy grewEach spot where he had trod,Till after-poets only knewTheir first-born brother as a god.
It is a mere wild rosebud,Quite sallow now, and dry,Yet there's something wondrous in it,Some gleams of days gone by,Dear sights and sounds that are to meThe very moons of memory,And stir my heart's blood far belowIts short-lived waves of joy and woe.
Lips must fade and roses wither,All sweet times be o'er;They only smile, and, murmuring 'Thither!'Stay with us no more:And yet ofttimes a look or smile,Forgotten in a kiss's while,Years after from the dark will start,And flash across the trembling heart.
Thou hast given me many roses,But never one, like this,O'erfloods both sense and spiritWith such a deep, wild bliss;We must have instincts that glean upSparse drops of this life in the cup,Whose taste shall give us all that weCan prove of immortality.
Earth's stablest things are shadows,And, in the life to come.Haply some chance-saved trifleMay tell of this old home:As now sometimes we seem to find,In a dark crevice of the mind,Some relic, which, long pondered o'er,Hints faintly at a life before.
He spoke of Burns: men rude and roughPressed round to hear the praise of oneWhose heart was made of manly, simple stuff,As homespun as their own.
And, when he read, they forward leaned,Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,His brook-like songs whom glory never weanedFrom humble smiles and tears.
Slowly there grew a tender awe,Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,As if in him who read they felt and sawSome presence of the bard.
It was a sight for sin and wrongAnd slavish tyranny to see,A sight to make our faith more pure and strongIn high humanity.
I thought, these men will carry hencePromptings their former life above,And something of a finer reverenceFor beauty, truth, and love.
God scatters love on every sideFreely among his children all,And always hearts are lying open wide,Wherein some grains may fall.
There is no wind but soweth seedsOf a more true and open life,Which burst, unlooked for, into high-souled deeds,With wayside beauty rife.
We find within these souls of oursSome wild germs of a higher birth,Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowersWhose fragrance fills the earth.
Within the hearts of all men lieThese promises of wider bliss,Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,In sunny hours like this.
All that hath been majesticalIn life or death, since time began,Is native in the simple heart of all,The angel heart of man.
And thus, among the untaught poor,Great deeds and feelings find a home,That cast in shadow all the golden loreOf classic Greece and Rome.
O mighty brother-soul of man,Where'er thou art, in low or high,Thy skyey arches with exulting spanO'er-roof infinity!
All thoughts that mould the age beginDeep down within the primitive soul,And from the many slowly upward winTo one who grasps the whole:
In his wide brain the feeling deepThat struggled on the many's tongueSwells to a tide of thought, whose surges leapO'er the weak thrones of wrong.
All thought begins in feeling,—wideIn the great mass its base is hid,And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,A moveless pyramid.
Nor is he far astray, who deemsThat every hope, which rises and grows broadIn the world's heart, by ordered impulse streamsFrom the great heart of God.
God wills, man hopes: in common soulsHope is but vague and undefined,Till from the poet's tongue the message rollsA blessing to his kind.
Never did Poesy appearSo full of heaven to me, as whenI saw how it would pierce through pride and fearTo the lives of coarsest men.
It may be glorious to writeThoughts that shall glad the two or threeHigh souls, like those far stars that come in sightOnce in a century;—
But better far it is to speakOne simple word, which now and thenShall waken their free nature in the weakAnd friendless sons of men;
To write some earnest verse or line,Which, seeking not the praise of art,Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shineIn the untutored heart.
He who doth this, in verse or prose,May be forgotten in his day,But surely shall be crowned at last with thoseWho live and speak for aye.
God sends his teachers unto every age,To every clime, and every race of men,With revelations fitted to their growthAnd shape of mind, nor gives the realm of TruthInto the selfish rule of one sole race:Therefore each form of worship that hath swayedThe life of man, and given it to graspThe master-key of knowledge, reverence,Infolds some germs of goodness and of right;Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 10The slothful down of pampered ignorance,Found in it even a moment's fitful rest.
There is an instinct in the human heartWhich makes that all the fables it hath coined,To justify the reign of its beliefAnd strengthen it by beauty's right divine,Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift,Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands,Points surely to the hidden springs of truth.For, as in nature naught is made in vain, 20But all things have within their hull of useA wisdom and a meaning which may speakOf spiritual secrets to the earOf spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heartHath fashioned for a solace to itself,To make its inspirations suit its creed,And from the niggard hands of falsehood wringIts needful food of truth, there ever isA sympathy with Nature, which reveals,Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light 30And earnest parables of inward lore.Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,As full of gracious youth, and beauty stillAs the immortal freshness of that graceCarved for all ages on some Attic frieze.
