Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled:To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling goldIs builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the sea:The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee,The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee,Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-BeeThat shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea.
Yet now the dew-drop, now the morning gray,Shall live their little lucid sober dayEre with the sun their souls exhale away.Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dewThe summ'd morn shines complete as in the blueBig dew-drop of all heaven: with these lit shrinesO'er-silvered to the farthest sea-confines,The sacramental marsh one pious plainOf worship lies. Peace to the ante-reignOf Mary Morning, blissful mother mild,Minded of nought but peace, and of a child.
Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measureOf motion, — not faster than dateless Olympian leisureMight pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure, —The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling,Forever revealing, revealing, revealing,Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise, — 'tis done!Good-morrow, lord Sun!With several voice, with ascription one,The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soulUnto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll,Cry good and past-good and most heavenly morrow, lord Sun.
O Artisan born in the purple, — Workman Heat, —Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meetAnd be mixed in the death-cold oneness, — innermost GuestAt the marriage of elements, — fellow of publicans, — blestKing in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'erThe idle skies yet laborest fast evermore, —Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beatOf the heart of a man, thou Motive, — Laborer Heat:Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news,With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues,Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest huesEver shaming the maidens, — lily and roseConfess thee, and each mild flame that glowsIn the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine,It is thine, it is thine:
Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirlOr a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirlIn the magnet earth, — yea, thou with a storm for a heart,Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, partFrom part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light,Yet ever the artist, ever more large and brightThan the eye of a man may avail of: — manifold One,I must pass from thy face, I must pass from the face of the Sun:Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown;The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town:But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun:How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,I am lit with the Sun.
Oh, never the mast-high run of the seasOf traffic shall hide thee,Never the hell-colored smoke of the factoriesHide thee,Never the reek of the time's fen-politicsHide thee,And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee,And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee,Labor, at leisure, in art, — till yonder beside theeMy soul shall float, friend Sun,The day being done.
____ Baltimore, December, 1880.
II. Individuality.
Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud:Oh loiter hither from the sea.Still-eyed and shadow-brow'd,Steal off from yon far-drifting crowd,And come and brood upon the marsh with me.
Yon laboring low horizon-smoke,Yon stringent sail, toil not for theeNor me; did heaven's strokeThe whole deep with drown'd commerce choke,No pitiless tease of risk or bottomry
Would to thy rainy office closeThy will, or lock mine eyes from tears,Part wept for traders'-woes,Part for that ventures mean as thoseIn issue bind such sovereign hopes and fears.
— Lo, Cloud, thy downward countenance staresBlank on the blank-faced marsh, and thouMindest of dark affairs;Thy substance seems a warp of cares;Like late wounds run the wrinkles on thy brow.
Well may'st thou pause, and gloom, and stare,A visible conscience: I arraignThee, criminal Cloud, of rareContempts on Mercy, Right, and Prayer, —Of murders, arsons, thefts, — of nameless stain.
(Yet though life's logic grow as grayAs thou, my soul's not in eclipse.)Cold Cloud, but yesterdayThy lightning slew a child at play,And then a priest with prayers upon his lips
For his enemies, and then a brightLady that did but ope the doorUpon the storming nightTo let a beggar in, — strange spite, —And then thy sulky rain refused to pour
Till thy quick torch a barn had burnedWhere twelve months' store of victual lay,A widow's sons had earned;Which done, thy floods with winds returned, —The river raped their little herd away.
What myriad righteous errands highThy flames MIGHT run on! In that hourThou slewest the child, oh whyNot rather slay Calamity,Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power?
Or why not plunge thy blades aboutSome maggot politician throngSwarming to parcel outThe body of a land, and routThe maw-conventicle, and ungorge Wrong?
What the cloud doethThe Lord knoweth,The cloud knoweth not.What the artist doeth,The Lord knoweth;Knoweth the artist not?
Well-answered! — O dear artists, ye— Whether in forms of curve or hueOr tone your gospels be —Say wrong `This work is not of me,But God:' it is not true, it is not true.
Awful is Art because 'tis free.The artist trembles o'er his planWhere men his Self must see.Who made a song or picture, heDid it, and not another, God nor man.
My Lord is large, my Lord is strong:Giving, He gave: my me is mine.How poor, how strange, how wrong,To dream He wrote the little songI made to Him with love's unforced design!
