In his tower sat the poetGazing on the roaring sea,'Take this rose,' he sighed, 'and throw itWhere there's none that loveth me.On the rock the billow burstethAnd sinks back into the seas,But in vain my spirit thirstethSo to burst and be at ease.Take, O sea! the tender blossomThat hath lain against my breast;On thy black and angry bosomIt will find a surer rest.Life is vain, and love is hollow,Ugly death stands there behind,Hate and scorn and hunger followHim that toileth for his kind.'Forth into the night he hurled it,And with bitter smile did markHow the surly tempest whirled itSwift into the hungry dark.Foam and spray drive back to leeward,And the gale, with dreary moan,Drifts the helpless blossom seaward,Through the breakers all alone.
Stands a maiden, on the morrow,Musing by the wave-beat strand,Half in hope and half in sorrow,Tracing words upon the sand:'Shall I ever then behold himWho hath been my life so long,Ever to this sick heart told him,Be the spirit of his song?Touch not, sea, the blessed lettersI have traced upon thy shore,Spare his name whose spirit fettersMine with love forevermore!'Swells the tide and overflows it,But, with omen pure and meet,Brings a little rose, and throws itHumbly at the maiden's feet.Full of bliss she takes the token,And, upon her snowy breast,Soothes the ruffled petals brokenWith the ocean's fierce unrest.'Love is thine, O heart! and surelyPeace shall also be thine own,For the heart that trusteth purelyNever long can pine alone.'
In his tower sits the poet,Blisses new and strange to himFill his heart and overflow itWith a wonder sweet and dim.Up the beach the ocean slidethWith a whisper of delight,And the moon in silence glidethThrough the peaceful blue of night.Rippling o'er the poet's shoulderFlows a maiden's golden hair,Maiden lips, with love grown bolder,Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare.'Life is joy, and love is power,Death all fetters doth unbind,Strength and wisdom only flowerWhen we toil for all our kind.Hope is truth,—the future givethMore than present takes away,And the soul forever livethNearer God from day to day.'Not a word the maiden uttered,Fullest hearts are slow to speak,But a withered rose-leaf flutteredDown upon the poet's cheek.
Violet! sweet violet!Thine eyes are full of tears;Are they wetEven yetWith the thought of other years?Or with gladness are they full,For the night so beautiful,And longing for those far-off spheres?
Loved one of my youth thou wast,Of my merry youth,And I see,Tearfully,All the fair and sunny past,All its openness and truth,Ever fresh and green in theeAs the moss is in the sea.
Thy little heart, that hath with loveGrown colored like the sky above,On which thou lookest ever,—Can it knowAll the woeOf hope for what returneth never,All the sorrow and the longingTo these hearts of ours belonging?
Out on it! no foolish piningFor the skyDims thine eye,Or for the stars so calmly shining;Like thee let this soul of mineTake hue from that wherefor I long,Self-stayed and high, serene and strong,Not satisfied with hoping—but divine.
Violet! dear violet!Thy blue eyes are only wetWith joy and love of Him who sent thee,And for the fulfilling senseOf that glad obedienceWhich made thee all that Nature meant thee!
Thou look'dst on me all yesternight,Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was brightAs when we murmured our troth-plightBeneath the thick stars, Rosaline!Thy hair was braided on thy head,As on the day we two were wed,Mine eyes scarce knew if thou wert dead,But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline!
The death-watch ticked behind the wall,The blackness rustled like a pall, 10The moaning wind did rise and fallAmong the bleak pines, Rosaline!My heart beat thickly in mine ears:The lids may shut out fleshly fears,But still the spirit sees and hears.Its eyes are lidless, Rosaline!
A wildness rushing suddenly,A knowing some ill shape is nigh,A wish for death, a fear to die,Is not this vengeance, Rosaline? 20A loneliness that is not lone,A love quite withered up and gone,A strong soul ousted from its throne,What wouldst thou further, Rosaline?
'Tis drear such moonless nights as these,Strange sounds are out upon the breeze,And the leaves shiver in the trees,And then thou comest, Rosaline!I seem to hear the mourners go,With long black garments trailing slow, 30And plumes anodding to and fro,As once I heard them, Rosaline!
Thy shroud is all of snowy white,And, in the middle of the night,Thou standest moveless and upright,Gazing upon me, Rosaline!There is no sorrow in thine eyes,But evermore that meek surprise,—O God! thy gentle spirit triesTo deem me guiltless, Rosaline! 40
Above thy grave the robin sings,And swarms of bright and happy thingsFlit all about with sunlit wings,But I am cheerless, Rosaline!The violets in the hillock toss,The gravestone is o'ergrown with moss;For nature feels not any loss,But I am cheerless, Rosaline!
I did not know when thou wast dead;A blackbird whistling overhead 50Thrilled through my brain; I would have fled,But dared not leave thee, Rosaline!The sun rolled down, and very soon,Like a great fire, the awful moonRose, stained with blood, and then a swoonCrept chilly o'er me, Rosaline!
The stars came out; and, one by one,Each angel from his silver throneLooked down and saw what I had done:I dared not hide me, Rosaline! 60I crouched; I feared thy corpse would cryAgainst me to God's silent sky,I thought I saw the blue lips tryTo utter something, Rosaline!
I waited with a maddened grinTo hear that voice all icy thinSlide forth and tell my deadly sinTo hell and heaven, Rosaline!But no voice came, and then it seemed,That, if the very corpse had screamed, 70The sound like sunshine glad had streamedThrough that dark stillness, Rosaline!
