TRANSMUTATION

Overhead, overhead a wood thrush flutes,And it seems to meAll the sweet words in the world,Married to melody, could not expressWhat its few, wild notes,Inspired, and simple, and free, express,Say to meOf expectation and woodland mystery,Dreams, and wonder-visions never appearing,Remote and unattainably beautiful—O indescribable song!Song of the wild brown thrush!O June! O love! O youth!Of you, of you it speaks to me!Of the lost, the irremediable,The indescribably fair and far and yet to be found;The mysteriously hidden, too:The lure of the undiscoverable calling, calling,Bidding me on and on,In the voice of all my longings,Down the dim, the deep, the cadenced aisles of the forest.

To me all beauty that I seeIs melody made visible:An earth-translated state, may be,Of music heard in Heaven or Hell.Out of some love-impassioned strainOf saints, the rose evolved its bloom;And, dreaming of it here again,Perhaps relives it as perfume.Out of some chant, that demons singOf hate and pain, the sunset grew;And, haply, still remembering,Relives it here as some wild hue.

To me all beauty that I seeIs melody made visible:An earth-translated state, may be,Of music heard in Heaven or Hell.

Out of some love-impassioned strainOf saints, the rose evolved its bloom;And, dreaming of it here again,Perhaps relives it as perfume.

Out of some chant, that demons singOf hate and pain, the sunset grew;And, haply, still remembering,Relives it here as some wild hue.

Magician he, who, autumn nights,Down from the starry darkness whirls;Heav’n’s harlequin, whose spangled tightsAnd wand are powdered thick with pearls.Through him each pane presents a scene,A Lilliputian landscape, whereThe world is white instead of green,And trees and houses hang in air.Where Elfins gambol and delight,And bow the jewelled bells of flowers;Where upside-down we see the nightWith many moons and meteor showers.And surely in his wand and handLies Midas magic, for, behold,Some morn we wake and find the land,Both field and forest, turned to gold.

Magician he, who, autumn nights,Down from the starry darkness whirls;Heav’n’s harlequin, whose spangled tightsAnd wand are powdered thick with pearls.

Through him each pane presents a scene,A Lilliputian landscape, whereThe world is white instead of green,And trees and houses hang in air.

Where Elfins gambol and delight,And bow the jewelled bells of flowers;Where upside-down we see the nightWith many moons and meteor showers.

And surely in his wand and handLies Midas magic, for, behold,Some morn we wake and find the land,Both field and forest, turned to gold.

Seemingly over the hilltops,Possibly under the hills,A tireless wing that never drops,And a song that never stills.Epics heard on the stars’ lips?Lyrics read in the dew?—To sing the song at our finger-tips,And live the world anew!Cavaliers of the Cortés kind,Bold and free and strong,—And, oh, for a fine and muscular mindTo sing a New-World’s song!Sailing seas of the silver morn,Blown of its balm and spice,To put the Old-World art to scornAt the price of any price!Danger, death, but the hope high!God’s, though the purpose fail!—Into the deeds of a vaster skySailing a dauntless sail.

Seemingly over the hilltops,Possibly under the hills,A tireless wing that never drops,And a song that never stills.

Epics heard on the stars’ lips?Lyrics read in the dew?—To sing the song at our finger-tips,And live the world anew!

Cavaliers of the Cortés kind,Bold and free and strong,—And, oh, for a fine and muscular mindTo sing a New-World’s song!

Sailing seas of the silver morn,Blown of its balm and spice,To put the Old-World art to scornAt the price of any price!

Danger, death, but the hope high!God’s, though the purpose fail!—Into the deeds of a vaster skySailing a dauntless sail.

O Life! O Death; O God!Have we not striven?Have we not known Thee, God,As Thy stars know Heaven?Have we not held Thee true,True as Thy deepest,Sweet and immaculate blueHeaven whence rains Thy dew!Have we notknownThee true,O God who keepest!

O God, our Father, God!—Who gav’st us fire,To rise above the sod,To soar, aspire—What though we strive and strive,And all our soul says “live”?Will not the scorn of men,Like some wild bird, againFalcon it down with sneers,As often in past years?And, O sun-centered high,Thou, too, who ’rt Poet,Beneath Thy seeing skyEach day new Keatses die,Crying, “Why should we try!That which we seek ’s a lie!”—Why is this so?—O why?—Thou who dost know it!

