Opening one day a book of mine,I absent, Hester found a linePraised with a pencil-mark, and thisShe left transfigured with a kiss.
When next upon the page I chance,Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance,And whirl my fancy where it seesPan piping 'neath Arcadian trees,Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse,Still young and glad as Homer's verse.'What mean,' I ask, 'these sudden joys?This feeling fresher than a boy's?What makes this line, familiar long,New as the first bird's April song?I could, with sense illumined thus,Clear doubtful texts in Æeschylus!'
Laughing, one day she gave the key,My riddle's open-sesame;Then added, with a smile demure,Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure,'If what I left there give you pain,You—you—can take it off again;'Twas formypoet, not for him,Your Doctor Donne there!'
Earth grew dimAnd wavered in a golden mist,As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed.Donne, you forgive? I let you keepHer precious comment, poet deep.
I sat and watched the walls of nightWith cracks of sudden lightning glow,And listened while with clumsy mightThe thunder wallowed to and fro.
The rain fell softly now; the squall,That to a torrent drove the trees,Had whirled beyond us to let fallIts tumult on the whitening seas.
But still the lightning crinkled keen,Or fluttered fitful from behindThe leaden drifts, then only seen,That rumbled eastward on the wind.
Still as gloom followed after glare,While bated breath the pine-trees drew,Tiny Salmoneus of the air,His mimic bolts the firefly threw.
He thought, no doubt, 'Those flashes grand,That light for leagues the shuddering sky,Are made, a fool could understand,By some superior kind of fly.
'He's of our race's elder branch,His family-arms the same as ours.Both born the twy-forked flame to launch,Of kindred, if unequal, powers.'
And is man wiser? Man who takesHis consciousness the law to beOf all beyond his ken, and makesGod but a bigger kind of Me?
He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wireOver the land and through the sea-depths still,Thought only of the flame-winged messengerAs a dull drudge that should encircle earthWith sordid messages of Trade, and tameBlithe Ariel to a bagman. But the MuseNot long will be defrauded. From her foeHer misused wand she snatches; at a touch,The Age of Wonder is renewed again,And to our disenchanted day restoresThe Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to Thought,The Cloak that makes invisible; and with theseI glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore,Or from my Cambridge whisper to Cathay.
The century numbers fourscore years;You, fortressed in your teens,To Time's alarums close your ears,And, while he devastates your peers,Conceive not what he means.
If e'er life's winter fleck with snowYour hair's deep shadowed bowers,That winsome head an art would knowTo make it charm, and wear it soAs 'twere a wreath of flowers.
If to such fairies years must come,May yours fall soft and slowAs, shaken by a bee's low hum,The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb,Down to their mates below!
I watched a moorland torrent runDown through the rift itself had made,Golden as honey in the sun,Of darkest amber in the shade.
In this wild glen at last, methought,The magic's secret I surprise;Here Celia's guardian fairy caughtThe changeful splendors of her eyes.
All else grows tame, the sky's one blue,The one long languish of the rose,But these, beyond prevision new,Shall charm and startle to the close.
Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold,Might with Dian's ear make bold,Seek my Lady's; if thou winTo that portal, shut from sin,Where commissioned angels' swordsStartle back unholy words,Thou a miracle shalt seeWrought by it and wrought in thee;Thou, the dumb one, shalt recoverSpeech of poet, speech of lover.If she deign to lift you there,Murmur what I may not dare;In that archway, pearly-pinkAs the Dawn's untrodden brink,Murmur, 'Excellent and good,Beauty's best in every mood,Never common, never tame,Changeful fair as windwaved flame'—Nay, I maunder; this she hearsEvery day with mocking ears,With a brow not sudden-stainedWith the flush of bliss restrained,With no tremor of the pulseMore than feels the dreaming dulseIn the midmost ocean's caves,When a tempest heaps the waves.Thou must woo her in a phraseMystic as the opal's blaze,Which pure maids alone can seeWhen their lovers constant be.I with thee a secret share,Half a hope, and half a prayer,Though no reach of mortal skillEver told it all, or will;Say, 'He bids me—nothing more—Tell you what you guessed before!'
I have a fancy: how shall I bring itHome to all mortals wherever they be?Say it or sing it? Shoe it or wing it,So it may outrun or outfly ME,Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free?
Only one secret can save from disaster,Only one magic is that of the Master:Set it to music; give it a tune,—Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you,Tune the wild columbines nod to in June!
This is the secret: so simple, you see!Easy as loving, easy as kissing,Easy as—well, let me ponder—as missing,Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three.
The next whose fortune 'twas a tale to tellWas one whom men, before they thought, loved well,And after thinking wondered why they did,For half he seemed to let them, half forbid,And wrapped him so in humors, sheath on sheath,'Twas hard to guess the mellow soul beneath:But, once divined, you took him to your heart,While he appeared to bear with you as partOf life's impertinence, and once a yearBetrayed his true self by a smile or tear, 10Or rather something sweetly shy and loath,Withdrawn ere fully shown, and mixed of both.A cynic? Not precisely: one who thrustAgainst a heart too prone to love and trust,Who so despised false sentiment he knewScarce in himself to part the false and true,And strove to hide, by roughening-o'er the skin,Those cobweb nerves he could not dull within.Gentle by birth, but of a stem decayed,He shunned life's rivalries and hated trade; 20On a small patrimony and larger pride,He lived uneaseful on the Other Side(So he called Europe), only coming WestTo give his Old-World appetite new zest;Yet still the New World spooked it in his veins,A ghost he could not lay with all his pains;For never Pilgrims' offshoot scapes controlOf those old instincts that have shaped his soul.A radical in thought, he puffed awayWith shrewd contempt the dust of usage gray, 30Yet loathed democracy as one who saw,In what he longed to love, some vulgar flaw,And, shocked through all his delicate reserves,Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves,His fancy's thrall, he drew all ergoes thence,And thought himself the type of common sense;Misliking women, not from cross or whim,But that his mother shared too much in him,And he half felt that what in them was graceMade the unlucky weakness of his race. 40What powers he had he hardly cared to know,But sauntered through the world as through a show;A critic fine in his haphazard way,A sort of mild La Bruyère on half-pay.For comic weaknesses he had an eyeKeen as an acid for an alkali,Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone,He loved them all, unless they were his own.You might have called him, with his humorous twist,A kind of human entomologist; 50As these bring home, from every walk they take,Their hat-crowns stuck with bugs of curious make,So he filled all the lining of his headWith characters impaled and ticketed,And had a cabinet behind his eyesFor all they caught of mortal oddities.He might have been a poet—many worse—But that he had, or feigned, contempt of verse;Called it tattooing language, and held rhymesThe young world's lullaby of ruder times. 60Bitter in words, too indolent for gall,He satirized himself the first of all,In men and their affairs could find no law,And was the ill logic that he thought he saw.