And then, amid the silent night,I screamed with horrible delight,And in my brain an awful lightDid seem to crackle, Rosaline!It is my curse! sweet memories fallFrom me like snow, and only allOf that one night, like cold worms, crawlMy doomed heart over, Rosaline! 80
Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes,Wherein such blessed memories,Such pitying forgiveness lies,Than hate more bitter, Rosaline!Woe's me! I know that love so highAs thine, true soul, could never die,And with mean clay in churchyard lie,—Would it might be so, Rosaline!
Ay, pale and silent maiden,Cold as thou liest there,Thine was the sunniest natureThat ever drew the air;The wildest and most wayward,And yet so gently kind,Thou seemedst but to bodyA breath of summer wind.
Into the eternal shadowThat girds our life around,Into the infinite silenceWherewith Death's shore is bound,Thou hast gone forth, beloved!And I were mean to weep,That thou hast left Life's shallowsAnd dost possess the Deep.
Thou liest low and silent,Thy heart is cold and still.Thine eyes are shut forever,And Death hath had his will;He loved and would have taken;I loved and would have kept.We strove,—and he was stronger,And I have never wept.
Let him possess thy body,Thy soul is still with me,More sunny and more gladsomeThan it was wont to be:Thy body was a fetterThat bound me to the flesh,Thank God that it is broken,And now I live afresh!
Now I can see thee clearly;The dusky cloud of clay,That hid thy starry spirit,Is rent and blown away:To earth I give thy body,Thy spirit to the sky,I saw its bright wings growing,And knew that thou must fly.
Now I can love thee truly,For nothing comes betweenThe senses and the spirit,The seen and the unseen;Lifts the eternal shadow,The silence bursts apart,And the soul's boundless futureIs present in my heart.
Worn and footsore was the Prophet,When he gained the holy hill;'God has left the earth,' he murmured,'Here his presence lingers still.
'God of all the olden prophets,Wilt thou speak with men no more?Have I not as truly served theeAs thy chosen ones of yore?
'Hear me, guider of my fathers,Lo! a humble heart is mine;By thy mercy I beseech theeGrant thy servant but a sign!'
Bowing then his head, he listenedFor an answer to his prayer;No loud burst of thunder followed,Not a murmur stirred the air:
But the tuft of moss before himOpened while he waited yet,And, from out the rock's hard bosom,Sprang a tender violet.
'God! I thank thee,' said the Prophet;'Hard of heart and blind was I,Looking to the holy mountainFor the gift of prophecy.
'Still thou speakest with thy childrenFreely as in eld sublime;Humbleness, and love, and patience,Still give empire over time.
'Had I trusted in my nature,And had faith in lowly things,Thou thyself wouldst then have sought me.And set free my spirit's wings.
'But I looked for signs and wonders,That o'er men should give me sway;Thirsting to be more than mortal,I was even less than clay.
'Ere I entered on my journey,As I girt my loins to start,Ran to me my little daughter,The beloved of my heart;
'In her hand she held a flower,Like to this as like may be,Which, beside my very threshold,She had plucked and brought to me.'
O moonlight deep and tender,A year and more agone,Your mist of golden splendorRound my betrothal shone!
O elm-leaves dark and dewy,The very same ye seem,The low wind trembles through ye,Ye murmur in my dream!
O river, dim with distance,Flow thus forever by,A part of my existenceWithin your heart doth lie!
O stars, ye saw our meeting,Two beings and one soul,Two hearts so madly beatingTo mingle and be whole!
O happy night, deliverHer kisses back to me,Or keep them all, and give herA blisslul dream of me!
Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passedTo show us what a woman true may be:They have not taken sympathy from thee,Nor made thee any other than thou wast,Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast,Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown,Upon the air, but keepeth every oneWhose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last:So thou hast shed some blooms of gayety,But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;Nor hath thy knowledge of adversityRobbed thee of any faith in happiness,But rather cleared thine inner eyes to seeHow many simple ways there are to bless.
What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee,If thine eyes shut me out whereby I live.Thou, who unto my calmer soul dost giveKnowledge, and Truth, and holy Mystery,Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who seeBeyond the earthly and the fugitive,Who in the grandeur of the soul believe,And only in the Infinite are free?Without thee I were naked, bleak, and bareAs yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow;And Nature's teachings, which come to me now,Common and beautiful as light and air,Would be as fruitless as a stream which stillSlips through the wheel of some old ruined mill.
I would not have this perfect love of oursGrow from a single root, a single stem,Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowersThat idly hide life's iron diadem:It should grow alway like that Eastern treeWhose limbs take root and spread forth constantly;That love for one, from which there doth not springWide love for all, is but a worthless thing.Not in another world, as poets prate,Dwell we apart above the tide of things,High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings;But our pure love doth ever elevateInto a holy bond of brotherhoodAll earthly things, making them pure and good.
'For this true nobleness I seek in vain,In woman and in man I find it not;I almost weary of my earthly lot,My life-springs are dried up with burning pain.'Thou find'st it not? I pray thee look again,Lookinwardthrough the depths of thine own soul.How is it with thee? Art thou sound and whole?Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain?BE NOBLE! and the nobleness that liesIn other men, sleeping, but never dead,Will rise in majesty to meet thine own;Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes,Then will pure light around thy path be shed,And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone.
Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room,Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes,On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, liesThe twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom:Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloomOf hope secure, to him who lonely cries,Wrestling with the young poet's agonies,Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom:Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops,Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully,Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might,Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light,Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny,After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops.