A youth named Rhoecus, wandering in the wood,Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall,And, feeling pity of so fair a tree,He propped its gray trunk with admiring care,And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 40But, as he turned, he heard a voice behindThat murmured 'Rhoecus!' 'Twas as if the leaves,Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it,And, while he paused bewildered, yet againIt murmured 'Rhoecus!' softer than a breeze.He started and beheld with dizzy eyesWhat seemed the substance of a happy dreamStand there before him, spreading a warm glowWithin the green glooms of the shadowy oak.It seemed a woman's shape, yet far too fair 50To be a woman, and with eyes too meekFor any that were wont to mate with gods.All naked like a goddess stood she there,And like a goddess all too beautifulTo feel the guilt-born earthliness of shame.'Rhoecus, I am the Dryad of this tree,'Thus she began, dropping her low-toned wordsSerene, and full, and clear, as drops of dew,'And with it I am doomed to live and die;The rain and sunshine are my caterers, 60Nor have I other bliss than simple life;Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can give,And with a thankful joy it shall be thine.'
Then Rhoecus, with a flutter at the heart,Yet by the prompting of such beauty bold,Answered: 'What is there that can satisfyThe endless craving of the soul but love?Give me thy love, or but the hope of thatWhich must be evermore my nature's goal.'After a little pause she said again,But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, 71'I give it, Rhoecus, though a perilous gift;An hour before the sunset meet me here.'And straightway there was nothing he could seeBut the green glooms beneath the shadowy oak,And not a sound came to his straining earsBut the low trickling rustle of the leaves,And far away upon an emerald slopeThe falter of an idle shepherd's pipe.
Now, in those days of simpleness and faith, 80Men did not think that happy things were dreamsBecause they overstepped the narrow bournOf likelihood, but reverently deemedNothing too wondrous or too beautifulTo be the guerdon of a daring heart.So Rhoecus made no doubt that he was blest,And all along unto the city's gateEarth seemed to spring beneath him as he walked,The clear, broad sky looked bluer than its wont,And he could scarce believe he had not wings, 90Such sunshine seemed to glitter through his veinsInstead of blood, so light he felt and strange.
Young Rhoecus had a faithful heart enough,But one that in the present dwelt too much,And, taking with blithe welcome whatsoe'erChance gave of joy, was wholly bound in that,Like the contented peasant of a vale,Deemed it the world, and never looked beyond.So, haply meeting in the afternoonSome comrades who were playing at the dice, 100He joined them, and forgot all else beside.
The dice were rattling at the merriest,And Rhoecus, who had met but sorry luck,Just laughed in triumph at a happy throw,When through the room there hummed a yellow beeThat buzzed about his ear with down-dropped legsAs if to light. And Rhoecus laughed and said,Feeling how red and flushed he was with loss,'By Venus! does he take me for a rose?'And brushed him off with rough, impatient hand. 110But still the bee came back, and thrice againRhoecus did beat him off with growing wrath.Then through the window flew the wounded bee,And Rhoecus, tracking him with angry eyes,Saw a sharp mountain-peak of ThessalyAgainst the red disk of the setting sun,—And instantly the blood sank from his heart,As if its very walls had caved away.Without a word he turned, and, rushing forth,Ran madly through the city and the gate, 120And o'er the plain, which now the wood's long shade,By the low sun thrown forward broad and dim,Darkened wellnigh unto the city's wall.
Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree,And, listening fearfully, he heard once moreThe low voice murmur 'Rhoecus!' close at hand:Whereat he looked around him, but could seeNaught but the deepening glooms beneath the oak.Then sighed the voice, 'O Rhoecus! nevermoreShalt thou behold me or by day or night, 130Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a loveMore ripe and bounteous than ever yetFilled up with nectar any mortal heart:But thou didst scorn my humble messenger,And sent'st him back to me with bruised wings,We spirits only show to gentle eyes,We ever ask an undivided love,And he who scorns the least of Nature's worksIs thenceforth exiled and shut out from all.Farewell! for thou canst never see me more.' 140
Then Rhoecus beat his breast, and groaned aloud,And cried, 'Be pitiful! forgive me yetThis once, and I shall never need it more!''Alas!' the voice returned, 'tis thou art blind,Not I unmerciful; I can forgive,But have no skill to heal thy spirit's eyes;Only the soul hath power o'er itself.'With that again there murmured 'Nevermore!'And Rhoecus after heard no other sound,Except the rattling of the oak's crisp leaves, 150Like the long surf upon a distant shore,Raking the sea-worn pebbles up and down.The night had gathered round him: o'er the plainThe city sparkled with its thousand lights,And sounds of revel fell upon his earHarshly and like a curse; above, the sky,With all its bright sublimity of stars,Deepened, and on his forehead smote the breeze:Beauty was all around him and delight,But from that eve he was alone on earth. 160
I know a falcon swift and peerlessAs e'er was cradled In the pine;No bird had ever eye so fearless,Or wing so strong as this of mine.
The winds not better love to pilotA cloud with molten gold o'er run,Than him, a little burning islet,A star above the coming sun.
For with a lark's heart he doth tower,By a glorious upward instinct drawn;No bee nestles deeper in the flowerThan he in the bursting rose of dawn.
No harmless dove, no bird that singeth,Shudders to see him overhead;The rush of his fierce swooping bringethTo innocent hearts no thrill of dread.
Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver,For still between them and the skyThe falcon Truth hangs poised foreverAnd marks them with his vengeful eye.
Whether the idle prisoner through his grateWatches the waving of the grass-tuft small,Which, having colonized its rift i' th' wall,Accepts God's dole of good or evil fate,And from the sky's just helmet draws its lotDaily of shower or sunshine, cold or hot;—Whether the closer captive of a creed,Cooped up from birth to grind out endless chaff,Sees through his treadmill-bars the noonday laugh,And feels in vain, his crumpled pinions breed;—Whether the Georgian slave look up and mark,With bellying sails puffed full, the tall cloud-barkSink northward slowly,—thou alone seem'st good,Fair only thou, O Freedom, whose desireCan light in muddiest souls quick seeds of fire,And strain life's chords to the old heroic mood.
Yet are there other gifts more fair than thine,Nor can I count him happiest who has neverBeen forced with his own hand his chains to sever,And for himself find out the way divine;He never knew the aspirer's glorious pains,He never earned the struggle's priceless gains.Oh, block by block, with sore and sharp endeavor,Lifelong we build these human natures upInto a temple fit for Freedom's shrine,And, Trial ever consecrates the cupWherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine.
We see but half the causes of our deeds,Seeking them wholly in the outer life,And heedless of the encircling spirit-world,Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in usAll germs of pure and world-wide purposes.From one stage of our being to the nextWe pass unconscious o'er a slender bridge,The momentary work of unseen hands,Which crumbles down behind us; looking back,We see the other shore, the gulf between, 10And, marvelling how we won to where we stand,Content ourselves to call the builder Chance.We trace the wisdom to the apple's fall,Not to the birth-throes of a mighty TruthWhich, for long ages in blank Chaos dumb,Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had foundAt last a spirit meet to be the wombFrom which it might be born to bless mankind,—Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with allThe hoarded thoughtfulness of earnest years, 20And waiting but one ray of sunlight moreTo blossom fully.
But whence came that ray?We call our sorrows Destiny, but oughtRather to name our high successes so.Only the instincts of great souls are Fate,And have predestined sway: all other things,Except by leave of us, could never be.For Destiny is but the breath of GodStill moving in us, the last fragment leftOf our unfallen nature, waking oft 30Within our thought, to beckon us beyondThe narrow circle of the seen and known,And always tending to a noble end,As all things must that overrule the soul,And for a space unseat the helmsman, Will.The fate of England and of freedom onceSeemed wavering in the heart of one plain man:One step of his, and the great dial-hand,That marks the destined progress of the worldIn the eternal round from wisdom on 40To higher wisdom, had been made to pauseA hundred years. That step he did not take,—He knew not why, nor we, but only God,—And lived to make his simple oaken chairMore terrible and soberly august,More full of majesty than any throne,Before or after, of a British king.