Scratching a match to light his pipe anew,With eyes half shut some musing whiffs he drewAnd thus began: 'I give you all my word,I think this mock-Decameron absurd;Boccaccio's garden! how bring that to passIn our bleak clime save under double glass? 70The moral east-wind of New England lifeWould snip its gay luxuriance like a knife;Mile-deep the glaciers brooded here, they say,Through æons numb; we feel their chill to-day.These foreign plants are but half-hardy still,Die on a south, and on a north wall chill.Had we stayed Puritans!Theyhad some heat,(Though whence derived I have my own conceit,)But you have long ago raked up their fires;Where they had faith, you've ten sham-Gothic spires. 80Why more exotics? Try your native vines,And in some thousand years youmayhave wines;Your present grapes are harsh, all pulps and skins,And want traditions of ancestral binsThat saved for evenings round the polished boardOld lava fires, the sun-steeped hillside's hoard.Without a Past, you lack that southern wallO'er which the vines of Poesy should crawl;Still they're your only hope: no midnight oilMakes up for virtue wanting in the soil; 90Manure them well and prune them; 'twon't be France,Nor Spain, nor Italy, but there's your chance.You have one story-teller worth a scoreOf dead Boccaccios,—nay, add twenty more,—A hawthorn asking spring's most dainty breath,And him you're freezing pretty well to death.However, since you say so, I will teaseMy memory to a story by degrees,Though you will cry, "Enough!" I'm wellnigh sure,Ere I have dreamed through half my overture. 100Stories were good for men who had no books,(Fortunate race!) and built their nests like rooksIn lonely towers, to which the Jongleur broughtHis pedler's-box of cheap and tawdry thought,With here and there a fancy fit to seeWrought in quaint grace in golden filigree,—Some ring that with the Muse's finger yetIs warm, like Aucassin and Nicolete;The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade,(For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,) 110And stories now, to suit a public nice,Must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.
'All tourists know Shebagog County: thereThe summer idlers take their yearly stare,Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way,As 'twere Italian opera, or play,Encore the sunrise (if they're out of bed).And pat the Mighty Mother on the head:These have I seen,—all things are good to see.—And wondered much at their complacency. 120This world's great show, that took in getting-upMillions of years, they finish ere they sup;Sights that God gleams through with soul-tingling forceThey glance approvingly as things of course.Say, "That's a grand rock," "This a pretty fall."Not thinking, "Are we worthy?" What if allThe scornful landscape should turn round and say,"This is a fool, and that a popinjay"?I often wonder what the Mountain thinksOf French boots creaking o'er his breathless brinks, 130Or how the Sun would scare the chattering crowd,If some fine day he chanced to think aloud.I, who love Nature much as sinners can,Love her where she most grandeur shows,—in man:Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and sun,River and sea, and glows when day is done;Nay, where she makes grotesques, and moulds in jestThe clown's cheap clay, I find unfading zest.The natural instincts year by year retire,As deer shrink northward from the settler's fire, 140And he who loves the wild game-flavor moreThan city-feasts, where every man's a boreTo every other man, must seek it whereThe steamer's throb and railway's iron blareHave not yet startled with their punctual stirThe shy, wood-wandering brood of Character.
'There is a village, once the county town,Through which the weekly mail rolled dustily down,Where the courts sat, it may be, twice a year,And the one tavern reeked with rustic cheer; 150Cheeshogquesumscot erst, now Jethro hight,Red-man and pale-face bore it equal spite.The railway ruined it, the natives say,That passed unwisely fifteen miles away,And made a drain to which, with steady ooze,Filtered away law, stage-coach, trade, and news.The railway saved it: so at least think thoseWho love old ways, old houses, old repose.Of course the Tavern stayed: its genial hostThought not of flitting more than did the post 160On which high-hung the fading signboard creaks,Inscribed, "The Eagle Inn, by Ezra Weeks."
'If in life's journey you should ever findAn inn medicinal for body and mind,'Tis sure to be some drowsy-looking houseWhose easy landlord has a bustling spouse:He, if he like you, will not long foregoSome bottle deep in cobwebbed dust laid low,That, since the War we used to call the "Last,"Has dozed and held its lang-syne memories fast: 170From him exhales that Indian-summer airOf hazy, lazy welcome everywhere,While with her toil the napery is white,The china dustless, the keen knife-blades bright,Salt dry as sand, and bread that seems as though'Twere rather sea-foam baked than vulgar dough.
'In our swift country, houses trim and whiteAre pitched like tents, the lodging of a night;Each on its bank of baked turf mounted highPerches impatient o'er the roadside dry, 180While the wronged landscape coldly stands aloof,Refusing friendship with the upstart roof.Not so the Eagle; on a grass-green swellThat toward the south with sweet concessions fellIt dwelt retired, and half had grown to beAs aboriginal as rock or tree.It nestled close to earth, and seemed to broodO'er homely thoughts in a half-conscious mood,As by the peat that rather fades than burnsThe smouldering grandam nods and knits by turns, 190Happy, although her newest news were oldEre the first hostile drum at Concord rolled.If paint it e'er had known, it knew no moreThan yellow lichens spattered thickly o'erThat soft lead-gray, less dark beneath the eavesWhich the slow brush of wind and weather leaves.The ample roof sloped backward to the ground,And vassal lean-tos gathered thickly round,Patched on, as sire or son had felt the need,Like chance growths sprouting from the old roofs seed, 200Just as about a yellow-pine-tree springIts rough-barked darlings in a filial ring.But the great chimney was the central thoughtWhose gravitation through the cluster wrought;For 'tis not styles far-fetched from Greece or Rome,But just the Fireside, that can make a home;None of your spindling things of modern style,Like pins stuck through to stay the card-built pile,It rose broad-shouldered, kindly, debonair,Its warm breath whitening in the October air, 210While on its front a heart in outline showedThe place it filled in that serene abode.