We know Thee beautiful,We know Thee bitter!Help Thou!—Men’s eyes are dull,O God most beautiful!Make Thou their souls less fullOf things mere glitter.Dost Thou not see our tears?Dost Thou not hear the yearsTreading our hearts to shards,O Lord of all the Lords?—Give heed, O God of Hosts,There ’mid Thy glorious ghosts,Most high and holy!Have mercy on our tears!Have mercy on our years!Our strivings and our fears,O Lord of lordly peers,On us, so lowly!

On us, so fondly fainTo tell what mother-painOf Nature haunts the rain.On us, so glad to showWhat sorrow wings the snow,And her wild winds that blow.Us, who interpret rightHer mystic rose of light,Her moony rune of night.Us, who have utterance forEach warm, flame-hearted starThat stammers from afar.Who hear the tears and sighsOf every bud that diesWhile heav’n’s dew on it lies.Who see the power that dowersThe wildwood bosks and bowersWith musk and sap of flowers.Who see what no man seesIn water, earth and breeze,And in the hearts of trees.Turn not away Thy light,O God!—Our strength is slight!Help us who breast the height!Have mercy, Infinite!Have mercy!

On us, so fondly fainTo tell what mother-painOf Nature haunts the rain.

On us, so glad to showWhat sorrow wings the snow,And her wild winds that blow.

Us, who interpret rightHer mystic rose of light,Her moony rune of night.

Us, who have utterance forEach warm, flame-hearted starThat stammers from afar.

Who hear the tears and sighsOf every bud that diesWhile heav’n’s dew on it lies.

Who see the power that dowersThe wildwood bosks and bowersWith musk and sap of flowers.

Who see what no man seesIn water, earth and breeze,And in the hearts of trees.

Turn not away Thy light,O God!—Our strength is slight!Help us who breast the height!Have mercy, Infinite!Have mercy!

So Love is dead, the Love we knew of old!And in the sorrow of our heart’s hushed hallsA lute lies broken and a rose-flower falls;Love’s house stands empty and his hearth lies cold.Lone in dim places, where sweet vows were told,In walks grown desolate, by ruined wallsBeauty decays; and on their pedestalsDreams crumble, and th’ immortal gods are mold.Music is slain or sleeps; one voice alone,One voice awakes, and like a wandering ghostHaunts all the echoing chambers of the Past—The voice of Memory, that stills to stoneThe soul that hears; the mind, that, utterly lost,Before its beautiful presence stands aghast.

How long ago it is since we went Maying!Since she and I went Maying long ago!The years have left my forehead lined, I know,Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.Ah, time will change us: yea, I hear it saying—“She, too, grows old: the face of rose and snowHas lost its freshness: in the hair’s brown glowSome strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:And all the gladness that her blue eyes heldTears and the world have hardened with distress.”—“True! true!” I answer, “O ye years that part!These things are changed—but is her heart, her heart?”

Thou art the music that I hear in sleep,The poetry that lures me on in dreams;The magic, thou, that holds my thought with themesOf young romance in revery’s mystic keep.—The lily’s aura, and the damask deepThat clothes the rose; the whispering soul that seemsTo haunt the wind; the rainbow light that streams,Like some wild spirit, ’thwart the cataract’s leap—Are glimmerings of thee and thy loveliness,Pervading all my world; interpretingThe marvel and the wonder these disclose:For, lacking thee, to me were meaninglessLife, love, and hope, the joy of everything,And all the beauty that the wide world knows.

Why not resolve and hunt it from one’s heart?This love, this god and fiend, that makes a hellOf all one’s life, in ways no tongue can tell,No mind divine, nor any word impart.Would not one think the slights that make hearts smart,The ice of love’s disdain, the wintry wellOf love’s disfavor, otherwise would quell?Or school one’s nature, too, to its own art?Why will men cringe and cry forever hereFor that which, once obtained, may prove a curse?Why not remember that, however fair,Decay is wed to Beauty? that each yearRobs somewhat from the riches of her purse,Until at last her house of pride stands bare?

Baroque, but beautiful, between the lunes,The valves of nacre of a mussel-shell,Behold, a pearl! shaped like the burnished bellOf some strange blossom that long afternoonsOf summer coax to open: all the moon’sChaste lustre in it; hues that only dwellWith purity.... It takes me, like a spell,Back to a day when, whistling truant tunes,A barefoot boy I waded ’mid the rocks,Searching for shells strewn in the creek’s slow swirl,Unconscious of the pearls that round me lay:While, ’mid wild-roses,—all her tomboy locksBlond-blowing,—stood, unnoticed then, a girl,My sweetheart once, the pearl I flung away.

