I treasure in secret some long, fine hairOf tenderest brown, but so inwardly goldenI half used to fancy the sunshine there,So shy, so shifting, so waywardly rare,Was only caught for the moment and holdenWhile I could sayDearest!and kiss it, and thenIn pity let go to the summer again.
I twisted this magic in gossamer stringsOver a wind-harp's Delphian hollow;Then called to the idle breeze that swingsAll day in the pine-tops, and clings, and sings'Mid the musical leaves, and said, 'Oh, followThe will of those tears that deepen my words,And fly to my window to waken these chords.'
So they trembled to life, and, doubtfullyFeeling their way to my sense, sang, 'Say whetherThey sit all day by the greenwood tree,The lover and loved, as it wont to be,When we—' But grief conquered, and all togetherThey swelled such weird murmur as haunts a shoreOf some planet dispeopled,—'Nevermore!'
Then from deep in the past, as seemed to me,The strings gathered sorrow and sang forsaken,'One lover still waits 'neath the greenwood tree,But 'tis dark,' and they shuddered, 'where lieth she,Dark and cold! Forever must one be taken?'But I groaned, 'O harp of all ruth bereft,This Scripture is sadder,—"the other left"!'
There murmured, as if one strove to speak,And tears came instead; then the sad tones wanderedAnd faltered among the uncertain chordsIn a troubled doubt between sorrow and words;At last with themselves they questioned and pondered,'Hereafter?—who knoweth?' and so they sighedDown the long steps that lead to silence and died.
The little gate was reached at last,Half hid in lilacs down the lane;She pushed it wide, and, as she past,A wistful look she backward cast,And said,—'Auf wiedersehen!'
With hand on latch, a vision whiteLingered reluctant, and againHalf doubting if she did aright,Soft as the dews that fell that night,She said,—'Auf wiedersehen!'
The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair;I linger in delicious pain;Ah, in that chamber, whose rich airTo breathe in thought I scarcely dare,Thinks she,—'Auf wiedersehen?' …
'Tis thirteen years; once more I pressThe turf that silences the lane;I hear the rustle of her dress,I smell the lilacs, and—ah, yes,I hear 'Auf wiedersehen!'
Sweet piece of bashful maiden art!The English words had seemed too fain,But these—they drew us heart to heart,Yet held us tenderly apart;She said, 'Auf wiedersehen!'
Still thirteen years: 'tis autumn nowOn field and hill, in heart and brain;The naked trees at evening sough;The leaf to the forsaken boughSighs not,—'Auf wiedersehen!'
Two watched yon oriole's pendent dome,That now is void, and dank with rain,And one,—oh, hope more frail than foam!The bird to his deserted homeSings not,—'Auf wiedersehen!'
The loath gate swings with rusty creak;Once, parting there, we played at pain:There came a parting, when the weakAnd fading lips essayed to speakVainly,—'Auf wiedersehen!'
Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith,Though thou in outer dark remain;One sweet sad voice ennobles death,And still, for eighteen centuries saithSoftly,—'Auf wiedersehen!'
If earth another grave must bear,Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain,And something whispers my despair,That, from an orient chamber there,Floats down, 'Auf wiedersehen!'
Yes, faith is a goodly anchor;When skies are sweet as a psalm,At the bows it lolls so stalwart,In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm.
And when over breakers to leewardThe tattered surges are hurled,It may keep our head to the tempest,With its grip on the base of the world.
But, after the shipwreck, tell meWhat help in its iron thews,Still true to the broken hawser,Deep down among sea-weed and ooze?
In the breaking gulfs of sorrow,When the helpless feet stretch outAnd find in the deeps of darknessNo footing so solid as doubt,
Then better one spar of Memory,One broken plank of the Past,That our human heart may cling to,Though hopeless of shore at last!
To the spirit its splendid conjectures,To the flesh its sweet despair,Its tears o'er the thin-worn locketWith its anguish of deathless hair!
Immortal? I feel it and know it,Who doubts it of such as she?But that is the pang's very secret,—Immortal away from me.
There's a narrow ridge in the graveyardWould scarce stay a child in his race,But to me and my thought it is widerThan the star-sown vague of Space.
Your logic, my friend, is perfect,Your moral most drearily true;But, since the earth clashed onhercoffin,I keep hearing that, and not you.
Console if you will, I can bear it;'Tis a well-meant alms of breath;But not all the preaching since AdamHas made Death other than Death.
It is pagan; but wait till you feel it,—That jar of our earth, that dull shockWhen the ploughshare of deeper passionTears down to our primitive rock.
Communion in spirit! Forgive me,But I, who am earthly and weak,Would give all my incomes from dreamlandFor a touch of her hand on my cheek.That little shoe in the corner,So worn and wrinkled and brown,With its emptiness confutes you,And argues your wisdom down.
Here once my step was quickened,Here beckoned the opening door,And welcome thrilled from the thresholdTo the foot it had known before.
A glow came forth to meet meFrom the flame that laughed in the grate,And shadows adance on the ceiling,Danced blither with mine for a mate.
'I claim you, old friend,' yawned the arm-chair,'This corner, you know, is your seat;''Best your slippers on me,' beamed the fender,'I brighten at touch of your feet.'
'We know the practised finger,'Said the books, 'that seems like brain;'And the shy page rustled the secretIt had kept till I came again.
Sang the pillow, 'My down once quiveredOn nightingales' throats that flewThrough moonlit gardens of HafizTo gather quaint dreams for you.'
Ah me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease.The Present plucks rue for us men!I come back: that scar unhealingWas not in the churchyard then.
But, I think, the house is unaltered,I will go and beg to lookAt the rooms that were once familiarTo my life as its bed to a brook.
Unaltered! Alas for the samenessThat makes the change but more!'Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors,'Tis his tread that chills the floor!
To learn such a simple lesson,Need I go to Paris and Rome,That the many make the household,But only one the home?
'Twas just a womanly presence,An influence unexprest,But a rose she had worn, on my gravesodWere more than long life with the rest!