Upon the pier stood two stern-visaged men,Looking to where a little craft lay moored,Swayed by the lazy current of the Thames, 50Which weltered by in muddy listlessness.Grave men they were, and battlings of fierce thoughtHad trampled out all softness from their brows,And ploughed rough furrows there before their time,For other crop than such as home-bred PeaceSows broadcast in the willing soil of Youth.Care, not of self, but for the common-weal,Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left insteadA look of patient power and iron will,And something fiercer, too, that gave broad hint 60Of the plain weapons girded at their sides.The younger had an aspect of command,—Not such as trickles down, a slender stream,In the shrunk channel of a great descent,But such as lies entowered in heart and head,And an arm prompt to do the 'hests of both.His was a brow where gold were out of place,And yet it seemed right worthy of a crown(Though he despised such), were it only madeOf iron, or some serviceable stuffThat would have matched his brownly rugged face 71The elder, although such he hardly seemed(Care makes so little of some five short years),Had a clear, honest face, whose rough-hewn strengthWas mildened by the scholar's wiser heartTo sober courage, such as best befitsThe unsullied temper of a well-taught mind,Yet so remained that one could plainly guessThe hushed volcano smouldering underneath.He spoke: the other, hearing, kept his gaze 80Still fixed, as on some problem in the sky.
'O CROMWELL we are fallen on evil times!There was a day when England had a wide roomFor honest men as well as foolish kings:But now the uneasy stomach of the timeTurns squeamish at them both. Therefore let usSeek out that savage clime, where men as yetAre free: there sleeps the vessel on the tide,Her languid canvas drooping for the wind;Give us but that, and what need we to fear 90This Order of the Council? The free wavesWill not say No to please a wayward king,Nor will the winds turn traitors at his beck:All things are fitly cared for, and the LordWill watch us kindly o'er the exodusOf us his servants now, as in old time.We have no cloud or fire, and haply weMay not pass dry-shod through the ocean-stream;But, saved or lost, all things are in His hand.'So spake he, and meantime the other stood 100With wide gray eyes still reading the blank air.As if upon the sky's blue wall he sawSome mystic sentence, written by a hand,Such as of old made pale the Assyrian king,Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast.
'HAMPDEN! a moment since, my purpose wasTo fly with thee,—for I will call it flight,Nor flatter it with any smoother name,—But something in me bids me not to go;And I am one, thou knowest, who, unmoved 110By what the weak deem omens, yet give heedAnd reverence due to whatsoe'er my soulWhispers of warning to the inner ear.Moreover, as I know that God brings roundHis purposes in ways undreamed by us,And makes the wicked but his instrumentsTo hasten their own swift and sudden fall,I see the beauty of his providenceIn the King's order: blind, he will not letHis doom part from him, but must bid it stay 120As 't were a cricket, whose enlivening chirpHe loved to hear beneath his very hearth.Why should we fly? Nay, why not rather stayAnd rear again our Zion's crumbled walls,Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were built,By minstrel twanging, but, if need should be,With the more potent music of our swords?Think'st thou that score of men beyond the seaClaim more God's care than all of England here?No; when He moves his arm, it is to aid 130Whole peoples, heedless if a few be crushed,As some are ever, when the destinyOf man takes one stride onward nearer home.Believe me, 'tis the mass of men He loves;And, where there is most sorrow and most want,Where the high heart of man is trodden downThe most, 'tis not because He hides his faceFrom them in wrath, as purblind teachers prate:Not so: there most is He, for there is HeMost needed. Men who seek for Fate abroad 140Are not so near his heart as they who dareFrankly to face her where she faces them,On their own threshold, where their souls are strongTo grapple with and throw her; as I once,Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king,Who now has grown so dotard as to deemThat he can wrestle with an angry realm,And throw the brawned Antæus of men's rights.No, Hampden! they have half-way conquered FateWho go half-way to meet her,—as will I. 150Freedom hath yet a work for me to do;So speaks that inward voice which never yetSpake falsely, when it urged the spirit onTo noble emprise for country and mankind.And, for success, I ask no more than this,—To bear unflinching witness to the truth.All true whole men succeed; for what is worthSuccess's name, unless it be the thought,The inward surety, to have carried outA noble purpose to a noble end, 160Although it be the gallows or the block?'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever needThese outward shows of gain to bolster her.Be it we prove the weaker with our swords;Truth only needs to be for once spoke out,And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm,As makes men's memories her joyous slaves,And clings around the soul, as the sky clingsRound the mute earth, forever beautiful,And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth 170More all-embracingly divine and clear:Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis likeA star new-born, that drops into its place,And which, once circling in its placid round,Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.