Why have you come?—To see me in my shame?A thing to spit upon, despise and scorn?—You, you who ask me! You, by whom was torn,Then cast aside, like some vile rag, my name!What shelter could you give me, now, that blameAnd loathing would not share? that wolves of viceWould not besiege with eyes of glaring ice?Wherein Sin sat not with her face of flame?“You love me”?—God!—If yours be love, for lustHell must invent another synonym!If yours be love, then whoredom is the wayTo Heaven and God! and not with soul but dustMust burn the faces of the Cherubim,—O beast of beasts, if yours be love, I say!

Red-faced as old carousal, and with eyesA hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame,Bold, dowdy bosomed, from her window-frameShe leans, her mouth all insult and all lies.Or slattern-slippered and in sluttish gown,With ribald mirth and words too vile to name,A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame,Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town.The flaring lights of alley-way saloons,The reek of hideous gutters and black oathsOf drunkenness from vice-infested dens,Are to her senses what the silvery moon’sChaste splendor is, and what the blossoming growthsOf Earth and bird-song are to Innocence.

Where, through the myriad leaves of many trees,The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase,The glamour and the glimmer of its raysSeem visible music, tangible melodies:Light that is music; music that one sees—Wagnerian music—where forever swaysThe spirit of romance, and gods and faysTake form, clad on with dreams and mysteries.And now the wind’s transmuting necromanceTouches the light and makes it fall and rise,Vocal, a harp of multitudinous wavesThat speaks as ocean speaks—an utteranceOf far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs—Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.

Those hewers of the clouds, the Winds,—that lairAt the four compass-points,—are out to-night;I hear their sandals trample on the height,I hear their voices trumpet through the air:Builders of Storm, God’s workmen, now they bear,Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,Huge tempest bulks, while,—sweat that blinds their sight,—The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,Like gathered dust, the rolling mists alongHeaven’s floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blueOf skyey corridor and aëry roomPreparing, with large laughter and loud song,For the white moon and stars to wander through.

In heavens of rivered blue, that sunset dyesWith glaucous flame, deep in the west the dayStands Midas-like; or, wading on his way,Touches with splendor all the twilight skies.Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he triesWith rosy foot, transforms its sober grayTo blazing gold; while, ray on crystal ray,Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise.So should the artist in his work accordAll things with beauty, and communicateHis soul’s high magic and divinityTo all he does; and, hoping no reward,Toil onward, making darkness aureateWith light of worlds that be and are to be.

I saw the day like some great monarch die,Gold-couched, behind the clouds’ rich tapestries.Then, purple-sandaled, clothed in silencesOf sleep, through halls of skyey lazuli,The twilight, like a mourning queen, trailed by,Dim-paged of dreams and shadowy mysteries;And now the night, the star-robed child of these,In meditative loveliness draws nigh.Earth,—like to Romeo,—deep in dew and scent,Beneath Heaven’s window, watching till a light,Like some white blossom, in its square be set,—Lifts a faint face unto the firmament,That, with the moon, grows gradually bright,Bidding him climb and clasp his Juliet.

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,And ’mid their sheaves,—where, like a daisy-bloomLeft by the reapers to the gathering gloom,The star of twilight flames,—as Ruth, ’tis told,Dreamed homesick ’mid the harvest fields of old,The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfumeFrom Bible slopes of heaven, that illumeHer pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hillAre still, save for the brooklet, sleepilyStumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot:Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,And in my hearthername,—like some sweet beeWithin a rose,—blowing a fairy flute.

The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires,Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snowsOf clematis, through which September goes,Song-hearted, rich in realized desires,Are flanked with hotter hues: with tawny firesOf acrid marigolds,—that light long rowsOf lamps,—and salvias, red as day’s red close,—That torches seem,—by which the Month attiresBarbaric beauty; like some Asian queen,Towering imperial in her two-fold crownOf harvest and of vintage; all her formGold and majestic purple: in her mienThe might of motherhood; her baby brown,Abundance, high on one exultant arm.

Pods are the poppies, and slim spires of podsThe hollyhocks; the balsam’s pearly bredesOf rose-stained snow are little sacs of seedsCollapsing at a touch; the lote, that sodsThe pond with green, has changed its flowers to rodsAnd discs of vesicles; and all the weeds,Around the sleepy water and its reeds,Are one white smoke of seeded silk that nods.Summer is dead, ay me! sweet Summer’s dead!The sunset clouds have built her funeral pyre,Through which, e’en now, runs subterranean fire:While from the East, as from a garden-bed,Mist-vined, the Dusk lifts her broad moon—like someGreat golden melon—saying, “Fall has come.”