Great Truths are portions of the soul of man;Great souls are portions of Eternity;Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ranWith lofty message, ran for thee and me;For God's law, since the starry song began,Hath been, and still forevermore must be,That every deed which shall outlast Time's spanMust spur the soul to be erect and free;Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung;Too many noble souls have thought and died,Too many mighty poets lived and sung,And our good Saxon, from lips purifiedWith martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rungToo long to have God's holy cause denied.
I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leapFrom being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken,With whose great rise the ocean all is shakenAnd a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;Give me that growth which some perchance deem sleep,Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise,Which, by the toil of gathering energies,Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of greenInto a pleasant island in the seas,Where, mid fall palms, the cane-roofed home is seen,And wearied men shall sit at sunset's hour,Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.
Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born,The morning-stars their ancient music make,And, joyful, once again their song awake,Long silent now with melancholy scorn;And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn,By no least deed its harmony shalt break,But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take,Through life's most darksome passes unforlorn;Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall,Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and free,And in thine every motion musicalAs summer air, majestic as the sea,A mystery to those who creep and crawlThrough Time, and part it from Eternity.
My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die;Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss,While Time and Peace with hands enlockèd fly;Yet care I not where in EternityWe live and love, well knowing that there isNo backward step for those who feel the blissOf Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:Love hath so purified my being's core,Meseems I scarcely should be startled even,To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given,Which each calm day doth strengthen more and more,That they who love are but one step from Heaven.
I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away,Whose life to mine is an eternal law,A piece of nature that can have no flaw,A new and certain sunrise every day:But, if thou art to be another rayAbout the Sun of Life, and art to liveFree from what part of thee was fugitive,The debt of Love I will more fully pay,Not downcast with the thought of thee so high,But rather raised to be a nobler man,And more divine in my humanity,As knowing that the waiting eyes which scanMy life are lighted by a purer being,And ask high, calm-browed deeds, with it agreeing.
There never yet was flower fair in vain,Let classic poets rhyme it as they will;The seasons toil that it may blow again,And summer's heart doth feel its every ill;Nor is a true soul ever born for naught;Wherever any such hath lived and died,There hath been something for true freedom wrought,Some bulwark levelled on the evil side:Toil on, then, Greatness! thou art in the right,However narrow souls may call thee wrong;Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight,And so thou shalt be in the world's erelong;For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may,From man's great soul one great thought hide away.
The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day;I hear the soul of Man around me waking,Like a great sea, its frozen fetters breaking,And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray,Tossing huge continents in scornful play,And crushing them, with din of grinding thunder,That makes old emptinesses stare in wonder;The memory of a glory passed awayLingers in every heart, as, in the shell,Resounds the bygone freedom of the sea,And every hour new signs of promise tell,That the great soul shall once again be free,For high, and yet more high, the murmurs swellOf inward strife for truth and liberty.
Beloved, in the noisy city here,The thought of thee can make all turmoil cease;Around my spirit, folds thy spirit clearIts still, soft arms, and circles it with peace;There is no room for any doubt or fearIn souls so overfilled with love's increase,There is no memory of the bygone yearBut growth in heart's and spirit's perfect ease:How hath our love, half nebulous at first,Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun!How have our lives and wills (as haply erstThey were, ere this forgetfulness begun)Through all their earthly distances outburst,And melted, like two rays of light in one!
As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth,With the majestic beating of his heart,The mighty tides, whereof its rightful partEach sea-wide bay and little weed receiveth.So, through his soul who earnestly believeth,Life from the universal Heart doth flow,Whereby some conquest of the eternal Woe,By instinct of God's nature, he achieveth;A fuller pulse of this all-powerful beautyInto the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide,And he more keenly feels the glorious dutyOf serving Truth, despised and crucified,—Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest,And feel God flow forever through his breast.
Once hardly in a cycle blossomethA flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of song,A spirit foreordained to cope with wrong,Whose divine thoughts are natural as breath,Who the old Darkness thickly scatterethWith starry words, that shoot prevailing lightInto the deeps, and wither, with the blightOf serene Truth, the coward heart of Death:Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high,And mock with lies the longing soul of man!Yet one age longer must true Culture lie,Soothing her bitter fetters as she can,Until new messages of love out-startAt the next beating of the infinite Heart.
The love of all things springs from love of one;Wider the soul's horizon hourly grows,And over it with fuller glory flowsThe sky-like spirit of God; a hope begunIn doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sunCometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth:And to the law of meekness, faith, and ruth,By inward sympathy, shall all be won:This thou shouldst know, who, from the painted featureOf shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren turnUnto the love of ever-youthful Nature,And of a beauty fadeless and eterne;And always 'tis the saddest sight to seeAn old man faithless in Humanity.
A poet cannot strive for despotism;His harp falls shattered; for it still must beThe instinct of great spirits to be free,And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism:He who has deepest searched the wide abysmOf that life-giving Soul which men call fate,Knows that to put more faith in lies and hateThan truth and love is the true atheism:Upward the soul forever turns her eyes:The next hour always shames the hour before;One beauty, at its highest, prophesiesThat by whose side it shall seem mean and poor;No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less,But widens to the boundless Perfectness.
Therefore think not the Past is wise alone,For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best,And thou shalt love it only as the nestWhence glory-wingèd things to Heaven have flown:To the great Soul only are all things known;Present and future are to her as past,While she in glorious madness doth forecastThat perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blownTo each new Prophet, and yet always opesFuller and fuller with each day and hour,Heartening the soul with odor of fresh hopes,And longings high, and gushings of wide power,Yet never is or shall be fully blownSave in the forethought of the Eternal One.
Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time,With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should lookInto the Endless Promise, nor should brookOne prying doubt to shake his faith sublime;To him the earth is ever in her primeAnd dewiness of morning; he can seeGood lying hid, from all eternity,Within the teeming womb of sin and crime;His soul should not be cramped by any bar,His nobleness should be so Godlike high,That his least deed is perfect as a star,His common look majestic as the sky,And all o'erflooded with a light from far,Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality.
Mary, since first I knew thee, to this hour,My love hath deepened, with my wiser senseOf what in Woman is to reverence;Thy clear heart, fresh as e'er was forest-flower,Still opens more to me its beauteous dower;—But let praise hush,—Love asks no evidenceTo prove itself well-placed: we know not whenceIt gleans the straws that thatch its humble bower:We can but say we found it in the heart,Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe of blame,Sower of flowers in the dusty mart,Pure vestal of the poet's holy flame,—This is enough, and we have done our partIf we but keep it spotless as it came.
Our love is not a fading, earthly flower:Its wingèd seed dropped down from Paradise,And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower,Doth momently to fresher beauty rise:To us the leafless autumn is not bare,Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green.Our summer hearts make summer's fulness, whereNo leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen:For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,Love,—whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and IInto the infinite freedom openeth,And makes the body's dark and narrow grateThe wide-flung leaves of Heaven's own palace-gate.
These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear,Did I not know that, in the early spring,When wild March winds upon their errands sing,Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air,Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair,They hunt up violets, and free swift brooksFrom icy cares, even as thy clear looksBid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care;When drops with welcome rain the April day,My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes,Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay,As loath to fall out of those happy skies;Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May,That comes with steady sun when April dies.
He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wideThe din of tattle and of slaughter rose;He saw God stand upon the weaker side,That sank in seeming loss before its foes:Many there were who made great haste and soldUnto the cunning enemy their swords,He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold,And, underneath their soft and flowery words,Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he wentAnd humbly joined him to the weaker part,Fanatic named, and fool, yet well contentSo he could he the nearer to God's heart,And feel its solemn pulses sending bloodThrough all the widespread veins of endless good.
They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds,Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro,Hugging their bodies round them like thin shroudsWherein their souls were buried long ago:They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love,They cast their hope of human kind away,With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove,And conquered,—and their spirits turned to clay:Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave,Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed,Gibbering at living men, and idly rave,'We only truly live, but ye are dead.'Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may traceA dead soul's epitaph in every face!
I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes awayThe charm that Nature to my childhood wore,For, with that insight, cometh, day by day,A greater bliss than wonder was before;The real doth not clip the poet's wings,—To win the secret of a weed's plain heartReveals some clue to spiritual things,And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art:Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes,Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense;He knows that outward seemings are but lies,Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whenceThe soul that looks within for truth may guessThe presence of some wondrous heavenliness.
Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grownSmoother than honey on the lips of men;And thou shalt aye be honorably known,As one who bravely used his tongue and pen.As best befits a freeman,—even for thoseTo whom our Law's unblushing front deniesA right to plead against the lifelong woesWhich are the Negro's glimpse of Freedom's skies:Fear nothing, and hope all things, as the RightAlone may do securely; every hourThe thrones of Ignorance and ancient NightLose somewhat of their long-usurpèd power,And Freedom's lightest word can make them shiverWith a base dread that clings to them forever.
I thought our love at full, but I did err;Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not seeThat sorrow in our happy world must beLove's deepest spokesman and interpreter;But, as a mother feels her child first stirUnder her heart, so felt I instantlyDeep in my soul another bond to theeThrill with that life we saw depart from her;O mother of our angel child! twice dear!Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis,Her tender radiance shall infold us here,Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss,Threads the void glooms of space without a fear,To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss.
Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not,In these three years, since I to thee inscribed,Mine own betrothed, the firstlings of my muse.—Poor windfalls of unripe experience,Young buds plucked hastily by childish handsNot patient to await more full-blown flowers,—At least it hath seen more of life and men,And pondered more, and grown a shade more sad;Yet with no loss of hope or settled trustIn the benignness of that Providence 10Which shapes from out our elements awryThe grace and order that we wonder at,The mystic harmony of right and wrong,Both working out his wisdom and our good:A trust, Beloved, chiefly learned of thee,Who hast that gift of patient tenderness,The instinctive wisdom of a woman's heart.
They tell us that our land was made for song,With its huge rivers and sky-piercing peaks,Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, 20Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies wide,And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes extinct.But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods;Her womb and cradle are the human heart,And she can find a nobler theme for songIn the most loathsome man that blasts the sightThan in the broad expanse of sea and shoreBetween the frozen deserts of the poles.All nations have their message from on high,Each the messiah of some central thought, 30For the fulfilment and delight of Man:One has to teach that labor is divine;Another Freedom; and another Mind;And all, that God is open-eyed and just,The happy centre and calm heart of all.