'What should we do in that small colonyOf pinched fanatics, who would rather chooseFreedom to clip an inch more from their hair,Than the great chance of setting England free?Not there, amid the stormy wilderness, 180Should we learn wisdom; or if learned, what roomTo put it into act,—else worse than naught?We learn our souls more, tossing for an hourUpon this huge and ever-vexed seaOf human thought, where kingdoms go to wreckLike fragile bubbles yonder in the stream,Than in a cycle of New England sloth,Broke only by a petty Indian war,Or quarrel for a letter more or lessIn some hard word, which, spelt in either way, 190Not their most learned clerks can understand.New times demand new measures and new men;The world advances, and in time outgrowsThe laws that in our fathers' day were best;And, doubtless, after us, some purer schemeWill be shaped out by wiser men than we,Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.We cannot hale Utopia on by force;But better, almost, be at work in sin,Than in a brute inaction browse and sleep. 200No man is born into the world whose workIs not born with him; there is always work,And tools to work withal, for those who will;And blessed are the horny hands of toil!The busy world stoves angrily asideThe man who stands with arms akimbo set,Until occasion tells him what to do;And he who waits to have his task marked outShall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds; 210Season and Government, like two broad seas,Yearn for each other with outstretched armsAcross this narrow isthmus of the throne,And roll their white surf higher every day.One age moves onward, and the next builds upCities and gorgeous palaces, where stoodThe rude log-huts of those who tamed the wild,Rearing from out the forests they had felledThe goodly framework of a fairer state;The builder's trowel and the settler's axe 220Are seldom wielded by the selfsame hand;Ours is the harder task, yet not the lessShall we receive the blessing for our toilFrom the choice spirits of the aftertime.My soul is not a palace of the past,Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate, quake,Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse,That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit.That time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change;Then let it come: I have no dread of what 230Is called for by the instinct of mankind;Nor think I that God's world will fall apartBecause we tear a parchment more or less.Truth Is eternal, but her effluence,With endless change, is fitted to the hour;Her mirror is turned forward to reflectThe promise of the future, not the past.He who would win the name of truly greatMust understand his own age and the next,And make the present ready to fulfil 240Its prophecy, and with the future mergeGently and peacefully, as wave with wave.The future works out great men's purposes;The present is enough, for common souls,Who, never looking forward, are indeedMere clay, wherein the footprints of their ageAre petrified forever; better thoseWho lead the blind old giant by the handFrom out the pathless desert where he gropes,And set him onward in his darksome way, 250I do not fear to follow out the truth,Albeit along the precipice's edge.Let us speak plain: there is more force in namesThan most men dream of; and a lie may keepIts throne a whole age longer, if it skulkBehind the shield of some fair-seeming name.Let us call tyrantstyrants, and maintainThat only freedom comes by grace of God,And all that comes not by his grace must fail;For men in earnest have no time to waste 260In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.
'I will have one more grapple with the manCharles Stuart: whom the boy o'ercame,The man stands not in awe of. I, perchance,Am one raised up by the Almighty armTo witness some great truth to all the world.Souls destined to o'erleap the vulgar lot,And mould the world unto the scheme of God,Have a fore-consciousness of their high doom,As men are known to shiver at the heart 270When the cold shadow of some coming illCreeps slowly o'er their spirits unawares.Hath Good less power of prophecy than Ill?How else could men whom God hath called to swayEarth's rudder, and to steer the bark of Truth,Beating against the tempest tow'rd her port,Bear all the mean and buzzing grievances,The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin strivesTo weary out the tethered hope of Faith?The sneers, the unrecognizing look of friends, 280Who worship the dead corpse of old king Custom,Where it doth lie In state within the Church,Striving to cover up the mighty oceanWith a man's palm, and making even the truthLie for them, holding up the glass reversed,To make the hope of man seem farther off?My God! when I read o'er the bitter livesOf men whose eager heart's were quite too greatTo beat beneath the cramped mode of the day,And see them mocked at by the world they love, 290Haggling with prejudice for pennyworthsOf that reform which their hard toil will makeThe common birthright of the age to come,—When I see this, spite of my faith in God,I marvel how their hearts bear up so long;Nor could they but for this same prophecy,This inward feeling of the glorious end.