'Twas a smile, 'twas a garment's rustle,'Twas nothing that I can phrase.But the whole dumb dwelling grew conscious,And put on her looks and ways.
Were it mine I would close the shutters,Like lids when the life is fled,And the funeral fire should wind it,This corpse of a home that is dead.
For it died that autumn morningWhen she, its soul, was borneTo lie all dark on the hillsideThat looks over woodland and corn.
I go to the ridge in the forestI haunted in days gone by,But thou, O Memory, pourestNo magical drop in mine eye,Nor the gleam of the secret restorestThat hath faded from earth and sky:A Presence autumnal and soberInvests every rock and tree,And the aureole of OctoberLights the maples, but darkens me.
Pine in the distance,Patient through sun or rain,Meeting with graceful persistence,With yielding but rooted resistance,The northwind's wrench and strain,No memory of past existenceBrings thee pain;Right for the zenith heading,Friendly with heat or cold,Thine arms to the influence spreadingOf the heavens, just from of old,Thou only aspirest the more,Unregretful the old leaves sheddingThat fringed thee with music before,And deeper thy roots embeddingIn the grace and the beauty of yore;Thou sigh'st not, 'Alas, I am older,The green of last summer is sear!'But loftier, hopefuller, bolder,Winnest broader horizons each year.
To me 'tis not cheer thou art singing:There's a sound of the sea,O mournful tree,In thy boughs forever clinging,And the far-off roarOf waves on the shoreA shattered vessel flinging.
As thou musest still of the oceanOn which thou must float at last,And seem'st to foreknowThe shipwreck's woeAnd the sailor wrenched from the broken mast,Do I, in this vague emotion,This sadness that will not pass,Though the air throb with wings,And the field laughs and sings,Do I forebode, alas!The ship-building longer and wearier,The voyage's struggle and strife,And then the darker and drearierWreck of a broken life?
Now Biörn, the son of Heriulf, had ill daysBecause the heart within him seethed with bloodThat would not be allayed with any toil,Whether of war or hunting or the oar,But was anhungered for some joy untried:For the brain grew not weary with the limbs,But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll,Building all night a bridge of solid dreamBetween him and some purpose of his soul,Or will to find a purpose. With the dawn 10The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist,Denied all foothold. But the dream remained,And every night with yellow-bearded kingsHis sleep was haunted,—mighty men of old,Once young as he, now ancient like the gods,And safe as stars in all men's memories.Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue eyesCold as the sea, grandly compassionless;Like life, they made him eager and then mocked.Nay, broad awake, they would not let him be; 20They shaped themselves gigantic in the mist,They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of heaven,They whispered invitation in the winds,And breath came from them, mightier than the wind,To strain the lagging sails of his resolve,Till that grew passion which before was wish,And youth seemed all too costly to be stakedOn the soiled cards wherewith men played their game,Letting Time pocket up the larger life,Lost with base gain of raiment, food, and roof. 30'What helpeth lightness of the feet?' they said,'Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they;Or strength of sinew? New men come as strong,And those sleep nameless; or renown in war?Swords grave no name on the long-memoried rockBut moss shall hide it; they alone who wringSome secret purpose from the unwilling godsSurvive in song for yet a little whileTo vex, like us, the dreams of later men,Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we did.' 40
So Biörn went comfortless but for his thought,And by his thought the more discomforted,Till Erle Thurlson kept his Yule-tide feast:And thither came he, called among the rest,Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to mirth;But, ere deep draughts forbade such serious songAs the grave Skald might chant nor after blush,Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he satMute as a cloud amid the stormy hall,And said: 'O Skald, sing now an olden song, 50Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;And, as the bravest on a shield is borneAlong the waving host that shouts him king,So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!'Then the old man arose; white-haired he stood,White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afarFrom their still region of perpetual snow,Beyond the little smokes and stirs of men:His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years,As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine, 60But something triumphed in his brow and eye,Which whoso saw it could not see and crouch:Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused,Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an eagleCircles smooth-winged above the wind-vexed woods,So wheeled his soul into the air of songHigh o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang:'The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks outWood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as light;And from a quiver full of such as these 70The wary bowman, matched against his peers,Long doubting, singles yet once more the best.Who is it needs such flawless shafts as Fate?What archer of his arrows is so choice,Or hits the white so surely? They are men,The chosen of her quiver; nor for herWill every reed suffice, or cross-grained stickAt random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:Such answer household ends; but she will haveSouls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound 80Down to the heart of heart; from these she stripsAll needless stuff, all sapwood; seasons them;From circumstance untoward feathers plucksCrumpled and cheap; and barbs with iron will:The hour that passes is her quiver-boy:When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind,Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched arrow sings,For sun and wind have plighted faith to her:Ere men have heard the sinew twang, beholdIn the butt's heart her trembling messenger! 90
'The song is old and simple that I sing;But old and simple are despised as cheap,Though hardest to achieve of human things:Good were the days of yore, when men were triedBy ring of shields, as now by ring of words;But while the gods are left, and hearts of men,And wide-doored ocean, still the days are good.Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity,Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her.Be not abroad, nor deaf with household cares 100That chatter loudest as they mean the least;Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means nevermore;Impatient is her foot, nor turns again.'He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beardSadly, as one who oft had seen her passNor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tideOf interrupted wassail roared along.But Biörn, the son of Heriulf, sat apartMusing, and, with his eyes upon the fire,Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. 110'A ship,' he muttered,'is a wingèd bridgeThat leadeth every way to man's desire,And ocean the wide gate to manful luck.'And then with that resolve his heart was bent,Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripeOf day and night, across the unpathwayed seasShot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sandsThe first rune in the Saga of the West.
Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky-shut seas,Life, where was never life that knew itself, 120But tumbled lubber-like in blowing whales;Thought, where the like had never been beforeSince Thought primeval brooded the abyss;Alone as men were never in the world.They saw the icy foundlings of the sea,White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day,Or looming, sudden-perilous, at nightIn monstrous hush; or sometimes in the darkThe waves broke ominous with paly gleamsCrushed by the prow in sparkles of cold fire. 130Then came green stripes of sea that promised landBut brought it not, and on the thirtieth dayLow in the west were wooded shores like cloud.They shouted as men shout with sudden hope;But Biörn was silent, such strange loss there isBetween the dream's fulfilment and the dream,Such sad abatement in the goal attained.Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess,Rapt with strange influence from Atlantis, sang:Her words: the vision was the dreaming shore's. 140
Looms there the New Land;Locked in the shadowLong the gods shut it,Niggards of newnessThey, the o'er-old.
Little it looks there,Slim as a cloud-streak;It shall fold peoplesEven as a shepherdFoldeth his flock. 150
Silent it sleeps now;Great ships shall seek it,Swarming as salmon;Noise of its numbersTwo seas shall hear.
Men from the Northland,Men from the Southland,Haste empty-handed;No more than manhoodBring they, and hands. 160
Dark hair and fair hair,Red blood and blue blood,There shall be mingled;Force of the fermentMakes the New Man.
Pick of all kindreds,Kings' blood shall theirs be,Shoots of the eldestStock upon Midgard,Sons of the poor. 170
Them waits the New Land;They shall subdue it,Leaving their sons' sonsSpace for the body,Space for the soul.
Leaving their sons' sonsAll things save song-craft,Plant long in growing,Thrusting its tap-rootDeep in the Gone. 180
Here men shall grow upStrong from self-helping;Eyes for the presentBring they as eagles',Blind to the Past.
They shall make overCreed, law, and custom:Driving-men, doughtyBuilders of empire,Builders of men. 190
Here is no singer;What should they sing of?They, the unresting?Labor is ugly,Loathsome is change.
These the old gods hate,Dwellers in dream-land,Drinking delusionOut of the emptySkull of the Past. 200
These hate the old gods,Warring against them;Fatal to Odin,Here the wolf FenrirLieth in wait.
Here the gods' TwilightGathers, earth-gulfing;Blackness of battle,Fierce till the Old WorldFlare up in fire. 210
Doubt not, my Northmen;Fate loves the fearless;Fools, when their roof-treeFalls, think it doomsday;Firm stands the sky.
Over the ruinSee I the promise;Crisp waves the cornfield,Peace-walled, the homesteadWaits open-doored. 220
There lies the New Land;Yours to behold it,Not to possess it;Slowly Fate's perfectFulness shall come.
Then from your strong loinsSeed shall be scattered,Men to the marrow,Wilderness tamers,Walkers of waves. 230
Jealous, the old godsShut it in shadow,Wisely they ward it,Egg of the serpent,Bane to them all.
Stronger and sweeterNew gods shall seek it.Fill it with man-folkWise for the future,Wise from the past. 240
Here all is all men's,Save only Wisdom;King he that wins her;Him hail they helmsman,Highest of heart.
Might makes no masterHere any longer;Sword is not swayer;Here e'en the gods areSelfish no more. 250
Walking the New Earth,Lo, a divine OneGreets all men godlike,Calls them his kindred,He, the Divine.
Is it Thor's hammerRays in his right hand?Weaponless walks he;It is the White Christ,Stronger than Thor. 260
Here shall a realm riseMighty in manhood;Justice and MercyHere set a strongholdSafe without spear.
Weak was the Old World,Wearily war-fenced;Out of its ashes,Strong as the morning,Springeth the New. 270
Beauty of promise,Promise of beauty,Safe in the silenceSleep thou, till comethLight to thy lids!
Thee shall awakenFlame from the furnace,Bath of all brave ones,Cleanser of conscience,Welder of will. 280
Lowly shall love thee,Thee, open-handed!Stalwart shall shield thee,Thee, worth their best blood,Waif of the West!
Then shall come singers,Singing no swan-song,Birth-carols, rather,Meet for the mail childMighty of bone. 290
Old events have modern meanings; only that survivesOf past history which finds kindred in all hearts and lives.
Mahmood once, the idol-breaker, spreader of the Faith,Was at Sumnat tempted sorely, as the legend saith.
In the great pagoda's centre, monstrous and abhorred,Granite on a throne of granite, sat the temple's lord,
Mahmood paused a moment, silenced by the silent faceThat, with eyes of stone unwavering, awed the ancient place.
Then the Brahmins knelt before him, by his doubt made bold,Pledging for their idol's ransom countless gems and gold.
Gold was yellow dirt to Mahmood, but of precious use,Since from it the roots of power suck a potent juice.
'Were yon stone alone in question, this would please me well,'Mahmood said; 'but, with the block there, I my truth must sell.
'Wealth and rule slip down with Fortune, as her wheel turns round;He who keeps his faith, he only cannot be discrowned.
'Little were a change of station, loss of life or crown,But the wreck were past retrieving if the Man fell down.'
So his iron mace he lifted, smote with might and main,And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, burst in twain.
Luck obeys the downright striker; from the hollow core,Fifty times the Brahmins' offer deluged all the floor.
The Bardling came where by a river grewThe pennoned reeds, that, as the west-wind blew,Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knewWhat music slept enchanted in each stem,Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,And with wise lips enlife it through and through.
The Bardling thought, 'A pipe is all I need;Once I have sought me out a clear, smooth reed,And shaped it to my fancy, I proceedTo breathe such strains as, yonder mid the rocks,The strange youth blows, that tends Admetus' flocks.And all the maidens shall to me pay heed.'
The summer day he spent in questful round,And many a reed he marred, but never foundA conjuring-spell to free the imprisoned sound;At last his vainly wearied limbs he laidBeneath a sacred laurel's flickering shade,And sleep about his brain her cobweb wound.
Then strode the mighty Mother through his dreams,Saying: 'The reeds along a thousand streamsAre mine, and who is he that plots and schemesTo snare the melodies wherewith my breathSounds through the double pipes of Life and Death,Atoning what to men mad discord seems?