'When first I chanced the Eagle to explore.Ezra sat listless by the open door;One chair careened him at an angle meet,Another nursed his hugely slippered feet;Upon a third reposed a shirt-sleeved arm,And the whole man diffused tobacco's charm."Are you the landlord?" "Wahl, I guess I be,"Watching the smoke he answered leisurely. 220He was a stoutish man, and through the breastOf his loose shirt there showed a brambly chest;Streaked redly as a wind-foreboding morn,His tanned cheeks curved to temples closely shorn;Clean-shaved he was, save where a hedge of grayUpon his brawny throat leaned every wayAbout an Adam's-apple, that beneathBulged like a boulder from a brambly heath.The Western World's true child and nursling he,Equipt with aptitudes enough for three: 230No eye like his to value horse or cow,Or gauge the contents of a stack or mow;He could foretell the weather at a word,He knew the haunt of every beast and bird,Or where a two-pound trout was sure to lie,Waiting the flutter of his homemade fly;Nay, once in autumns five, he had the luckTo drop at fair-play range a ten-tined buck;Of sportsmen true he favored every whim,But never cockney found a guide in him; 240A natural man, with all his instincts fresh,Not buzzing helpless in Reflection's mesh,Firm on its feet stood his broad-shouldered mind,As bluffly honest as a northwest wind;Hard-headed and soft-hearted, you'd scarce meetA kindlier mixture of the shrewd and sweet;Generous by birth, and ill at saying "No,"Yet in a bargain he was all men's foe,Would yield no inch of vantage in a trade,And give away ere nightfall all he made. 250
"Can I have lodging here?" once more I said.He blew a whiff, and, leaning back his head,"You come a piece through Bailey's woods, I s'pose,Acrost a bridge where a big swamp-oak grows?It don't grow, neither; it's ben dead ten year,Nor th' ain't a livin' creetur, fur nor near,Can tell wut killed it; but I some misdoubt'Twas borers, there's sech heaps on 'em about.You didn' chance to run ag'inst my son,A long, slab-sided youngster with a gun? 260He'd oughto ben back more 'n an hour ago,An' brought some birds to dress for supper—sho!There he comes now. 'Say, Obed, wut ye got?(He'll hev some upland plover like as not.)Wal, them's real nice uns, an'll eat A 1,Ef I can stop their bein' overdone;Nothin' rilesme(I pledge my fastin' word)Like cookin' out the natur' of a bird;(Obed, you pick 'em out o' sight an' sound,Your ma'am don't love no feathers cluttrin' round;) 270Jes' scare 'em with the coals,—thet'smyidee."Then, turning suddenly about on me,"Wal, Square, I guess so. Callilate to stay?I'll ask Mis' Weeks; 'boutthetit's hern to say."
'Well, there I lingered all October through,In that sweet atmosphere of hazy blue,So leisurely, so soothing, so forgiving,That sometimes makes New England fit for living.I watched the landscape, erst so granite glum,Bloom like the south side of a ripening plum, 280And each rock-maple on the hillside makeHis ten days' sunset doubled in the lake;The very stone walls draggling up the hillsSeemed touched, and wavered in their roundhead wills.Ah! there's a deal of sugar in the sun!Tap me in Indian summer, I should runA juice to make rock-candy of,—but thenWe get such weather scarce one year in ten.
'There was a parlor in the house, a roomTo make you shudder with its prudish gloom. 290The furniture stood round with such an air,There seemed an old maid's ghost in every chair,Which looked as it had scuttled to its placeAnd pulled extempore a Sunday face,Too smugly proper for a world of sin,Like boys on whom the minister comes in.The table, fronting you with icy stare,Strove to look witless that its legs were bare,While the black sofa with its horse-hair pallGloomed like a bier for Comfort's funeral. 300Each piece appeared to do its chilly bestTo seem an utter stranger to the rest,As if acquaintanceship were deadly sin,Like Britons meeting in a foreign inn.Two portraits graced the wall in grimmest truth,Mister and Mistress W. in their youth,—New England youth, that seems a sort of pill,Half wish-I-dared, half Edwards on the Will,Bitter to swallow, and which leaves a traceOf Calvinistic colic on the face. 310Between them, o'er the mantel, hung in stateSolomon's temple, done in copperplate;Invention pure, but meant, we may presume,To give some Scripture sanction to the room.Facing this last, two samplers you might see,Each, with its urn and stiffly weeping tree,Devoted to some memory long agoMore faded than their lines of worsted woe;Cut paper decked their frames against the flies,Though none e'er dared an entrance who were wise, 320And bushed asparagus in fading greenAdded its shiver to the franklin clean.
'When first arrived, I chilled a half-hour there,Nor dared deflower with use a single chair;I caught no cold, yet flying pains could findFor weeks in me,—a rheumatism of mind.One thing alone imprisoned there had powerTo hold me in the place that long half-hour:A scutcheon this, a helm-surmounted shield,Three griffins argent on a sable field; 330A relic of the shipwrecked past was here,And Ezra held some Old-World lumber dear.Nay, do not smile; I love this kind of thing,These cooped traditions with a broken wing,This freehold nook in Fancy's pipe-blown ball,This less than nothing that is more than all!Have I not seen sweet natures kept aliveAmid the humdrum of your business hive,Undowered spinsters shielded from all harms,By airy incomes from a coat of arms?' 340
He paused a moment, and his features tookThe flitting sweetness of that inward lookI hinted at before; but, scarcely seen,It shrank for shelter 'neath his harder mien,And, rapping his black pipe of ashes clear,He went on with a self-derisive sneer:'No doubt we make a part of God's design,And break the forest-path for feet divine;To furnish foothold for this grand previsionIs good, and yet—to be the mere transition, 350That, you will say, is also good, though IScarce like to feed the ogre By-and-By.Raw edges rasp my nerves; my taste is wooedBy things that are, not going to be, good,Though were I what I dreamed two lustres gone,I'd stay to help the Consummation on,Whether a new Rome than the old more fair,Or a deadflat of rascal-ruled despair;Butmyskull somehow never closed the sutureThat seems to knit yours firmly with the future, 360So you'll excuse me if I'm sometimes fainTo tie the Past's warm nightcap o'er my brain;I'm quite aware 'tis not in fashion here,But then your northeast winds aresosevere!
'But to my story: though 'tis truly naughtBut a few hints in Memory's sketchbook caught,And which may claim a value on the scoreOf calling back some scenery now no more.Shall I confess? The tavern's only LarSeemed (be not shocked!) its homely-featured bar. 370Here dozed a fire of beechen logs, that bredStrange fancies in its embers golden-red,And nursed the loggerhead whose hissing dip,Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug of flipThat made from mouth to mouth its genial round,Nor left one nature wholly winter-bound;Hence dropt the tinkling coal all mellow-ripeFor Uncle Reuben's talk-extinguished pipe;Hence rayed the heat, as from an indoor sun,That wooed forth many a shoot of rustic fun. 380Here Ezra ruled as king by right divine;No other face had such a wholesome shine,No laugh like his so full of honest cheer;Above the rest it crowed like Chanticleer.