'Deem me not fond; but in my warmer youth,Ere my heart's bloom was soiled and brushed away,I had great dreams of mighty things to come; 300Of conquest, whether by the sword or penI knew not; but some Conquest I would have,Or else swift death: now wiser grown in years,I find youth's dreams are but the flutteringsOf those strong wings whereon the soul shall soarIn after time to win a starry throne;And so I cherish them, for they were lots,Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of Fate.Now will I draw them, since a man's right hand,A right hand guided by an earnest soul, 310With a true instinct, takes the golden prizeFrom out a thousand blanks. What men call luckIs the prerogative of valiant souls,The fealty life pays its rightful kings.The helm is shaking now, and I will stayTo pluck my lot forth; it were sin to flee!'
So they two turned together; one to die,Fighting for freedom on the bloody field;The other, far more happy, to becomeA name earth wears forever next her heart; 320One of the few that have a right to rankWith the true Makers: for his spirit wroughtOrder from Chaos; proved that right divineDwelt only in the excellence of truth;And far within old Darkness' hostile linesAdvanced and pitched the shining tents of Light.Nor shall the grateful Muse forget to tell,That—not the least among his many claimsTo deathless honor—he was MILTON'S friend,A man not second among those who lived 330To show us that the poet's lyre demandsAn arm of tougher sinew than the sword.
[Greek: algeina men moi kaalegein estin tade, algos de sigan.]AESCHYLUS,Prom. Vinct.197, 198.
For the leading incidents in this tale I am indebted to the very valuableAlgic Researchesof Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. J.R.L.
The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh his end,Called his two eldest children to his side,And gave them, in few words, his parting charge!'My son and daughter, me ye see no more;The happy hunting-grounds await me, greenWith change of spring and summer through the year:But, for remembrance, after I am gone,Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake:Weakling he is and young, and knows not yetTo set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow; 10Therefore of both your loves he hath more need,And he, who needeth love, to love hath right;It is not like our furs and stores of corn,Whereto we claim sole title by our toil,But the Great Spirit plants it in our hearts,And waters it, and gives it sun, to beThe common stock and heritage of all:Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that yourselvesMay not be left deserted in your need.'
Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam stood, 20Far from the other dwellings of their tribe:And, after many moons, the lonelinessWearied the elder brother, and he said,'Why should I dwell here far from men, shut outFrom the free, natural joys that fit my age?Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to hunt,Patient of toil and hunger, and not yetHave seen the danger which I dared not lookFull in the face; what hinders me to beA mighty Brave and Chief among my kin?' 30So, taking up his arrows and his bow,As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on,Until he gained the wigwams of his tribe,Where, choosing out a bride, he soon forgot,In all the fret and bustle of new life,The little Sheemah and his father's charge.
Now when the sister found her brother gone,And that, for many days, he came not back,She wept for Sheemah more than for herself;For Love bides longest in a woman's heart, 40And flutters many times before he flies,And then doth perch so nearly, that a wordMay lure him back to his accustomed nest;And Duty lingers even when Love is gone,Oft looking out in hope of his return;And, after Duty hath been driven forth,Then Selfishness creeps in the last of all,Warming her lean hands at the lonely hearth,And crouching o'er the embers, to shut outWhatever paltry warmth and light are left, 50With avaricious greed, from all beside.So, for long months, the sister hunted wide,And cared for little Sheemah tenderly;But, daily more and more, the lonelinessGrew wearisome, and to herself she sighed,'Am I not fair? at least the glassy pool,That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so;But, oh, how flat and meaningless the tale,Unless it tremble on a lover's tongue!Beauty hath no true glass, except it be 60In the sweet privacy of loving eyes.'Thus deemed she idly, and forgot the loreWhich she had learned of nature and the woods,That beauty's chief reward is to itself,And that Love's mirror holds no image longSave of the inward fairness, blurred and lostUnless kept clear and white by Duty's care.So she went forth and sought the haunts of men,And, being wedded, in her household cares,Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot 70The little Sheemah and her father's charge.