Are, then, our woods, our mountains, and our streams,Needful to teach our poets how to sing?O maiden rare, far other thoughts were ours,When we have sat by ocean's foaming marge,And watched the waves leap roaring on the rocks, 40Than young Leander and his Hero had,Gazing from Sestos to the other shore.The moon looks down and ocean worships her,Stars rise and set, and seasons come and goEven as they did in Homer's elder time,But we behold them not with Grecian eyes:Then they were types of beauty and of strength,But now of freedom, unconflned and pure,Subject alone to Order's higher law.What cares the Russian serf or Southern slave 50Though we should speak as man spake never yetOf gleaming Hudson's broad magnificence,Or green Niagara's never-ending roar?Our country hath a gospel of her ownTo preach and practise before all the world,—The freedom and divinity of man,The glorious claims of human brotherhood,—Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should,Gains the sole wealth that will not fly away,—And the soul's fealty to none but God. 60These are realities, which make the showsOf outward Nature, be they ne'er so grand,Seem small, and worthless, and contemptible.These are the mountain-summits for our bards,Which stretch far upward into heaven itself,And give such widespread and exulting viewOf hope, and faith, and onward destiny,That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill dwindles.Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star,Silvers the mirk face of slow-yielding Night, 70The herald of a fuller truth than yetHath gleamed upon the upraised face of ManSince the earth glittered in her stainless prime,—Of a more glorious sunrise than of oldDrew wondrous melodies from Memnon huge,Yea, draws them still, though now he sit waist-deepIn the ingulfing flood of whirling sand,And look across the wastes of endless gray,Sole wreck, where once his hundred-gated ThebesPained with her mighty hum the calm, blue heaven: 80Shall the dull stone pay grateful orisons,And we till noonday bar the splendor out,Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard hearts,Warm-nestled in the down of Prejudice,And be content, though clad with angel-wings,Close-clipped, to hop about from perch to perch,In paltry cages of dead men's dead thoughts?Oh, rather, like the skylark, soar and sing,And let our gushing songs befit the dawnAnd sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew 90Brimming the chalice of each full-blown hope,Whose blithe front turns to greet the growing day!Never had poets such high call before,Never can poets hope for higher one,And, if they be but faithful to their trust,Earth will remember them with love and joy,And oh, far better, God will not forget.For he who settles Freedom's principlesWrites the death-warrant of all tyranny;Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart, 100And his mere word makes despots tremble moreThan ever Brutus with his dagger could.Wait for no hints from waterfalls or woods,Nor dream that tales of red men, brute and fierce,Repay the finding of this Western World,Or needed half the globe to give them birth:Spirit supreme of Freedom! not for thisDid great Columbus tame his eagle soulTo jostle with the daws that perch in courts;Not for this, friendless, on an unknown sea, 110Coping with mad waves and more mutinous spirits,Battled he with the dreadful ache at heartWhich tempts, with devilish subtleties of doubt,The hermit, of that loneliest solitude,The silent desert of a great New Thought;Though loud Niagara were to-day struck dumb,Yet would this cataract of boiling lifeRush plunging on and on to endless deeps,And utter thunder till the world shall cease,—A thunder worthy of the poet's song, 120And which alone can fill it with true life.The high evangel to our country grantedCould make apostles, yea, with tongues of fire,Of hearts half-darkened back again to clay!'Tis the soul only that is national,And he who pays true loyalty to thatAlone can claim the wreath of patriotism.
Beloved! if I wander far and oftFrom that which I believe, and feel, and know,Thou wilt forgive, not with a sorrowing heart, 130But with a strengthened hope of better things;Knowing that I, though often blind and falseTo those I love, and oh, more false than allUnto myself, have been most true to thee,And that whoso in one thing hath been trueCan be as true in all. Therefore thy hopeMay yet not prove unfruitful, and thy loveMeet, day by day, with less unworthy thanks,Whether, as now, we journey hand in hand,Or, parted in the body, yet are one 140In spirit and the love of holy things.
Fair as a summer dream was Margaret,Such dream as in a poet's soul might start,Musing of old loves while the moon doth set:Her hair was not more sunny than her heart,Though like a natural golden coronetIt circled her dear head with careless art,Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lentTo its frank grace a richer ornament.
His loved one's eyes could poet ever speak,So kind, so dewy, and so deep were hers,— 10But, while he strives, the choicest phrase, too weak,Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs;As one may see a dream dissolve and breakOut of his grasp when he to tell it stirs,Like that sad Dryad doomed no more to blessThe mortal who revealed her loveliness.
She dwelt forever in a region bright,Peopled with living fancies of her own,Where naught could come but visions of delight,Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan: 20A summer cloud thrilled through with rosy light,Floating beneath the blue sky all alone,Her spirit wandered by itself, and wonA golden edge from some unsetting sun.
The heart grows richer that its lot is poor,God blesses want with larger sympathies,Love enters gladliest at the humble door,And makes the cot a palace with his eyes;So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore,And grew in gentleness and patience wise, 30For she was but a simple herdsman's child,A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild.
There was no beauty of the wood or fieldBut she its fragrant bosom-secret knew,Nor any but to her would freely yieldSome grace that in her soul took root and grew;Nature to her shone as but now revealed,All rosy-fresh with innocent morning dew,And looked into her heart with dim, sweet eyesThat left it full of sylvan memories. 40
Oh, what a face was hers to brighten light,And give back sunshine with an added glow,To wile each moment with a fresh delight,And part of memory's best contentment grow!Oh, how her voice, as with an inmate's right,Into the strangest heart would welcome go,And make it sweet, and ready to becomeOf white and gracious thoughts the chosen home!
None looked upon her but he straightway thoughtOf all the greenest depths of country cheer, 50And into each one's heart was freshly broughtWhat was to him the sweetest time of year,So was her every look and motion fraughtWith out-of-door delights and forest lere;Not the first violet on a woodland leaSeemed a more visible gift of Spring than she.
Is love learned only out of poets' books?Is there not somewhat in the dropping flood,And in the nunneries of silent nooks,And in the murmured longing of the wood, 60That could make Margaret dream of lovelorn looks,And stir a thrilling mystery in her bloodMore trembly secret than Aurora's tearShed in the bosom of an eglatere?