Oh, not as clouds dim laws have plann'dTo strike down Good and fight for Ill, —Oh, not as harps that standIn the wind and sound the wind's command:Each artist — gift of terror! — owns his will.
For thee, Cloud, — if thou spend thine allUpon the South's o'er-brimming seaThat needs thee not; or crawlTo the dry provinces, and fallTill every convert clod shall give to thee
Green worship; if thou grow or fade,Bring on delight or misery,Fly east or west, be madeSnow, hail, rain, wind, grass, rose, light, shade;What matters it to thee? There is no thee.
Pass, kinsman Cloud, now fair and mild:Discharge the will that's not thine own.I work in freedom wild,But work, as plays a little child,Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone.
____ Baltimore, 1878-9.
III. Marsh Song — At Sunset.
Over the monstrous shambling sea,Over the Caliban sea,Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest:Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, —Thy Prospero I'll be.
Over the humped and fishy sea,Over the Caliban seaO cloud in the West, like a thought in the heartOf pardon, loose thy wing, and start,And do a grace for me.
Over the huge and huddling sea,Over the Caliban sea,Bring hither my brother Antonio, — Man, —My injurer: night breaks the ban;Brother, I pardon thee.
____ Baltimore, 1879-80.
IV. The Marshes of Glynn.
Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and wovenWith intricate shades of the vines that myriad-clovenClamber the forks of the multiform boughs, —Emerald twilights, —Virginal shy lights,Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnadesOf the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,Of the heavenly woods and glades,That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach withinThe wide sea-marshes of Glynn; —
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire, —Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire,Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves, —Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves,Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood,Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good; —
O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine,While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shineYe held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine;But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seemLike a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, —Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the strokeOf the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of GlynnWill work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yoreWhen length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore,And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable painDrew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, —
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to faceThe vast sweet visage of space.To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn,For a mete and a markTo the forest-dark: —So:Affable live-oak, leaning low, —Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand,(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!)Bending your beauty aside, with a step I standOn the firm-packed sand,FreeBy a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.
Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering bandOf the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land.Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curlAs a silver-wrought garment that clings to and followsthe firm sweet limbs of a girl.Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high?The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade,Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade,Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,To the terminal blue of the main.
Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?Somehow my soul seems suddenly freeFrom the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin,By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.
Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and freeYe publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily wonGod out of knowledge and good out of infinite painAnd sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen fliesIn the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sodI will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness withinThe range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the seaPours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be:Look how the grace of the sea doth goAbout and about through the intricate channels that flowHere and there,Everywhere,Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes,And the marsh is meshed with a million veins,That like as with rosy and silvery essences flowIn the rose-and-silver evening glow.Farewell, my lord Sun!The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir;Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr;Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run;And the sea and the marsh are one.
How still the plains of the waters be!The tide is in his ecstasy.The tide is at his highest height:And it is night.
And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleepRoll in on the souls of men,But who will reveal to our waking kenThe forms that swim and the shapes that creepUnder the waters of sleep?And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide comes inOn the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of Glynn.
____ Baltimore, 1878.
Clover.
Inscribed to the Memory of John Keats.
Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,My large unjealous Loves, many yet one —A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,Fair tilth and fruitful seasons!Lo, how still!The midmorn empties you of men, save me;Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear.I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,Holding the hills and heavens in my heartFor contemplation.'Tis a perfect hour.From founts of dawn the fluent autumn dayHas rippled as a brook right pleasantlyHalf-way to noon; but now with widening turnMakes pause, in lucent meditation locked,And rounds into a silver pool of morn,Bottom'd with clover-fields. My heart just hearsEight lingering strokes of some far village-bell,That speak the hour so inward-voiced, meseemsTime's conscience has but whispered him eight hintsOf revolution. Reigns that mild surceaseThat stills the middle of each rural morn —When nimble noises that with sunrise ranAbout the farms have sunk again to rest;When Tom no more across the horse-lot callsTo sleepy Dick, nor Dick husk-voiced upbraidsThe sway-back'd roan for stamping on his footWith sulphurous oath and kick in flank, what timeThe cart-chain clinks across the slanting shaft,And, kitchenward, the rattling bucket plumpsSouse down the well, where quivering ducks quack loud,And Susan Cook is singing.Up the skyThe hesitating moon slow trembles on,Faint as a new-washed soul but lately upFrom out a buried body. Far about,A hundred slopes in hundred fantasiesMost ravishingly run, so smooth of curveThat I but seem to see the fluent plainRise toward a rain of clover-blooms, as lakesPout gentle mounds of plashment up to meetBig shower-drops. Now the little winds, as bees,Bowing the blooms come wandering where I lieMixt soul and body with the clover-tufts,Light on my spirit, give from wing and thighRich pollens and divine sweet irritantsTo every nerve, and freshly make reportOf inmost Nature's secret autumn-thoughtUnto some soul of sense within my frameThat owns each cognizance of the outlying five,And sees, hears, tastes, smells, touches, all in one.