But Sheemah, left alone within the lodge,Waited and waited, with a shrinking heart,Thinking each rustle was his sister's step,Till hope grew less and less, and then went out,And every sound was changed from hope to fear.Few sounds there were:—the dropping of a nut,The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's harsh scream,Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Summer's cheer,Heard at long intervals, seemed but to make 80The dreadful void of silence silenter.Soon what small store his sister left was gone,And, through the Autumn, he made shift to liveOn roots and berries, gathered in much fearOf wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard ofttimes,Hollow and hungry, at the dead of night.But Winter came at last, and, when the snow,Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er hill and plain,Spread its unbroken silence over all,Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean 90(More sick at heart than Ruth, and all alone)After the harvest of the merciless wolf,Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, yet fearedA thing more wild and starving than himself;Till, by degrees, the wolf and he grew friends,And shared together all the winter through.
Late in the Spring, when all the ice was gone,The elder brother, fishing in the lake,Upon whose edge his father's wigwam stood,Heard a low moaning noise upon the shore: 100Half like a child it seemed, half like a wolf,And straightway there was something in his heartThat said, 'It is thy brother Sheemah's voice.'So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw,Within a little thicket close at hand,A child that seemed fast clinging to a wolf,From the neck downward, gray with shaggy hair,That still crept on and upward as he looked.The face was turned away, but well he knewThat it was Sheemah's, even his brother's face. 110Then with his trembling hands he hid his eyes,And bowed his head, so that he might not seeThe first look of his brother's eyes, and cried,'O Sheemah! O my brother, speak to me!Dost thou not know me, that I am thy brother?Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shall dwellWith me henceforth, and know no care or want!'Sheemah was silent for a space, as if'T were hard to summon up a human voice,And, when he spake, the voice was as a wolf's: 120'I know thee not, nor art thou what thou say'st;I have none other brethren than the wolves,And, till thy heart be changed from what it is,Thou art not worthy to be called their kin.'Then groaned the other, with a choking tongue,'Alas! my heart is changed right bitterly;'Tis shrunk and parched within me even now!'And, looking upward fearfully, he sawOnly a wolf that shrank away, and ran,Ugly and fierce, to hide among the woods. 130
Men! whose boast it is that yeCome of fathers brave and free,If there breathe on earth a slave,Are ye truly free and brave?If ye do not feel the chain,When it works a brother's pain,Are ye not base slaves indeed,Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Women! who shall one day bearSons to breathe New England air,If ye hear, without a blush,Deeds to make the roused blood rushLike red lava through your veins,For your sisters now in chains,—Answer! are ye fit to beMothers of the brave and free?
Is true Freedom but to breakFetters for our own dear sake,And, with leathern hearts, forgetThat we owe mankind a debt?No! true freedom is to shareAll the chains our brothers wearAnd, with heart and hand, to beEarnest to make others free!
They are slaves who fear to speakFor the fallen and the weak;They are slaves who will not chooseHatred, scoffing, and abuse,Rather than in silence shrinkFrom the truth they needs must think;They are slaves who dare not beIn the right with two or three.
The cordage creaks and rattles in the wind,With whims of sudden hush; the reeling seaNow thumps like solid rock beneath the stern,Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes short, and, fallingCrumbled to whispery foam, slips rustling downThe broad backs of the waves, which jostle and crowdTo fling themselves upon that unknown shore.Their used familiar since the dawn of time,Whither this foredoomed life is guided onTo sway on triumph's hushed, aspiring poise 10One glittering moment, then to break fulfilled.
How lonely is the sea's perpetual swing,The melancholy wash of endless waves,The sigh of some grim monster undescried,Fear-painted on the canvas of the dark,Shifting on his uneasy pillow of brine!Yet, night brings more companions than the dayTo this drear waste; new constellations burn,And fairer stars, with whose calm height my soulFinds nearer sympathy than with my herd 20Of earthen souls, whose vision's scanty ringMakes me its prisoner to beat my wingsAgainst the cold bars of their unbelief,Knowing in vain my own free heaven beyond.O God! this world, so crammed with eager life,That comes and goes and wanders back to silenceLike the idle wind, which yet man's shaping mindCan make his drudge to swell the longing sailsOf highest endeavor,—this mad, unthrift world,Which, every hour, throws life enough away 30To make her deserts kind and hospitable,Lets her great destinies be waved asideBy smooth, lip-reverent, formal infidels,Who weigh the God they not believe with gold,And find no spot in Judas, save that he,Driving a duller bargain than he ought,Saddled his guild with too cheap precedent.O Faith! if thou art strong, thine oppositeIs mighty also, and the dull fool's sneerHath ofttimes shot chill palsy through the arm 40Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed,And made the firm-based heart, that would have quailedThe rack or fagot, shudder like a leafWrinkled with frost, and loose upon its stem,The wicked and the weak, by some dark law,Have a strange power to shut and rivet downTheir own horizon round us, to unwingOur heaven-aspiring visions, and to blurWith surly clouds the Future's gleaming peaks,Far seen across the brine of thankless years. 50If the chosen soul could never be aloneIn deep mid-silence, open-doored to God,No greatness ever had been dreamed or done;Among dull hearts a prophet never grew;The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude.