'He seeks not me, but I seek oft in vainFor him who shall my voiceful reeds constrain,And make them utter their melodious pain;He flies the immortal gift, for well he knowsHis life of life must with its overflowsFlood the unthankful pipe, nor come again.
'Thou fool, who dost my harmless subjects wrong,'Tis not the singer's wish that makes the song:The rhythmic beauty wanders dumb, how long,Nor stoops to any daintiest instrument,Till, found its mated lips, their sweet consentMakes mortal breath than Time and Fate more strong.'
'Tis a woodland enchanted!By no sadder spiritThan blackbirds and thrushes,That whistle to cheer itAll day in the bushes.This woodland is haunted:And in a small clearing,Beyond sight or hearingOf human annoyance,The little fount gushes, 10First smoothly, then dashesAnd gurgles and flashes,To the maples and ashesConfiding its joyance;Unconscious confiding,Then, silent and glossy,Slips winding and hidingThrough alder-stems mossy,Through gossamer rootsFine as nerves, 20That tremble, as shootsThrough their magnetized curvesThe allurement deliciousOf the water's capriciousThrills, gushes, and swerves.
'Tis a woodland enchanted!I am writing no fiction;And this fount, its sole daughter,To the woodland was grantedTo pour holy water 30And win benediction;In summer-noon flushes,When all the wood hushes,Blue dragon-flies knittingTo and fro in the sun,With sidelong jerk flittingSink down on the rashes,And, motionless sitting,Hear it bubble and run,Hear its low inward singing, 40With level wings swingingOn green tasselled rushes,To dream in the sun.
'Tis a woodland enchanted!The great August noonlight!Through myriad rifts slanted,Leaf and bole thickly sprinklesWith flickering gold;There, in warm August gloaming,With quick, silent brightenings, 50From meadow-lands roaming,The firefly twinklesHis fitful heat-lightnings;There the magical moonlightWith meek, saintly glorySteeps summit and wold;There whippoorwills plain in the solitudes hoaryWith lone cries that wanderNow hither, now yonder,Like souls doomed of old 60To a mild purgatory;But through noonlight and moonlightThe little fount tinklesIts silver saints'-bells,That no sprite ill-bodingMay make his abode inThose innocent dells.
'Tis a woodland enchanted!When the phebe scarce whistlesOnce an hour to his fellow. 70And, where red lilies flaunted,Balloons from the thistlesTell summer's disasters,The butterflies yellow,As caught in an eddyOf air's silent ocean,Sink, waver, and steadyO'er goats'-beard and asters,Like souls of dead flowers,With aimless emotion 80Still lingering unreadyTo leave their old bowers;And the fount is no dumber,But still gleams and flashes,And gurgles and plashes,To the measure of summer;The butterflies hear it,And spell-bound are holden,Still balancing near itO'er the goats' beard so golden. 90
'Tis a woodland enchanted!A vast silver willow,I know not how planted,(This wood is enchanted,And full of surprises.)Stands stemming a billow,A motionless billowOf ankle-deep mosses;Two great roots it crossesTo make a round basin. 100And there the Fount rises;Ah, too pure a mirrorFor one sick of errorTo see his sad face in!No dew-drop is stillerIn its lupin-leaf settingThan this water moss-bounded;But a tiny sand-pillarFrom the bottom keeps jetting,And mermaid ne'er sounded 110Through the wreaths of a shell,Down amid crimson dulsesIn some cavern of ocean,A melody sweeterThan the delicate pulses,The soft, noiseless metre,The pause and the swellOf that musical motion:I recall it, not see it;Could vision be clearer? 120Half I'm fain to draw nearerHalf tempted to flee it;The sleeping Past wake not,Beware!One forward step take not,Ah! break notThat quietude rare!By my step unaffrightedA thrush hops before it,And o'er it 130A birch hangs delighted,Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremulous hair;Pure as the fountain, onceI came to the place,(How dare I draw nearer?)I bent o'er its mirror,And saw a child's faceMid locks of bright gold in it;Yes, pure as this fountain once,—Since, bow much error! 140Too holy a mirrorFor the man to behold in itHis harsh, bearded countenance!
'Tis a woodland enchanted!Ah, fly unreturning!Yet stay;—'Tis a woodland enchanted,Where wonderful chancesHave sway;Luck flees from the cold one, 150But leaps to the bold oneHalf-way;Why should I be daunted?Still the smooth mirror glances,Still the amber sand dances,One look,—then away!O magical glass!Canst keep in thy bosomShades of leaf and of blossomWhen summer days pass, 160So that when thy wave hardensIt shapes as it pleases,Unharmed by the breezes,Its fine hanging gardens?Hast those in thy keeping.And canst not uncover,Enchantedly sleeping,The old shade of thy lover?It is there! I have found it!He wakes, the long sleeper! 170The pool is grown deeper,The sand dance is ending,The white floor sinks, blendingWith skies that below meAre deepening and bending,And a child's face aloneThat seems not to know me,With hair that fades goldenIn the heaven-glow round it,Looks up at my own; 180Ah, glimpse through the portalThat leads to the throne,That opes the child's oldenRegions Elysian!Ah, too holy visionFor thy skirts to be holdenBy soiled hand of mortal!It wavers, it scatters,'Tis gone past recalling!A tear's sudden falling 190The magic cup shatters,Breaks the spell of the waters,And the sand cone once more,With a ceaseless renewing,Its dance is pursuingOn the silvery floor,O'er and o'er,With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing.
'Tis a woodland enchanted!If you ask me,Where is it?200I can but make answer,''Tis past my disclosing;'Not to choice is it grantedBy sure paths to visitThe still pool enclosingIts blithe little dancer;But in some day, the rarestOf many Septembers,When the pulses of air rest,And all things lie dreaming 210In drowsy haze steamingFrom the wood's glowing embers,Then, sometimes, unheeding,And asking not whither,By a sweet inward leadingMy feet are drawn thither,And, looking with awe in the magical mirror,I see through my tears,Half doubtful of seeing,The face unperverted, 220The warm golden beingOf a child of five years;And spite of the mists and the error.And the days overcast,Can feel that I walk undeserted,But forever attendedBy the glad heavens that bendedO'er the innocent past;Toward fancy or truthDoth the sweet vision win me? 230Dare I think that I castIn the fountain of youthThe fleeting reflectionOf some bygone perfectionThat still lingers in me?