'In this one room his dame you never saw,Where reigned by custom old a Salic law;Here coatless lolled he on his throne of oak,And every tongue paused midway if he spoke.Due mirth he loved, yet was his sway severe;No blear-eyed driveller got his stagger here; 390"Measure was happiness; who wanted more,Must buy his ruin at the Deacon's store;"None but his lodgers after ten could stay,Nor after nine on eves of Sabbath-day.He had his favorites and his pensioners,The same that gypsy Nature owns for hers:Loose-ended souls, whose skills bring scanty gold,And whom the poor-house catches when they're old;Rude country-minstrels, men who doctor kine,Or graft, and, out of scions ten, save nine; 400Creatures of genius they, but never meantTo keep step with the civic regiment,These Ezra welcomed, feeling in his mindPerhaps some motions of the vagrant kind;These paid no money, yet for them he drewSpecial Jamaica from a tap they knew,And, for their feelings, chalked behind the doorWith solemn face a visionary score.This thawed to life in Uncle Reuben's throatA torpid shoal of jest and anecdote, 410Like those queer fish that doze the droughts away,And wait for moisture, wrapped in sun-baked clay;This warmed the one-eyed fiddler to his task,Perched in the corner on an empty cask,By whose shrill art rapt suddenly, some boorRattled a double-shuffle on the floor;"Hull's Victory" was, indeed, the favorite air,Though "Yankee Doodle" claimed its proper share.
''Twas there I caught from Uncle Reuben's lips,In dribbling monologue 'twixt whiffs and sips, 420The story I so long have tried to tell;The humor coarse, the persons common,—well,From Nature only do I love to paint,Whether she send a satyr or a saint;To me Sincerity's the one thing good,Soiled though she be and lost to maidenhood.Quompegan is a town some ten miles southFrom Jethro, at Nagumscot river-mouth,A seaport town, and makes its title goodWith lumber and dried fish and eastern wood. 430Here Deacon Bitters dwelt and kept the Store,The richest man for many a mile of shore;In little less than everything dealt he,From meeting-houses to a chest of tea;So dextrous therewithal a flint to skin,He could make profit on a single pin;In business strict, to bring the balance trueHe had been known to bite a fig in two,And change a board-nail for a shingle-nail.All that he had he ready held for sale, 440His house, his tomb, whate'er the law allows,And he had gladly parted with his spouse.His one ambition still to get and get,He would arrest your very ghost for debt.His store looked righteous, should the Parson come,But in a dark back-room he peddled rum,And eased Ma'am Conscience, if she e'er would scold,By christening it with water ere he sold.A small, dry man he was, who wore a queue,And one white neckcloth all the week-days through,— 450On Monday white, by Saturday as dunAs that worn homeward by the prodigal son.His frosted earlocks, striped with foxy brown,Were braided up to hide a desert crown;His coat was brownish, black perhaps of yore;In summer-time a banyan loose he wore;His trousers short, through many a season true,Made no pretence to hide his stockings blue;A waistcoat buff his chief adornment was,Its porcelain buttons rimmed with dusky brass. 460A deacon he, you saw it in each limb,And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn,Or lead the choir through all its wandering woesWith voice that gathered unction in his nose,Wherein a constant snuffle you might hear,As if with him 'twere winter all the year.At pew-head sat he with decorous pains,In sermon-time could foot his weekly gains,Or, with closed eyes and heaven-abstracted air,Could plan a new investment in long-prayer. 470A pious man, and thrifty too, he madeThe psalms and prophets partners in his trade,And in his orthodoxy straitened moreAs it enlarged the business at his store;He honored Moses, but, when gain he planned,Had his own notion of the Promised Land.
'Soon as the winter made the sledding good,From far around the farmers hauled him wood,For all the trade had gathered 'neath his thumb.He paid in groceries and New England rum, 480Making two profits with a conscience clear,—Cheap all he bought, and all he paid with dear.With his own mete-wand measuring every load,Each somehow had diminished on the road;An honest cord in Jethro still would failBy a good foot upon the Deacon's scale,And, more to abate the price, his gimlet eyeWould pierce to cat-sticks that none else could spy;Yet none dared grumble, for no farmer yetBut New Year found him in the Deacon's debt. 490
'While the first snow was mealy under feet,A team drawled creaking down Quompegan street.Two cords of oak weighed down the grinding sled,And cornstalk fodder rustled overhead;The oxen's muzzles, as they shouldered through,Were silver-fringed; the driver's own was blueAs the coarse frock that swung below his knee.Behind his load for shelter waded he;His mittened hands now on his chest he beat,Now stamped the stiffened cowhides of his feet, 500Hushed as a ghost's; his armpit scarce could holdThe walnut whipstock slippery-bright with cold.What wonder if, the tavern as he past,He looked and longed, and stayed his beasts at last,Who patient stood and veiled themselves in steamWhile he explored the bar-room's ruddy gleam?
'Before the fire, in want of thought profound,There sat a brother-townsman weather-bound:A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly-eared,Red as a pepper; 'twixt coarse brows and beard 510His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for fools,Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay-edged pools;A shifty creature, with a turn for fun,Could swap a poor horse for a better one,—He'd a high-stepper always in his stall;Liked far and near, and dreaded therewithal.To him the in-comer, "Perez, how d' ye do?""Jest as I'm mind to, Obed; how do you?"Then, his eyes twinkling such swift gleams as runAlong the levelled barrel of a gun 520Brought to his shoulder by a man you knowWill bring his game down, he continued, "So,I s'pose you're haulin' wood? But you're too late;The Deacon's off; Old Splitfoot couldn't wait;He made a bee-line las' night in the stormTo where he won't need wood to keep him warm.'Fore this he's treasurer of a fund to trainYoung imps as missionaries; hopes to gainThat way a contract that he has in viewFor fireproof pitchforks of a pattern new, 530It must have tickled him, all drawbacks weighed,To think he stuck the Old One in a trade;His soul, to start with, wasn't worth a carrot.And all he'd left 'ould hardly serve to swear at."
'By this time Obed had his wits thawed out,And, looking at the other half in doubt,Took off his fox-skin cap to scratch his head,Donned it again, and drawled forth, "Mean he's dead?""Jesso; he's dead and t'otherdthat follersWith folks that never love a thing but dollars. 540He pulled up stakes last evening, fair and square,And ever since there's been a row Down There.The minute the old chap arrived, you see,Comes the Boss-devil to him, and says he,'What are you good at? Little enough, I fear;We callilate to make folks useful here.''Well,' says old Bitters, 'I expect I canScale a fair load of wood with e'er a man.''Wood we don't deal in; but perhaps you'll suit,Because we buy our brimstone by the foot: 550Here, take this measurin'-rod, as smooth as sin,And keep a reckonin' of what loads comes in.You'll not want business, for we need a lotTo keep the Yankees that you send us hot;At firin' up they're barely half as spryAs Spaniards or Italians, though they're dry;At first we have to let the draught on stronger,But, heat 'em through, they seem to hold it longer.'