The old world is effete; there man with manJostles, and, in the brawl for means to live,Life is trod underfoot,—Life, the one blockOf marble that's vouchsafed wherefrom to carveOur great thoughts, white and godlike, to shine down 60The future, Life, the irredeemable block,Which one o'er-hasty chisel-dint oft mars,Scanting our room to cut the features outOf our full hope, so forcing us to crownWith a mean head the perfect limbs, or leaveThe god's face glowing o'er a satyr's trunk,Failure's brief epitaph.
Yes, Europe's worldReels on to judgment; there the common need,Losing God's sacred use, to be a bond'Twixt Me and Thee, sets each one scowlingly 70O'er his own selfish hoard at bay; no state,Knit strongly with eternal fibres upOf all men's separate and united weals,Self-poised and sole as stars, yet one as light,Holds up a shape of large HumanityTo which by natural instinct every manPays loyalty exulting, by which allMould their own lives, and feel their pulses filledWith the red, fiery blood of the general life,Making them mighty in peace, as now in war 80They are, even in the flush of victory, weak,Conquering that manhood which should them subdue.And what gift bring I to this untried world?Shall the same tragedy be played anew,And the same lurid curtain drop at lastOn one dread desolation, one fierce crashOf that recoil which on its makers GodLets Ignorance and Sin and Hunger make,Early or late? Or shall that commonwealthWhose potent unity and concentric force 90Can draw these scattered joints and parts of menInto a whole ideal man once more,Which sucks not from its limbs the life away,But sends it flood-tide and creates itselfOver again in every citizen,Be there built up? For me, I have no choice;I might turn back to other destinies,For one sincere key opes all Fortune's doors;But whoso answers not God's earliest callForfeits or dulls that faculty supreme 100Of lying open to his geniusWhich makes the wise heart certain of its ends.
Here am I; for what end God knows, not I;Westward still points the inexorable soul:Here am I, with no friend but the sad sea,The beating heart of this great enterprise,Which, without me, would stiffen in swift death;This have I mused on, since mine eye could firstAmong the stars distinguish and with joyRest on that God-fed Pharos of the north, 110On some blue promontory of heaven lightedThat juts far out into the upper sea;To this one hope my heart hath clung for years,As would a foundling to the talismanHung round his neck by hands he knew not whose;A poor, vile thing and dross to all beside,Yet he therein can feel a virtue leftBy the sad pressure of a mother's hand,And unto him it still is tremulousWith palpitating haste and wet with tears, 120The key to him of hope and humanness,The coarse shell of life's pearl, Expectancy.This hope hath been to me for love and fame,Hath made me wholly lonely on the earth,Building me up as in a thick-ribbed tower,Wherewith enwalled my watching spirit burned,Conquering its little island from the Dark,Sole as a scholar's lamp, and heard men's steps,In the far hurry of the outward world,Pass dimly forth and back, sounds heard in dream, 130As Ganymede by the eagle was snatched upFrom the gross sod to be Jove's cup-bearer,So was I lifted by my great design:And who hath trod Olympus, from his eyeFades not that broader outlook of the gods;His life's low valleys overbrow earth's clouds,And that Olympian spectre of the pastLooms towering up in sovereign memory,Beckoning his soul from meaner heights of doom.Had but the shadow of the Thunderer's bird, 140Flashing athwart my spirit, made of meA swift-betraying vision's Ganymede,Yet to have greatly dreamed precludes low ends;Great days have ever such a morning-red,On such a base great futures are built up,And aspiration, though not put in act,Comes back to ask its plighted troth again,Still watches round its grave the unlaid ghostOf a dead virtue, and makes other hopes,Save that implacable one, seem thin and bleak 150As shadows of bare trees upon the snow,Bound freezing there by the unpitying moon.