A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent,Saying, 'Behold one outcast and in dread,Against whose life the bow of power is bent,Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head;I come to thee for shelter and for food,To Yussouf, called through all our tribes "The Good."
'This tent is mine,' said Yussouf, 'but no moreThan it is God's come in and be at peace;Freely shall thou partake of all my storeAs I of His who buildeth over theseOur tents his glorious roof of night and day,And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay.'
So Yussouf entertained his guest that night,And, waking him ere day, said: 'Here is gold;My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight;Depart before the prying day grow bold.'As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
That inward light the stranger's face made grand,Which shines from all self-conquest; kneeling low,He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand,Sobbing: 'O Sheik, I cannot leave thee so;I will repay thee; all this thou hast doneUnto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!'
'Take thrice the gold,' said Yussouf 'for with theeInto the desert, never to return,My one black thought shall ride away from me;First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn,Balanced and just are all of God's decrees;Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace!'
The fire is turning clear and blithely,Pleasantly whistles the winter wind;We are about thee, thy friends and kindred,On us all flickers the firelight kind;There thou sittest in thy wonted cornerLone and awful in thy darkened mind.
There thou sittest; now and then thou moanest;Thou dost talk with what we cannot see,Lookest at us with an eye so doubtful,It doth put us very far from thee;There thou sittest; we would fain be nigh thee,But we know that it can never be.
We can touch thee, still we are no nearer;Gather round thee, still thou art alone;The wide chasm of reason is between us;Thou confutest kindness with a moan;We can speak to thee, and thou canst answer,Like two prisoners through a wall of stone.
Hardest heart would call it very awfulWhen thou look'st at us and seest—oh, what?If we move away, thou sittest gazingWith those vague eyes at the selfsame spot,And thou mutterest, thy hands thou wringest,Seeing something,—us thou seest not.
Strange it is that, in this open brightness,Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell;Strange it is that thou shouldst be so lonesomeWhere those are who love thee all so well;Not so much of thee is left among usAs the hum outliving the hushed bell.
Rabbi Jehosha used to sayThat God made angels every day,Perfect as Michael and the restFirst brooded in creation's nest,Whose only office was to cryHosanna!once, and then to die;Or rather, with Life's essence blent,To be led home from banishment.
Rabbi Jehosha had the skillTo know that Heaven is in God's will;And doing that, though for a spaceOne heart-beat long, may win a graceAs full of grandeur and of glowAs Princes of the Chariot know.
'Twere glorious, no doubt, to beOne of the strong-winged Hierarchy,To burn with Seraphs, or to shineWith Cherubs, deathlessly divine;Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod,Could I forget myself in God,Could I but find my nature's clueSimply as birds and blossoms do,And but for one rapt moment know'Tis Heaven must come, not we must go,Should win my place as near the throneAs the pearl-angel of its zone.And God would listen mid the throngFor my one breath of perfect song,That, in its simple human way,Said all the Host of Heaven could say.
One feast, of holy days the crest,I, though no Churchman, love to keep,All-Saints,—the unknown good that restIn God's still memory folded deep;The bravely dumb that did their deed,And scorned to blot it with a name,Men of the plain heroic breed,That loved Heaven's silence more than fame.
Such lived not in the past alone,But thread to-day the unheeding street,And stairs to Sin and Famine knownSing with the welcome of their feet;The den they enter grows a shrine,The grimy sash an oriel burns,Their cup of water warms like wine,Their speech is filled from heavenly urns.
About their brows to me appearsAn aureole traced in tenderest light,The rainbow-gleam of smiles through tearsIn dying eyes, by them made bright,Of souls that shivered on the edgeOf that chill ford repassed no more,And in their mercy felt the pledgeAnd sweetness of the farther shore.
Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing!To-night the triple ZoroasterShall my prophet be and master;To-night will I pure Magian be,Hymns to thy sole honor raising,While thou leapest fast and faster,Wild with self-delighted glee,Or sink'st low and glowest faintlyAs an aureole still and saintly,Keeping cadence to my praising 10Thee! still thee! and only thee!
Elfish daughter of Apollo!Thee, from thy father stolen and boundTo serve in Vulcan's clangorous smithy,Prometheus (primal Yankee) found,And, when he had tampered with thee,(Too confiding little maid!)In a reed's precarious hollowTo our frozen earth conveyed:For he swore I know not what; 20Endless ease should be thy lot,Pleasure that should never falter,Lifelong play, and not a dutySave to hover o'er the altar,Vision of celestial beauty,Fed with precious woods and spices;Then, perfidious! having gotThee in the net of his devices,Sold thee into endless slavery,Made thee a drudge to boil the pot, 30Thee, Helios' daughter, who dost bearHis likeness in thy golden hair;Thee, by nature wild and wavery,Palpitating, evanescentAs the shade of Dian's crescent,Life, motion, gladness, everywhere!
Fathom deep men bury theeIn the furnace dark and still.There, with dreariest mockery, 39Making thee eat, against thy will,Blackest Pennsylvanian stone;But thou dost avenge thy doom,For, from out thy catacomb,Day and night thy wrath is blownIn a withering simoom,And, adown that cavern drear,Thy black pitfall in the floor,Staggers the lusty antique cheer,Despairing, and is seen no more!
Elfish I may rightly name thee; 50We enslave, but cannot tame thee;With fierce snatches, now and then,Thou pluckest at thy right again,And thy down-trod instincts savageTo stealthy insurrection creepWhile thy wittol masters sleep,And burst in undiscerning ravage:Then how thou shak'st thy bacchant locks!While brazen pulses, far and near,Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear 60And dread conjecture, till the drearDisordered clangor every steeple rocks!