Full many a sweet forewarning hath the mind,Full many a whispering of vague desire,Ere comes the nature destined to unbindIts virgin zone, and all its deeps inspire,— 70Low stirrings in the leaves, before the windWake all the green strings of the forest lyre,Faint heatings in the calyx, ere the roseIts warm voluptuous breast doth all unclose.
Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit,Wildered and dark, despairingly alone;Though many a shape of beauty wander near it,And many a wild and half-remembered toneTremble from the divine abyss to cheer it,Yet still it knows that there is only oneBefore whom it can kneel and tribute bring.At once a happy vassal and a king. 80
To feel a want, yet scarce know what it is,To seek one nature that is always new,Whose glance is warmer than another's kiss,Whom we can bare our inmost beauty to,Nor feel deserted afterwards,—for thisBut with our destined co-mate we can do,—Such longing instinct fills the mighty scopeOf the young soul with one mysterious hope.
So Margaret's heart grew brimming with the loreOf love's enticing secrets; and although 90She had found none to cast it down before,Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would goTo pay her vows—and count the rosary o'erOf her love's promised graces:—haply soMiranda's hope had pictured FerdinandLong ere the gaunt wave tossed him on the strand.
A new-made star that swims the lonely gloom,Unwedded yet and longing for the sun,Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lavish groom,Blithely to crown the virgin planet run, 100Her being was, watching to see the bloomOf love's fresh sunrise roofing one by oneIts clouds with gold, a triumph-arch to beFor him who came to hold her heart in fee.
Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a knightOf the proud Templars, a sworn celibate,Whose heart in secret fed upon the lightAnd dew of her ripe beauty, through the grateOf his close vow catching what gleams he mightOf the free heaven, and cursing all too late 110The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed him inAnd turned life's crowning bliss to deadly sin.
For he had met her in the wood by chance,And, having drunk her beauty's wildering spell,His heart shook like the pennon of a lanceThat quivers in a breeze's sudden swell,And thenceforth, in a close-infolded trance,From mistily golden deep to deep he fell;Till earth did waver and fade far awayBeneath the hope in whose warm arms he lay. 120
A dark, proud man he was, whose half-blown youthHad shed its blossoms even in opening,Leaving a few that with more winning ruthTrembling around grave manhood's stem might cling,More sad than cheery, making, in good sooth,Like the fringed gentian, a late autumn spring:A twilight nature, braided light and gloom,A youth half-smiling by an open tomb.
Fair as an angel, who yet inly woreA wrinkled heart foreboding his near fall; 130Who saw him alway wished to know him more,As if he were some fate's defiant thrallAnd nursed a dreaded secret at his core;Little he loved, but power the most of all,And that he seemed to scorn, as one who knewBy what foul paths men choose to crawl thereto.
He had been noble, but some great deceitHad turned his better instinct to a vice:He strove to think the world was all a cheat,That power and fame were cheap at any price, 140That the sure way of being shortly greatWas even to play life's game with loaded dice,Since he had tried the honest play and foundThat vice and virtue differed but in sound.
Yet Margaret's sight redeemed him for a spaceFrom his own thraldom; man could never beA hypocrite when first such maiden graceSmiled in upon his heart; the agonyOf wearing all day long a lying faceFell lightly from him, and, a moment free, 150Erect with wakened faith his spirit stoodAnd scorned the weakness of his demon-mood.
Like a sweet wind-harp to him was her thought,Which would not let the common air come near,Till from its dim enchantment it had caughtA musical tenderness that brimmed his earWith sweetness more ethereal than aughtSave silver-dropping snatches that whilereRained down from some sad angel's faithful harpTo cool her fallen lover's anguish sharp. 160
Deep in the forest was a little dellHigh overarchèd with the leafy sweepOf a broad oak, through whose gnarled roots there fellA slender rill that sung itself to sleep,Where its continuous toil had scooped a wellTo please the fairy folk; breathlessly deepThe stillness was, save when the dreaming brookFrom its small urn a drizzly murmur shook.
The wooded hills sloped upward all aroundWith gradual rise, and made an even rim, 170So that it seemed a mighty casque unboundFrom some huge Titan's brow to lighten him,Ages ago, and left upon the ground.Where the slow soil had mossed it to the brim,Till after countless centuries it grewInto this dell, the haunt of noontide dew.
Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun-flecked green,Wound through the thickset trunks on every side,And, toward the west, in fancy might be seenA Gothic window in its blazing pride, 180When the low sun, two arching elms between,Lit up the leaves beyond, which, autumn-dyedWith lavish hues, would into splendor start,Shaming the labored panes of richest art.
Here, leaning once against the old oak's trunk,Mordred, for such was the young Templar's name,Saw Margaret come; unseen, the falcon shrunkFrom the meek dove; sharp thrills of tingling flameMade him forget that he was vowed a monk,And all the outworks of his pride o'ercame: 190Flooded he seemed with bright delicious pain,As if a star had burst within his brain.
Such power hath beauty and frank innocence:A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine glad to bless,Even from his love's long leafless stem; the senseOf exile from Hope's happy realm grew less,And thoughts of childish peace, he knew not whence,Thronged round his heart with many an old caress,Melting the frost there into pearly dewThat mirrored back his nature's morning-blue. 200
She turned and saw him, but she felt no dread,Her purity, like adamantine mail.Did so encircle her; and yet her headShe drooped, and made her golden hair her veil,Through which a glow of rosiest lustre spread,Then faded, and anon she stood all pale,As snow o'er which a blush of northern lightSuddenly reddens, and as soon grows white.