'"Bitters he took the rod, and pretty soonA teamster comes, whistling an ex-psalm tune. 560A likelier chap you wouldn't ask to see,No different, but his limp, from you or me"—"No different, Perez! Don't your memory fail?Why, where in thunder was his horns and tail?""They're only worn by some old-fashioned pokes;They mostly aim at looking just like folks.Sech things are scarce as queues and top-boots here;'Twould spoil their usefulness to look too queer.Ef you could always know 'em when they come,They'd get no purchase on you: now be mum. 570On come the teamster, smart as Davy Crockett,Jinglin' the red-hot coppers in his pocket,And clost behind, ('twas gold-dust, you'd ha' sworn,)A load of sulphur yallower 'n seed-corn;To see it wasted as it is Down ThereWould make a Friction-Match Co. tear its hair!'Hold on!' says Bitters, 'stop right where you be;You can't go in athout a pass from me.''All right,' says t'other, 'only step round smart;I must be home by noon-time with the cart.' 580Bitters goes round it sharp-eyed as a rat,Then with a scrap of paper on his hatPretends to cipher. 'By the public staff,That load scarce rises twelve foot and a half.''There's fourteen foot and over,' says the driver,'Worth twenty dollars, ef it's worth a stiver;Good fourth-proof brimstone, that'll make 'em squirm,—I leave it to the Headman of the Firm;After we masure it, we always laySome on to allow for settlin' by the way. 590Imp and full-grown, I've carted sulphur here,And gi'n fair satisfaction, thirty year.'With that they fell to quarrellin' so loudThat in five minutes they had drawed a crowd,And afore long the Boss, who heard the row,Comes elbowin' in with 'What's to pay here now?'Both parties heard, the measurin'-rod he takes,And of the load a careful survey makes.'Sence I have bossed the business here,' says he,'No fairer load was ever seen by me.' 600Then, turnin' to the Deacon, 'You mean cus.None of your old Quompegan tricks with us!They won't do here: we're plain old-fashioned folks,And don't quite understand that kind o' jokes.I know this teamster, and his pa afore him,And the hard-working Mrs. D. that bore him;He wouldn't soil his conscience with a lie,Though he might get the custom-house thereby.Here, constable, take Bitters by the queue.And clap him into furnace ninety-two, 610And try this brimstone on him; if he's bright,He'll find the masure honest afore night.He isn't worth his fuel, and I'll betThe parish oven has to take him yet!'"
'This is my tale, heard twenty years agoFrom Uncle Reuben, as the logs burned low,Touching the walls and ceiling with that bloomThat makes a rose's calyx of a room.I could not give his language, wherethrough ranThe gamy flavor of the bookless man 620Who shapes a word before the fancy cools,As lonely Crusoe improvised his tools.I liked the tale,—'twas like so many toldBy Rutebeuf and his Brother Trouvères bold;Nor were the hearers much unlike to theirs,Men unsophisticate, rude-nerved as bears.Ezra is gone and his large-hearted kind,The landlords of the hospitable mind;Good Warriner of Springfield was the last;An inn is now a vision of the past; 630One yet-surviving host my mind recalls,—You'll find him if you go to Trenton Falls.'
When wise Minerva still was youngAnd just the least romantic,Soon after from Jove's head she flungThat preternatural antic,'Tis said, to keep from idlenessOr flirting, those twin curses,She spent her leisure, more or less,In writing po——, no, verses.
How nice they were! to rhyme withfarA kindstardid not tarry;The metre, too, was regularAs schoolboy's dot and carry;And full they were of pious plums,So extra-super-moral,—For sucking Virtue's tender gumsMost tooth-enticing coral.
A clean, fair copy she prepares,Makes sure of moods and tenses,With her own hand,—for prudence sparesA man-(or woman-)-uensis;Complete, and tied with ribbons proud,She hinted soon how cosy aTreat it would be to read them loudAfter next day's Ambrosia.
The Gods thought not it would amuseSo much as Homer's Odyssees,But could not very well refuseThe properest of Goddesses;So all sat round in attitudesOf various dejection,As with ahem!the queen of prudesBegan her grave prelection.
At the first pause Zeus said, 'Well sung!—I mean—ask Phoebus,—heknows.'Says Phoebus, 'Zounds! a wolf's amongAdmetus's merinos!Fine! very fine! but I must go;They stand in need of me there;Excuse me!' snatched his stick, and soPlunged down the gladdened ether.
With the next gap, Mars said, 'For meDon't wait,—naught could be finer,But I'm engaged at half past three,—A fight in Asia Minor!'Then Venus lisped, 'I'm sorely tried,These duty-calls are vip'rous;But Imustgo; I have a brideTo see about in Cyprus.'
Then Bacchus,—'I must say good-by,Although my peace it jeopards;I meet a man at four, to tryA well-broke pair of leopards.'His words woke Hermes. 'Ah!' he said,'Isolove moral theses!'Then winked at Hebe, who turned red,And smoothed her apron's creases.
Just then Zeus snored,—the Eagle drewHis head the wing from under;Zeus snored,—o'er startled Greece there flewThe many-volumed thunder.Some augurs counted nine, some, ten;Some said 'twas war, some, famine;And all, that other-minded menWould get a precious——.
Proud Pallas sighed, 'It will not do;Against the Muse I've sinned, oh!'And her torn rhymes sent flying throughOlympus's back window.Then, packing up a peplus clean,She took the shortest path thence,And opened, with a mind serene,A Sunday-school in Athens.
The verses? Some in ocean swilled,Killed every fish that bit to 'em;Some Galen caught, and, when distilled,Found morphine the residuum;But some that rotted on the earthSprang up again in copies,And gave two strong narcotics birth,Didactic verse and poppies.
Years after, when a poet askedThe Goddess's opinion,As one whose soul its wings had taskedIn Art's clear-aired dominion,'Discriminate,' she said, 'betimes;The Muse is unforgiving;Put all your beauty in your rhymes,Your morals in your living.'
Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman?I've known the fellow for years;My button I've wrenched from his clutch, man:I shudder whenever he nears!
He's a Rip van Winkle skipper,A Wandering Jew of the sea,Who sails his bedevilled old clipperIn the wind's eye, straight as a bee.
Back topsails! you can't escape him;The man-ropes stretch with his weight,And the queerest old toggeries drape him,The Lord knows how long out of date!
Like a long-disembodied idea,(A kind of ghost plentiful now,)He stands there; you fancy you see aCoeval of Teniers or Douw.