But when we make a friend of thee,And admit thee to the hallOn our nights of festival,Then, Cinderella, who could seeIn thee the kitchen's stunted thrall?Once more a Princess lithe and tan,Thou dancest with a whispering tread,While the bright marvel of thy head 70In crinkling gold floats all abroad,And gloriously dost vindicateThe legend of thy lineage great,Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian god!Now in the ample chimney-place,To honor thy acknowledged race,We crown thee high with laurel good,Thy shining father's sacred wood,Which, guessing thy ancestral right,Sparkles and snaps its dumb delight, 80And, at thy touch, poor outcast one,Feels through its gladdened fibres goThe tingle and thrill and vassal glowOf instincts loyal to the sun.
O thou of home the guardian Lar,And, when our earth hath wandered far,Into the cold, and deep snow coversThe walks of our New England lovers,Their sweet secluded evening-star!'Twas with thy rays the English Muse 90Ripened her mild domestic hues;'Twas by thy flicker that she connedThe fireside wisdom that enringsWith light from heaven familiar things;By thee she found the homely faithIn whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'thWhen Death, extinguishing his torch,Gropes for the latch-string in the porch;The love that wanders not beyondHis earliest nest, but sits and sings 100While children smooth his patient wings;Therefore with thee I love to readOur brave old poets; at thy touch how stirsLife in the withered words: how swift recedeTime's shadows; and how glows againThrough its dead mass the incandescent verse,As when upon the anvils of the brainIt glittering lay, cyclopically wroughtBy the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's thought!Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, 110The aspirations unattained,The rhythms so rathe and delicate,They bent and strainedAnd broke, beneath the sombre weightOf any airiest mortal word.
What warm protection dost thou bendRound curtained talk of friend with friend,While the gray snow-storm, held aloof,To softest outline rounds the roof,Or the rude North with baffled strain 120Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane!Now the kind nymph to Bacchus bornBy Morpheus' daughter, she that seemsGifted opon her natal mornBy him with fire, by her with dreams,Nicotia, dearer to the MuseThan all the grape's bewildering juice,We worship, unforbid of thee;And, as her incense floats and curlsIn airy spires and wayward whirls, 130Or poises on its tremulous stalkA flower of frailest revery,So winds and loiters, idly free,The current of unguided talk,Now laughter-rippled, and now caughtIn smooth, dark pools of deeper thought.Meanwhile thou mellowest every word,A sweetly unobtrusive third;For thou hast magic beyond wine,To unlock natures each to each; 140The unspoken thought thou canst divine;Thou fill'st the pauses of the speechWith whispers that to dream-land reachAnd frozen fancy-springs unchainIn Arctic outskirts of the brain:Sun of all inmost confidences,To thy rays doth the heart uncloseIts formal calyx of pretences,That close against rude day's offences,And open its shy midnight rose! 150
Thou holdest not the master keyWith which thy Sire sets free the mystic gatesOf Past and Future: not for common fatesDo they wide open fling,And, with a far heard ring,Swing back their willing valves melodiously;Only to ceremonial days,And great processions of imperial songThat set the world at gaze,Doth such high privilege belong; 160But thou a postern-door canst opeTo humbler chambers of the selfsame palaceWhere Memory lodges, and her sister Hope,Whose being is but as a crystal chaliceWhich, with her various mood, the elder fillsOf joy or sorrow,So coloring as she willsWith hues of yesterday the unconscious morrow.
Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with thee:For thee I took the idle shell, 170And struck the unused chords again,But they are gone who listened well;Some are in heaven, and all are far from me:Even as I sing, it turns to pain,And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell:Enough; I come not of the raceThat hawk their sorrows in the market-place.Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please;Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace!As if a white-haired actor should come back 180Some midnight to the theatre void and black,And there rehearse his youth's great partMid thin applauses of the ghosts.So seems it now: ye crowd upon my heart,And I bow down in silence, shadowy hosts!
How struggles with the tempest's swellsThat warning of tumultuous bells!The fire is loose! and frantic knellsThrob fast and faster,As tower to tower confusedly tellsNews of disaster.
But on my far-off solitudeNo harsh alarums can intrude;The terror comes to me subduedAnd charmed by distance,To deepen the habitual moodOf my existence.
Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes?And listen, weaving careless rhymesWhile the loud city's griefs and crimesPay gentle allegianceTo the fine quiet that sublimesThese dreamy regions.
And when the storm o'erwhelms the shore,I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er,The light revolves amid the roarSo still and saintly,Now large and near, now more and moreWithdrawing faintly.
This, too, despairing sailors seeFlash out the breakers 'neath their leeIn sudden snow, then lingeringlyWane tow'rd eclipse,While through the dark the shuddering seaGropes for the ships.
And is it right, this mood of mindThat thus, in revery enshrined,Can in the world mere topics findFor musing stricture,Seeing the life of humankindOnly as picture?
The events in line of battle go;In vain for me their trumpets blowAs unto him that lieth lowIn death's dark arches,And through the sod hears throbbing slowThe muffled marches.
O Duty, am I dead to theeIn this my cloistered ecstasy,In this lone shallop on the seaThat drifts tow'rd Silence?And are those visioned shores I seeBut sirens' islands?
My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien,As who would say, ''Tis those, I ween,Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes leanThat win the laurel;'But whereisTruth? What does it mean,The world-old quarrel?
Such questionings are idle air:Leave what to do and what to spareTo the inspiring moment's care,Nor ask for paymentOf fame or gold, but just to wearUnspotted raiment.
Fit for an Abbot of Theleme,For the whole Cardinals' College, orThe Pope himself to see in dreamBefore his lenten vision gleam.He lies there, the sogdologer!
His precious flanks with stars besprent,Worthy to swim in Castaly!The friend by whom such gifts are sent,For him shall bumpers full be spent,His health! be Luck his fast ally!