She thought of Tristrem and of Lancilot,Of all her dreams, and of kind fairies' might, 210And how that dell was deemed a haunted spot,Until there grew a mist before her sight.And where the present was she half forgot,Borne backward through the realms of old delight,—Then, starting up awake, she would have gone,Yet almost wished it might not be alone.
How they went home together through the wood,And how all life seemed focussed into oneThought-dazzling spot that set ablaze the blood,What need to tell? Fit language there is none 220For the heart's deepest things. Who ever wooedAs in his boyish hope he would have done?For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed tongueVoicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung.
But all things carry the heart's messagesAnd know it not, nor doth the heart well know,But Nature hath her will; even as the bees,Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and froWith the fruit-quickening pollen;—hard if theseFound not some all unthought-of way to show 230Their secret each to each; and so they did,And one heart's flower-dust into the other slid.
Young hearts are free; the selfish world it isThat turns them miserly and cold as stone,And makes them clutch their fingers on the blissWhich but in giving truly is their own;—She had no dreams of barter, asked not his,But gave hers freely as she would have thrownA rose to him, or as that rose gives forthIts generous fragrance, thoughtless of its worth. 240
Her summer nature felt a need to bless,And a like longing to be blest again;So, from her sky-like spirit, gentlenessDropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,And his beneath drank in the bright caressAs thirstily as would a parched plain,That long hath watched the showers of sloping grayFor ever, ever, falling far away.
How should she dream of ill? the heart filled quiteWith sunshine, like the shepherd's-clock at noon, 250Closes its leaves around its warm delight;Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tuneIs all shut out, no boding shade of blightCan pierce the opiate ether of its swoon:Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is,But naught can be so wanton-blind as bliss.
All beauty and all life he was to her;She questioned not his love, she only knewThat she loved him, and not a pulse could stirIn her whole frame but quivered through and through 260With this glad thought, and was a ministerTo do him fealty and service true,Like golden ripples hasting to the landTo wreck their freight of sunshine on the strand.
O dewy dawn of love! that areHung high, like the cliff-swallow's perilous nest,Most like to fall when fullest, and that jarWith every heavier billow! O unrestThan balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far!How did ye triumph now in Margaret's breast, 270Making it readier to shrink and startThan quivering gold of the pond-lily's heart!
Here let us pause: oh, would the soul might everAchieve its immortality in youth,When nothing yet hath damped its high endeavorAfter the starry energy of truth!Here let us pause, and for a moment severThis gleam of sunshine from the sad unruthThat sometime comes to all, for it is goodTo lengthen to the last a sunny mood. 280
As one who, from the sunshine and the green,Enters the solid darkness of a cave,Nor knows what precipice or pit unseenMay yawn before him with its sudden grave,And, with hushed breath, doth often forward lean,Dreaming he hears the plashing of a waveDimly below, or feels a damper airFrom out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;
So, from the sunshine and the green of love,We enter on our story's darker part; 290And, though the horror of it well may moveAn impulse of repugnance in the heart,Yet let us think, that, as there's naught aboveThe all-embracing atmosphere of Art,So also there is naught that falls belowHer generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe.
Her fittest triumph is to show that goodLurks in the heart of evil evermore,That love, though scorned, and outcast, and withstood,Can without end forgive, and yet have store; 300God's love and man's are of the selfsame blood,And He can see that always at the doorOf foulest hearts the angel-nature yetKnocks to return and cancel all its debt.
It ever is weak falsehood's destinyThat her thick mask turns crystal to let throughThe unsuspicious eyes of honesty;But Margaret's heart was too sincere and trueAught but plain truth and faithfulness to see,And Mordred's for a time a little grew 310To be like hers, won by the mild reproofOf those kind eyes that kept all doubt aloof.
Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight meetIn northern climes; she full of growing dayAs he of darkness, which before her feetShrank gradual, and faded quite away,Soon to return; for power had made love sweetTo him, and when his will had gained full sway,The taste began to pall; for never powerCan sate the hungry soul beyond an hour. 320
He fell as doth the tempter ever fall,Even in the gaining of his loathsome end;God doth not work as man works, but makes allThe crooked paths of ill to goodness tend;Let Him judge Margaret! If to be the thrallOf love, and faith too generous to defendIts very life from him she loved, be sin,What hope of grace may the seducer win?
Grim-hearted world, that look'st with Levite eyesOn those poor fallen by too much faith in man, 330She that upon thy freezing threshold lies,Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban,Seeking that refuge because foulest viceMore godlike than thy virtue is, whose spanShuts out the wretched only, is more freeTo enter heaven than thou shalt ever be!
Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feetWith such salt things as tears, or with rude hairDry them, soft Pharisee, that sit'st at meatWith him who made her such, and speak'st him fair. 340Leaving God's wandering lamb the while to bleatUnheeded, shivering in the pitiless air:Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wanAnd haggard than a vice to look upon.
Now many months flew by, and weary grewTo Margaret the sight of happy things;Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of dew;Shut round her heart were now the joyous wingsWherewith it wont to soar; yet not untrue,Though tempted much, her woman's nature clings 350To its first pure belief, and with sad eyesLooks backward o'er the gate of Paradise.