He greets you; would have you take letters:You scan the addresses with dread,While he mutters hisdonnersandwetters,—They're all from the dead to the dead!
You seem taking time for reflection,But the heart fills your throat with a jam,As you spell in each faded directionAn ominous ending indam.
Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend?That were changing green turtle to mock:No, thank you! I've found out which wedge-endIs meant for the head of a block.
The fellow I have in my mind's eyePlays the old Skipper's part here on shore,And sticks like a burr, till he finds IHave got just the gauge of his bore.
This postman 'twist one ghost and t'other,With last dates that smell of the mould,I have met him (O man and brother,Forgive me!) in azure and gold.
In the pulpit I've known of his preaching,Out of hearing behind the time,Some statement of Balaam's impeaching,Giving Eve a due sense of her crime.
I have seen him some poor ancient thrashingInto something (God save us!) more dry,With the Water of Life itself washingThe life out of earth, sea, and sky.
O dread fellow-mortal, get newerDespatches to carry, or none!We're as quick as the Greek and the Jew wereAt knowing a loaf from a stone.
Till the couriers of God fail in duty,We sha'n't ask a mummy for news,Nor sate the soul's hunger for beautyWith your drawings from casts of a Muse.
O days endeared to every Muse,When nobody had any Views,Nor, while the cloudscape of his mindBy every breeze was new designed,Insisted all the world should seeCamels or whales where none there be!O happy days, when men receivedFrom sire to son what all believed,And left the other world in bliss,Too busy with bedevilling this! 10
Beset by doubts of every breedIn the last bastion of my creed,With shot and shell for Sabbath-chime,I watch the storming-party climb,Panting (their prey in easy reach),To pour triumphant through the breachIn walls that shed like snowflakes tonsOf missiles from old-fashioned guns,But crumble 'neath the storm that poursAll day and night from bigger bores. 20There, as I hopeless watch and waitThe last life-crushing coil of Fate,Despair finds solace in the praiseOf those serene dawn-rosy daysEre microscopes had made us heirsTo large estates of doubts and snares,By proving that the title-deeds,Once all-sufficient for men's needs,Are palimpsests that scarce disguiseThe tracings of still earlier lies, 30Themselves as surely written o'erAn older fib erased before.
So from these days I fly to thoseThat in the landlocked Past repose,Where no rude wind of doctrine shakesFrom bloom-flushed boughs untimely flakes;Where morning's eyes see nothing strange,No crude perplexity of change,And morrows trip along their waysSecure as happy yesterdays. 40Then there were rulers who could traceThrough heroes up to gods their race,Pledged to fair fame and noble useBy veins from Odin filled or Zeus,And under bonds to keep divineThe praise of a celestial line.Then priests could pile the altar's sods,With whom gods spake as they with gods,And everywhere from haunted earthBroke springs of wonder, that had birth 50In depths divine beyond the kenAnd fatal scrutiny of men;Then hills and groves and streams and seasThrilled with immortal presences,Not too ethereal for the scopeOf human passion's dream or hope.
Now Pan at last is surely dead,And King No-Credit reigns instead,Whose officers, morosely strict,Poor Fancy's tenantry evict, 60Chase the last Genius from the door,And nothing dances any more.Nothing? Ah, yes, our tables do,Dramming the Old One's own tattoo,And, if the oracles are dumb,Have we not mediums! Why be glum?
Fly thither? Why, the very airIs full of hindrance and despair!Fly thither? But I cannot fly;My doubts enmesh me if I try, 70Each Liliputian, but, combined,Potent a giant's limbs to bind.This world and that are growing dark;A huge interrogation mark,The Devil's crook episcopal.Still borne before him since the Fall,Blackens with its ill-omened signThe old blue heaven of faith benign.Whence? Whither? Wherefore? How? Which? Why?All ask at once, all wait reply. 80Men feel old systems cracking under 'em;Life saddens to a mere conundrumWhich once Religion solved, but sheHas lost—has Science found?—the key.
What was snow-bearded Odin, trow,The mighty hunter long ago,Whose horn and hounds the peasant hearsStill when the Northlights shake their spears?Science hath answers twain, I've heard;Choose which you will, nor hope a third; 90Whichever box the truth be stowed in,There's not a sliver left of Odin.Either he was a pinchbrowed thing,With scarcely wit a stone to fling,A creature both in size and shapeNearer than we are to the ape,Who hung sublime with brat and spouseBy tail prehensile from the boughs,And, happier than his maimed descendants,The culture-curtailed _in_dependents, 100Could pluck his cherries with both paws,And stuff with both his big-boned jaws;Or else the core his name envelopedWas from a solar myth developed,Which, hunted to its primal shoot,Takes refuge in a Sanskrit root,Thereby to instant death explainingThe little poetry remaining.
Try it with Zeus, 'tis just the same;The thing evades, we hug a name; 110Nay, scarcely that,—perhaps a vaporBorn of some atmospheric caper.All Lempriere's fables blur togetherIn cloudy symbols of the weather,And Aphrodite rose from frothy seasBut to illustrate such hypotheses.With years enough behind his back,Lincoln will take the selfsame track,And prove, hulled fairly to the cob,A mere vagary of Old Prob. 120Give the right man a solar myth,And he'll confute the sun therewith.
They make things admirably plain,But one hard questionwillremain:If one hypothesis you lose,Another in its place you choose,But, your faith gone, O man and brother,Whose shop shall furnish you another?One that will wash, I mean, and wear,And wrap us warmly from despair? 130While they are clearing up our puzzles,And clapping prophylactic muzzlesOn the Actæon's hounds that sniffOur devious track through But and If,Would they'd explain away the DevilAnd other facts that won't keep level,But rise beneath our feet or fail,A reeling ship's deck in a gale!God vanished long ago, iwis,A mere subjective synthesis; 140A doll, stuffed out with hopes and fears,Too homely for us pretty dears,Who want one that conviction carries,Last make of London or of Paris.He gone, I felt a moment's spasm,But calmed myself, with Protoplasm,A finer name, and, what is more,As enigmatic as before;Greek, too, and sure to fill with easeMinds caught in the Symplegades 150Of soul and sense, life's two conditions,Each baffled with its own omniscience.The men who labor to reviseOur Bibles will, I hope, be wise,And print it without foolish qualmsInstead of God in David's psalms:Noll had been more effective farCould he have shouted at Dunbar,'Rise, Protoplasm!' No dourest ScotHad waited for another shot. 160
And yet I frankly must confessA secret unforgivingness,And shudder at the saving chrismWhose best New Birth is Pessimism;My soul—I mean the bit of phosphorusThat fills the place of what that was for us—Can't bid its inward bores defianceWith the new nursery-tales of science.What profits me, though doubt by doubt,As nail by nail, be driven out, 170When every new one, like the last,Still holds my coffin-lid as fast?Would I find thought a moment's truce,Give me the young world's Mother GooseWith life and joy in every limb,The chimney-corner tales of Grimm!