Slow sinks the sun,—a great carbuncle ballRed in the cavern of a sombre cloud,—And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd,Among her dying asters stands the Fall,Like some lone woman in a ruined hall,Dreaming of desolation and the shroud;Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed,Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl.The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand,And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web,Smites frantic music in the twilight’s ear;And all around, like melancholy sand,Rains dead leaves down—wild leaves, that mark the ebb,In Earth’s dark hour-glass, of another year.

Whether it be that we in letters traceThe pure exactness of a woodbird’s strain,And name it song; or with the brush attainThe high perfection of a wildflower’s face;Or mold in difficult marble all the graceWe know as man; or from the wind and rainCatch elemental rapture of refrainAnd mark in music to due time and place:The aim of art is Nature; to unfoldHer truth and beauty to the souls of menIn close suggestions; in whose forms is castNothing so new but ’tis long eons old;Nothing so old but ’tis as young as whenThe mind conceived it in the ages past.

In the waste places, in the sinister night,When the wood whispers like a wandering mind,And silence sits and listens to the wind,Or, ’mid the rocks, to some wild torrent’s flight;Bat-browed thou wadest with thy wisp of lightAmong black pools the moon can never find;Or, owlet-eyed, thou hootest to the blindDeep darkness from some cave or haunted height.He who beholds but once thy fearsome face,Never again shall walk alone! but wanAnd terrible attendants shall be his—Unutterable things that have no placeIn God or Beauty—that compel him on,Against all hope, where endless horror is.

War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence,Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes,Behold them shaking their tremendous plumesAbove the world! Lo, all the air grows denseWith rumors of destruction and a sense,Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombsPredestined; while,—like monsters in the glooms,—Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense,The Nations rise in dread apocalypse.—Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization?Its brag of Christianity?—In vainWe seek to see them in the wild eclipseOf hell and horror and the devastationOf Death triumphant on his hills of slain.

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun,Beholds at length from the up-towering hills,Far-off, a land unspeakable beauty fills,Circeän peaks and vales of Avalon:And, sinking weary, watches, one by one,The big seas beat between; and knows it skillsNo more to try; that now, as Heaven wills,This is the helpless end, that all is done:So ’tis with him, whom long a vision ledIn quest of Beauty—and who finds at last,She lies beyond his effort; all the wavesOf all the world between them: while the dead,The myriad dead, who populate the PastWith failure, hail him from forgotten graves.

Since Fancy taught me in her school of spellsI know her tricks: These are not moths at all,Nor fireflies; but masking Elfland bellesWhose link-boys torch them to Titania’s ball.

Like colored lanterns swung in Elfin towers,Wild morning-glories light the tangled ways,And, like the rosy rockets of the Fays,Burns the sloped crimson of the cardinal-flowers.

When winds go organing through the pinesOn hill and headland, darkly gleaming,Meseems I hear sonorous linesOf Iliads that the woods are dreaming.

Behold a hag whom Life denies a kissAs he rides questward in knighterrant-wise;Only when he hath passed her is it hisTo know, too late, the Fairy in disguise.

They mock the present and they haunt the past,And in the future there is naught agleamWith hope, the soul desires, that at lastThe heart, pursuing, does not find a dream.

What vague traditions do the golden eves,What legends do the dawnsInscribe in fire on Heaven’s azure leaves,The red sun colophons?What ancient stories do the waters verse?What tales of war and loveDo winds within the Earth’s vast house rehearse,God’s stars stand guard above?Would I could know them as they are expressedIn hue and melody!And say, in words, the beauties they suggest,Language their mystery!And in one song magnificently rise,The music of the spheres,That more than marble should immortalizeMy name in after years.

What vague traditions do the golden eves,What legends do the dawnsInscribe in fire on Heaven’s azure leaves,The red sun colophons?

What ancient stories do the waters verse?What tales of war and loveDo winds within the Earth’s vast house rehearse,God’s stars stand guard above?

Would I could know them as they are expressedIn hue and melody!And say, in words, the beauties they suggest,Language their mystery!

And in one song magnificently rise,The music of the spheres,That more than marble should immortalizeMy name in after years.

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