I see him trace the wayward brookAmid the forest mysteries,Where at their shades shy aspens look.Or where, with many a gurgling crook,It croons its woodland histories.
I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lendTheir tremulous, sweet vicissitudeTo smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend,—(Oh, stew him, Ann, as 'twere your friend,With amorous solicitude!)
I see him step with caution due,Soft as if shod with moccasins,Grave as in church, for who plies you,Sweet craft, is safe as in a pewFrom all our common stock o' sins.
The unerring fly I see him cast,That as a rose-leaf falls as soft,A flash! a whirl! he has him fast!We tyros, how that struggle lastConfuses and appalls us oft.
Unfluttered he: calm as the skyLooks on our tragi-comedies,This way and that he lets him fly,A sunbeam-shuttle, then to dieLands him, with coolaplomb, at ease.
The friend who gave our board such gust,Life's care may he o'erstep it half,And, when Death hooks him, as he must,He'll do it handsomely, I trust,And John H—— write his epitaph!
Oh, born beneath the Fishes' sign,Of constellations happiest,May he somewhere with Walton dine,May Horace send him Massic wine,And Burns Scotch drink, the nappiest!
And when they come his deeds to weigh,And how he used the talents his,One trout-scale in the scales he'll lay(If trout had scales), and 'twill outswayThe wrong side of the balances.
Spirit, that rarely comest nowAnd only to contrast my gloom,Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloomA moment on some autumn boughThat, with the spurn of their farewellSheds its last leaves,—thou once didst dwellWith me year-long, and make intenseTo boyhood's wisely vacant daysTheir fleet but all-sufficing graceOf trustful inexperience, 10While soul could still transfigure sense,And thrill, as with love's first caress,At life's mere unexpectedness.Days when my blood would leap and runAs full of sunshine as a breeze,Or spray tossed up by Summer seasThat doubts if it be sea or sun!Days that flew swiftly like the bandThat played in Grecian games at strife,And passed from eager hand to hand 20The onward-dancing torch of life!
Wing-footed! thou abid'st with himWho asks it not; but he who hathWatched o'er the waves thy waning path,Shall nevermore behold returningThy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearning!Thou first reveal'st to us thy faceTurned o'er the shoulder's parting grace,A moment glimpsed, then seen no more,—Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace 30Away from every mortal door.
Nymph of the unreturning feet,How may I win thee back? But no,I do thee wrong to call thee so;'Tis I am changed, not thou art fleet:The man thy presence feels again,Not in the blood, but in the brain,Spirit, that lov'st the upper airSerene and passionless and rare,Such as on mountain heights we find 40And wide-viewed uplands of the mind;Or such as scorns to coil and singRound any but the eagle's wingOf souls that with long upward beatHave won an undisturbed retreatWhere, poised like wingèd victories,They mirror in relentless eyes.The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,—Man ever with his Now at strife,Pained with first gasps of earthly air, 50Then praying Death the last to spare,Still fearful of the ampler life.
Not unto them dost thou consentWho, passionless, can lead at easeA life of unalloyed content,A life like that of land-locked seas,Who feel no elemental gushOf tidal forces, no fierce rushOf storm deep-grasping scarcely spent'Twixt continent and continent. 60Such quiet souls have never knownThy truer inspiration, thouWho lov'st to feel upon thy browSpray from the plunging vessel thrownGrazing the tusked lee shore, the cliffThat o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath,Where the frail hair-breadth of anifIs all that sunders life and death:These, too, are cared for, and round theseBends her mild crook thy sister Peace; 70These in unvexed dependence lie,Each 'neath his strip of household sky;O'er these clouds wander, and the blueHangs motionless the whole day through;Stars rise for them, and moons grow largeAnd lessen in such tranquil wiseAs joys and sorrows do that riseWithin their nature's sheltered marge;Their hours into each other flitLike the leaf-shadows of the vine 80And fig-tree under which they sit,And their still lives to heaven inclineWith an unconscious habitude,Unhistoried as smokes that riseFrom happy hearths and sight eludeIn kindred blue of morning skies.
Wayward! when once we feel thy lack,'Tis worse than vain to woo thee back!Yet there is one who seems to beThine elder sister, in whose eyes 90A faint far northern light will riseSometimes, and bring a dream of thee;She is not that for which youth hoped,But she hath blessings all her own,Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped,And faith to sorrow given alone:Almost I deem that it is thouCome back with graver matron brow,With deepened eyes and bated breath,Like one that somewhere hath met Death: 100But 'No,' she answers, 'I am sheWhom the gods love, Tranquillity;That other whom you seek forlornHalf earthly was; but I am bornOf the immortals, and our raceWears still some sadness on its face:He wins me late, but keeps me long,Who, dowered with every gift of passion,In that fierce flame can forge and fashionOf sin and self the anchor strong; 110Can thence compel the driving forceOf daily life's mechanic course,Nor less the nobler energiesOf needful toil and culture wise;Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure,Who can renounce, and yet endure,To him I come, not lightly wooed,But won by silent fortitude.'
1859
Wait a little: dowenot wait?Louis Napoleon is not Fate,Francis Joseph is not Time;There's One hath swifter feet than Crime;Cannon-parliaments settle naught;Venice is Austria's,—whose is Thought?Minié is good, but, spite of change,Gutenberg's gun has the longest range.Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!In the shadow, year out, year in,The silent headsman waits forever.
Wait, we say: our years are long;Men are weak, out Man is strong;Since the stars first curved their rings,We have looked on many things:Great wars come and great wars go,Wolf-tracks light on polar snow;We shall see him come and gone,This second-hand Napoleon.Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!In the shadow, year out, year in,The silent headsman waits forever.
We saw the elder Corsican,And Clotho muttered as she span,While crowned lackeys bore the train,Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne:'Sister, stint not length of thread!Sister, stay the scissors dread!On Saint Helen's granite Weak,Hark, the vulture whets his beak!'Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!In the shadow, year out, year in,The silent headsman waits forever.