Our dear and admirable HuxleyCannot explain to me why ducks lay,Or, rather, how into their eggsBlunder potential wings and legs 180With will to move them and decideWhether in air or lymph to glide.Who gets a hair's-breadth on by showingThat Something Else set all agoing?Farther and farther back we pushFrom Moses and his burning bush;Cry, 'Art Thou there?' Above, below,All Nature muttersyesandno!'Tis the old answer: we're agreedBeing from Being must proceed, 190Life be Life's source. I might as wellObey the meeting-house's bell,And listen while Old Hundred poursForth through the summer-opened doors,From old and young. I hear it yet,Swelled by bass-viol and clarinet,While the gray minister, with faceRadiant, let loose his noble bass.If Heaven it reached not, yet its rollWaked all the echoes of the soul, 200And in it many a life found wingsTo soar away from sordid things.Church gone and singers too, the songSings to me voiceless all night long,Till my soul beckons me afar,Glowing and trembling like a star.Will any scientific touchWith my worn strings achieve as much?
I don't object, not I, to knowMy sires were monkeys, if 'twas so; 210I touch my ear's collusive tipAnd own the poor-relationship.That apes of various shapes and sizesContained their germs that all the prizesOf senate, pulpit, camp, and bar winMay give us hopes that sweeten Darwin.Who knows but from our loins may spring(Long hence) some winged sweet-throated thingAs much superior to usAs we to Cynocephalus? 220
This is consoling, but, alas,It wipes no dimness from the glassWhere I am flattening my poor nose,In hope to see beyond my toes,Though I accept my pedigree,Yet where, pray tell me, is the keyThat should unlock a private doorTo the Great Mystery, such no more?Each offers his, but one nor allAre much persuasive with the wall 230That rises now as long ago,Between I wonder and I know,Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peepAt the veiled Isis in its keep.Where is no door, I but produceMy key to find it of no use.Yet better keep it, after all,Since Nature's economical,And who can tell but some fine day(If it occur to her) she may, 240In her good-will to you and me,Makedoor and lock to match the key?
The world turns mild; democracy, they say,Rounds the sharp knobs of character away,And no great harm, unless at grave expenseOf what needs edge of proof, the moral sense;For man or race is on the downward pathWhose fibre grows too soft for honest wrath,And there's a subtle influence that springsFrom words to modify our sense of things.A plain distinction grows obscure of late:Man, if he will, may pardon; but the State 10Forgets its function if not fixed as Fate.So thought our sires: a hundred years ago,If men were knaves, why, people called them so,And crime could see the prison-portal bendIts brow severe at no long vista's end.In those days for plain things plain words would serve;Men had not learned to admire the graceful swerveWherewith the Æsthetic Nature's genial moodMakes public duty slope to private good;No muddled conscience raised the saving doubt; 20A soldier proved unworthy was drummed out,An officer cashiered, a civil servant(No matter though his piety were fervent)Disgracefully dismissed, and through the landEach bore for life a stigma from the brandWhose far-heard hiss made others more averseTo take the facile step from bad to worse.The Ten Commandments had a meaning then,Felt in their bones by least considerate men,Because behind them Public Conscience stood, 30And without wincing made their mandates good.But now that 'Statesmanship' is just a wayTo dodge the primal curse and make it pay,Since office means a kind of patent drillTo force an entrance to the Nation's till,And peculation something rather lessRisky than if you spelt it with ans;Now that to steal by law is grown an art,Whom rogues the sires, their milder sons call smart,And 'slightly irregular' dilutes the shame 40Of what had once a somewhat blunter name.With generous curve we draw the moral line:Our swindlers are permitted to resign;Their guilt is wrapped in deferential names,And twenty sympathize for one that blames.Add national disgrace to private crime,Confront mankind with brazen front sublime,Steal but enough, the world is un-severe,—Tweed is a statesman, Fisk a financier;Invent a mine, and he—the Lord knows what; 50Secure, at any rate, with what you've got.The public servant who has stolen or lied,If called on, may resign with honest pride:As unjust favor put him in, why doubtDisfavor as unjust has turned him out?Even it indicted, what is that but fudgeTo him who counted-in the elective judge?Whitewashed, he quits the politician's strifeAt ease in mind, with pockets filled for life;His 'lady' glares with gems whose vulgar blaze 60The poor man through his heightened taxes pays,Himself content if one huge KohinoorBulge from a shirt-front ampler than before,But not too candid, lest it haply tendTo rouse suspicion of the People's Friend.A public meeting, treated at his cost,Resolves him back more virtue than he lost;With character regilt he counts his gains;What's gone was air, the solid good remains;For what is good, except what friend and foe 70Seem quite unanimous in thinking so,The stocks and bonds which, in our age of loans,Replace the stupid pagan's stocks and stones?With choker white, wherein no cynic eyeDares see idealized a hempen tie,At parish-meetings he conducts in prayer,And pays for missions to be sent elsewhere;On 'Change respected, to his friends endeared,Add but a Sunday-school class, he's revered,And his too early tomb will not be dumb 80To point a moral for our youth to come.
At twenty we fancied the blest Middle AgesA spirited cross of romantic and grand,All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages,And love and adventure in Outre-Mer land;But ah, where the youth dreamed of building a minster,The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf,And the Graces wear fronts, the Muse thins to a spinster,When Middle-Age stares from one's glass at oneself!
Do you twit me with days when I had an Ideal,And saw the sear future through spectacles green?Then find me some charm, while I look round and see allThese fat friends of forty, shall keep me nineteen;Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurelWho've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch,Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our Fate pick a quarrel,If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she sent a dear scratch?
We called it our Eden, that small patent-baker,When life was half moonshine and half Mary Jane;But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker!—Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane?Nay, after the Fall did the modiste keep comingWith the last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve's bower?Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming,Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour?
As I think what I was, I sighDesunt nonnulla!Years are creditors Sheridan's self could not bilk;But then, as my boy says, 'What right has a fullahTo ask for the cream, when himself spilt the milk?'Perhaps when you're older, my lad, you'll discoverThe secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt,—Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and lover,—That cream rises thickest on milk that was spilt!
We sailed for the moon, but, in sad disillusion,Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast,And strive (sans our glasses) to make a confusion'Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past.Ah, Might-have-been, Could-have-been, Would-have-been! rascals,He's a genius or fool whom ye cheat at two-score,And the man whose boy-promise was likened to Pascal'sIs thankful at forty they don't call him bore!