And so, though altered Mordred came less oft,And winter frowned where spring had laughed beforeIn his strange eyes, yet half her sadness doffed,And in her silent patience loved him more:Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more soft,And a new life within her own she boreWhich made her tenderer, as she felt it moveBeneath her breast, a refuge for her love. 360
This babe, she thought, would surely bring him back,And be a bond forever them between;Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rackWould fade, and leave the face of heaven serene;And love's return doth more than fill the lack,Which in his absence withered the heart's green:And yet a dim foreboding still would flitBetween her and her hope to darken it.
She could not figure forth a happy fate,Even for this life from heaven so newly come; 370The earth must needs be doubly desolateTo him scarce parted from a fairer home:Such boding heavier on her bosom sateOne night, as, standing in the twilight gloam,She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy vergeAt whose foot faintly breaks the future's surge.
Poor little spirit! naught but shame and woeNurse the sick heart whose life-blood nurses thine:Yet not those only; love hath triumphed so,As for thy sake makes sorrow more divine: 380And yet, though thou be pure, the world is foeTo purity, if born in such a shrine;And, having trampled it for struggling thence,Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence.
As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to riseFrom out her thought, and turn to drearinessAll blissful hopes and sunny memories,And the quick blood would curdle up and pressAbout her heart, which seemed to shut its eyesAnd hush itself, as who with shuddering guess 390Harks through the gloom and dreads e'en now to feelThrough his hot breast the icy slide of steel.
But, at that heart-beat, while in dread she was,In the low wind the honeysuckles gleam,A dewy thrill flits through the heavy grass,And, looking forth, she saw, as in a dream,Within the wood the moonlight's shadowy mass:Night's starry heart yearning to hers doth seem,And the deep sky, full-hearted with the moon,Folds round her all the happiness of June. 400
What fear could face a heaven and earth like this?What silveriest cloud could hang 'neath such a sky?A tide of wondrous and unwonted blissRolls back through all her pulses suddenly,As if some seraph, who had learned to kissFrom the fair daughters of the world gone by,Had wedded so his fallen light with hers,Such sweet, strange joy through soul and body stirs.
Now seek we Mordred; he who did not fearThe crime, yet fears the latent consequence: 410If it should reach a brother Templar's ear,It haply might be made a good pretenceTo cheat him of the hope he held most dear;For he had spared no thought's or deed's expense,That by and by might help his wish to clipIts darling bride,—the high grandmastership.
The apathy, ere a crime resolved is done,Is scarce less dreadful than remorse for crime;By no allurement can the soul be wonFrom brooding o'er the weary creep of time: 420Mordred stole forth into the happy sun,Striving to hum a scrap of Breton rhyme,But the sky struck him speechless, and he triedIn vain to summon up his callous pride.
In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway,A Triton blowing jewels through his shellInto the sunshine; Mordred turned away,Weary because the stone face did not tellOf weariness, nor could he bear to-day,Heartsick, to hear the patient sink and swell 430Of winds among the leaves, or golden beesDrowsily humming in the orange-trees.
All happy sights and sounds now came to himLike a reproach: he wandered far and wide,Following the lead of his unquiet whim,But still there went a something at his sideThat made the cool breeze hot, the sunshine dim;It would not flee, it could not be defied,He could not see it, but he felt it there,By the damp chill that crept among his hair. 440
Day wore at last; the evening-star arose,And throbbing in the sky grew red and set;Then with a guilty, wavering step he goesTo the hid nook where they so oft had metIn happier season, for his heart well knowsThat he is sure to find poor MargaretWatching and waiting there with love-lorn breastAround her young dream's rudely scattered nest.
Why follow here that grim old chronicleWhich counts the dagger-strokes and drops of blood? 450Enough that Margaret by his mad steel fell,Unmoved by murder from her trusting mood,Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell,With a sad love, remembering when he stoodNot fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart,Of all her holy dreams the holiest part.
His crime complete, scarce knowing what he did,(So goes the tale,) beneath the altar thereIn the high church the stiffening corpse he hid,And then, to 'scape that suffocating air, 460Like a scared ghoul out of the porch he slid;But his strained eyes saw blood-spots everywhere,And ghastly faces thrust themselves betweenHis soul and hopes of peace with blasting mien.
His heart went out within him like a sparkDropt in the sea; wherever he made boldTo turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and stark,Pale Margaret lying dead; the lavish goldOf her loose hair seemed in the cloudy darkTo spread a glory, and a thousand-fold 470More strangely pale and beautiful she grew:Her silence stabbed his conscience through and through.
Or visions of past days,—a mother's eyesThat smiled down on the fair boy at her knee,Whose happy upturned face to hers replies.—He saw sometimes: or Margaret mournfullyGazed on him full of doubt, as one who triesTo crush belief that does love injury;Then she would wring her hands, but soon againLove's patience glimmered out through cloudy pain. 480
Meanwhile he dared, not go and steal awayThe silent, dead-cold witness of his sin;He had not feared the life, but that dull clay,Those open eyes that showed the death within,Would surely stare him mad; yet all the dayA dreadful impulse, whence his will could winNo refuge, made him linger in the aisle,Freezing with his wan look each greeting smile.
Now, on the second day there was to beA festival in church: from far and near 490Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry,And knights and dames with stately antique cheer,Blazing with pomp, as if all faerieHad emptied her quaint halls, or, as it were,The illuminated marge of some old book,While we were gazing, life and motion took.
When all were entered, and the roving eyesOf all were stayed, some upon faces bright,Some on the priests, some on the traceriesThat decked the slumber of a marble knight, 500And all the rustlings over that ariseFrom recognizing tokens of delight,When friendly glances meet,—then silent easeSpread o'er the multitude by slow degrees.