The Bonapartes, we know their beesThat wade in honey red to the knees;Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep soundIn dreamless garners underground:We know false glory's spendthrift racePawning nations for feathers and lace;It may be short, it may be long,''Tis reckoning-day!' sneers unpaid Wrong.Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!In the shadow, year out, year in,The silent headsman waits forever.
The Cock that wears the Eagle's skinCan promise what he ne'er could win;Slavery reaped for fine words sown,System for all, and rights for none,Despots atop, a wild clan below,Such is the Gaul from long ago;Wash the black from the Ethiop's face,Wash the past out of man or race!Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!In the shadow, year out, year in,The silent headsman waits forever.
'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings,And snares the people for the kings;'Luther is dead; old quarrels pass:The stake's black scars are healed with grass;'So dreamers prate; did man e'er liveSaw priest or woman yet forgive?But Luther's broom is left, and eyesPeep o'er their creeds to where it lies.Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!In the shadow, year out, year in,The silent headsman waits forever.
Smooth sails the ship of either realm,Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm;We look down the depths, and markSilent workers in the darkBuilding slow the sharp-tusked reefs,Old instincts hardening to new beliefs;Patience a little; learn to wait;Hours are long on the clock of Fate.Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!Darkness is strong, and so is Sin,But surely God endures forever!
Down 'mid the tangled roots of thingsThat coil about the central fire,I seek for that which giveth wingsTo stoop, not soar, to my desire.
Sometimes I hear, as 'twere a sigh,The sea's deep yearning far above,'Thou hast the secret not,' I cry,'In deeper deeps is hid my Love.'
They think I burrow from the sun,In darkness, all alone, and weak;Such loss were gain if He were won,For 'tis the sun's own Sun I seek.
'The earth,' they murmur, 'is the tombThat vainly sought his life to prison;Why grovel longer in the gloom?He is not here; he hath arisen.'
More life for me where he hath lainHidden while ye believed him dead,Than in cathedrals cold and vain,Built on loose sands ofIt is said.
My search is for the living gold;Him I desire who dwells recluse,And not his image worn and old,Day-servant of our sordid use.
If him I find not, yet I findThe ancient joy of cell and church,The glimpse, the surety undefined,The unquenched ardor of the search.
Happier to chase a flying goalThan to sit counting laurelled gains,To guess the Soul within the soulThan to be lord of what remains.
Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise,Beyond my nature's utmost scope;Be ever absent from mine eyesTo be twice present in my hope!
I swam with undulation soft,Adrift on Vischer's ocean,And, from my cockboat up aloft,Sent down my mental plummet oftIn hope to reach a notion.
But from the metaphysic seaNo bottom was forthcoming,And all the while (how drearily!)In one eternal note of BMy German stove kept humming. 10
'What's Beauty?' mused I; 'is it toldBy synthesis? analysis?Have you not made us lead of gold?To feed your crucible, not soldOur temple's sacred chalices?'
Then o'er my senses came a change;My book seemed all traditions,Old legends of profoundest range,Diablery, and stories strangeOf goblins, elves, magicians. 20
Old gods in modern saints I found,Old creeds in strange disguises;I thought them safely underground,And here they were, all safe and sound,Without a sign of phthisis.
Truth was, my outward eyes were closed,Although I did not know it;Deep into dream-land I had dozed,And thus was happily transposedFrom proser into poet. 30
So what I read took flesh and blood,And turned to living creatures:The words were but the dingy budThat bloomed, like Adam, from the mud,To human forms and features.
I saw how Zeus was lodged once moreBy Baucis and Philemon;The text said, 'Not alone of yore,But every day, at every doorKnocks still the masking Demon.' 40
DAIMON 'twas printed in the bookAnd, as I read it slowly,The letters stirred and changed, and tookJove's stature, the Olympian lookOf painless melancholy.
He paused upon the threshold worn:'With coin I cannot pay you;Yet would I fain make some return;The gift for cheapness do not spurn,Accept this hen, I pray you. 50
'Plain feathers wears my Hemera,And has from ages olden;She makes her nest in common hay,And yet, of all the birds that lay,Her eggs alone are golden.'
He turned, and could no more be seen;Old Bancis stared a moment,Then tossed poor Partlet on the green,And with a tone, half jest, half spleen,Thus made her housewife's comment: 60
'The stranger had a queerish face,His smile was hardly pleasant,And, though he meant it for a grace,Yet this old hen of barnyard raceWas but a stingy present.
'She's quite too old for laying eggs,Nay, even to make a soup of;One only needs to see her legs,—You might as well boil down the pegsI made the brood-hen's coop of! 70
'Some eighteen score of such do IRaise every year, her sisters;Go, in the woods your fortunes try,All day for one poor earthworm pry,And scratch your toes to blisters!'
Philemon found the rede was good,And, turning on the poor hen,He clapt his hands, and stamped, and shooed,Hunting the exile tow'rd the wood,To house with snipe and moorhen. 80
A poet saw and cried: 'Hold! hold!What are you doing, madman?Spurn you more wealth than can be told,The fowl that lays the eggs of gold,Because she's plainly clad, man?'
To him Philemon: 'I'll not balkThy will with any shackle;Wilt add a harden to thy walk?There! take her without further talk:You're both but fit to cackle!' 90
But scarce the poet touched the bird,It swelled to stature regal;And when her cloud-wide wings she stirred,A whisper as of doom was heard,'Twas Jove's bolt-bearing eagle.
As when from far-off cloud-bergs springsA crag, and, hurtling under,From cliff to cliff the rumor flings,So she from flight-foreboding wingsShook out a murmurous thunder. 100
She gripped the poet to her breast,And ever, upward soaring,Earth seemed a new moon in the west,And then one light among the restWhere squadrons lie at mooring.
How tell to what heaven-hallowed seatThe eagle bent his courses?The waves that on its bases beat,The gales that round it weave and fleet,Are life's creative forces. 110
Here was the bird's primeval nest,High on a promontoryStar-pharosed, where she takes her restTo brood new æons 'neath her breast,The future's unfledged glory.