With what fumes of fame was each confident pate full!How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles!And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful,If his rhymes sold as fast as the Emblems of Quarles?E'en if won, what's the good of Life's medals and prizes?The rapture's in what never was or is gone;That we missed them makes Helens of plain Ann Elizys,For the goose of To-day still is Memory's swan.
And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure?Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life?Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measureWho is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife?Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian,Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.'s upon trust,Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian,And still climb the dream-tree for—ashes and dust!
A hundred years! they're quickly fled,With all their joy and sorrow;Their dead leaves shed upon the dead,Their fresh ones sprung by morrow!And still the patient seasons bringTheir change of sun and shadow;New birds still sing with every spring,New violets spot the meadow.
A hundred years! and Nature's powersNo greater grown nor lessened! 10They saw no flowers more sweet than ours,No fairer new moon's crescent.Would she but treat us poets so,So from our winter free us,And set our slow old sap aflowTo sprout in fresh ideas!
Alas, think I, what worth or partsHave brought me here competing,To speak what starts in myriad heartsWith Burns's memory beating! 20Himself had loved a theme like this;Must I be its entomber?No pen save his but's sure to missIts pathos or its humor.
As I sat musing what to say,And how my verse to number,Some elf in play passed by that way,And sank my lids in slumber;And on my sleep a vision stole.Which I will put in metre, 30Of Burns's soul at the wicket-holeWhere sits the good Saint Peter.
The saint, methought, had left his postThat day to Holy Willie,Who swore, 'Each ghost that comes shall toastIn brunstane, will he, nill he;There's nane need hope with phrases fineTheir score to wipe a sin frae;I'll chalk a sign, to save their tryin',—A hand ([Illustration of a hand]) and "Vide infra!"' 40
Alas! no soil's too cold or dryFor spiritual small potatoes,Scrimped natures, spry the trade to plyOfdiaboli advocatus;Who lay bent pins in the penance-stoolWhere Mercy plumps a cushion,Who've just one rule for knave and fool,It saves so much confusion!
So when Burns knocked, Will knit his brows,His window gap made scanter, 50And said, 'Go rouse the other house;We lodge no Tam O'Shanter!''Welodge!' laughed Burns. 'Now well I seeDeath cannot kill old nature;No human flea but thinks that heMay speak for his Creator!
'But, Willie, friend, don't turn me forth,Auld Clootie needs no gauger;And if on earth I had small worth,You've let in worse I'se wager!' 60'Na, nane has knockit at the yettBut found me hard as whunstane;There's chances yet your bread to getWi Auld Nick, gaugin' brunstane.'
Meanwhile, the Unco' Guid had ta'enTheir place to watch the process,Flattening in vain on many a paneTheir disembodied noses.Remember, please, 'tis all a dream;One can't control the fancies 70Through sleep that stream with wayward gleam,Like midnight's boreal dances.
Old Willie's tone grew sharp 's a knife:'In primis, I indite ye,For makin' strife wi' the water o' life,And preferrin'aqua vitæ!'Then roared a voice with lusty din,Like a skipper's when 'tis blowy,'Ifthat'sa sin,I'd ne'er got in,As sure as my name's Noah!' 80
Baulked, Willie turned another leaf,—'There's many here have heard ye,To the pain and grief o' true belief,Say hard things o' the clergy!'Then rang a clear tone over all,—'One plea for him allow me:I once heard call from o'er me, "Saul,Why persecutest thou me?"'
To the next charge vexed Willie turned,And, sighing, wiped his glasses: 90'I'm much concerned to find ye yearnedO'er-warmly tow'rd the lasses!'Here David sighed; poor Willie's faceLost all its self-possession:'I leave this case to God's own grace;It bafflesmydiscretion!'
Then sudden glory round me broke,And low melodious surgesOf wings whose stroke to splendor wokeCreation's farthest verges; 100A cross stretched, ladder-like, secureFrom earth to heaven's own portal,Whereby God's poor, with footing sure,Climbed up to peace immortal.
I heard a voice serene and low(With my heart I seemed to hear it,)Fall soft and slow as snow on snow,Like grace of the heavenly spirit;As sweet as over new-born sonThe croon of new-made mother, 110The voice begun, 'Sore tempted one!'Then, pausing, sighed, 'Our brother!
'If not a sparrow fall, unlessThe Father sees and knows it,Think! recks He less his form express,The soul his own deposit?If only dear to Him the strong,That never trip nor wander,Where were the throng whose morning songThrills his blue arches yonder? 120
'Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed,To Him true service render,And they who need his hand to lead,Find they his heart untender?Through all your various ranks and fatesHe opens doors to duty,And he that waits there at your gatesWas servant of his Beauty.
'The Earth must richer sap secrete,(Could ye in time but know it!) 130Must juice concrete with fiercer heat,Ere she can make her poet;Long generations go and come,At last she bears a singer,For ages dumb of senses numbThe compensation-bringer!
'Her cheaper broods in palacesShe raises under glasses,But souls like these, heav'n's hostages,Spring shelterless as grasses: 140They share Earth's blessing and her bane,The common sun and shower;What makes your pain to them is gain,Your weakness is their power.
'These larger hearts must feel the rollsOf stormier-waved temptation;These star-wide souls between their polesBear zones of tropic passion.He loved much!—that is gospel good,Howe'er the text you handle; 150From common wood the cross was hewed,By love turned priceless sandal.
'If scant his service at the kirk,Hepatersheard andavesFrom choirs that lurk in hedge and birk,From blackbird and from mavis;The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing,In him found Mercy's angel;The daisy's ring brought every springTo him love's fresh evangel! 160
'Not he the threatening texts who dealsIs highest 'mong the preachers,But he who feels the woes and wealsOf all God's wandering creatures.He doth good work whose heart can findThe spirit 'neath the letter;Who makes his kind of happier mind,Leaves wiser men and better.
'They make Religion be abhorredWho round with darkness gulf her, 170And think no word can please the LordUnless it smell of sulphur,Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessedThe Father's loving kindness,Come now to rest! Thou didst his hest,If haply 'twas in blindness!'
Then leapt heaven's portals wide apart,And at their golden thunderWith sudden start I woke, my heartStill throbbing-full of wonder. 180'Father,' I said, ''tis known to TheeHow Thou thy Saints preparest;But this I see,—Saint CharityIs still the first and fairest!'
Dear Bard and Brother! let who mayAgainst thy faults be railing,(Though far, I pray, from us be theyThat never had a failing!)One toast I'll give, and that not long,Which thou wouldst pledge if present, 190To him whose song, in nature strong,Makes man of prince and peasant!