Tell me, dear Clover (since my soul is thine,Since I am fain give study all the day,To make thy ways my ways, thy service mine,To seek me out thy God, my God to be,And die from out myself to live in thee) —Now, Cousin Clover, tell me in mine ear:Go'st thou to market with thy pink and green?Of what avail, this color and this grace?Wert thou but squat of stem and brindle-brown,Still careless herds would feed. A poet, thou:What worth, what worth, the whole of all thine art?Three-Leaves, instruct me! I am sick of price.Framed in the arching of two clover-stemsWhere-through I gaze from off my hill, afar,The spacious fields from me to Heaven take onTremors of change and new significanceTo th' eye, as to the ear a simple taleBegins to hint a parable's sense beneath.The prospect widens, cuts all bounds of blueWhere horizontal limits bend, and spreadsInto a curious-hill'd and curious-valley'd Vast,Endless before, behind, around; which seemsTh' incalculable Up-and-Down of TimeMade plain before mine eyes. The clover-stemsStill cover all the space; but now they bear,For clover-blooms, fair, stately heads of menWith poets' faces heartsome, dear and pale —Sweet visages of all the souls of timeWhose loving service to the world has beenIn the artist's way expressed and bodied. Oh,In arms' reach, here be Dante, Keats, Chopin,Raphael, Lucretius, Omar, Angelo,Beethoven, Chaucer, Schubert, Shakespeare, Bach,And Buddha (sweetest masters! Let me layThese arms this once, this humble once, aboutYour reverend necks — the most containing clasp,For all in all, this world e'er saw!) and there,Yet further on, bright throngs unnamableOf workers worshipful, nobilitiesIn the Court of Gentle Service, silent men,Dwellers in woods, brooders on helpful art,And all the press of them, the fair, the large,That wrought with beauty.Lo, what bulk is here?Now comes the Course-of-things, shaped like an Ox,Slow browsing, o'er my hillside, ponderously —The huge-brawned, tame, and workful Course-of-things,That hath his grass, if earth be round or flat,And hath his grass, if empires plunge in painOr faiths flash out. This cool, unasking OxComes browsing o'er my hills and vales of Time,And thrusts me out his tongue, and curls it, sharp,And sicklewise, about my poets' heads,And twists them in, all — Dante, Keats, Chopin,Raphael, Lucretius, Omar, Angelo,Beethoven, Chaucer, Schubert, Shakespeare, Bach,And Buddha, in one sheaf — and champs and chews,With slantly-churning jaws, and swallows down;Then slowly plants a mighty forefoot out,And makes advance to futureward, one inch.So: they have played their part.And to this end?This, God? This, troublous-breeding Earth? This, SunOf hot, quick pains? To this no-end that ends,These Masters wrought, and wept, and sweated blood,And burned, and loved, and ached with public shame,And found no friends to breathe their loves to, saveWoods and wet pillows? This was all? This Ox?"Nay," quoth a sum of voices in mine ear,"God's clover, we, and feed His Course-of-things;The pasture is God's pasture; systems strangeOf food and fiberment He hath, wherebyThe general brawn is built for plans of HisTo quality precise. Kinsman, learn this:The artist's market is the heart of man;The artist's price, some little good of man.Tease not thy vision with vain search for ends.The End of Means is art that works by love.The End of Ends . . . in God's Beginning's lost."
____ West Chester, Pa., Summer of 1876.
The Waving of the Corn.
Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeledThy plough to ring this solitary treeWith clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,In cool green radius twice my length may be —Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,That here come oft together — daily I,Stretched prone in summer's mortal ecstasy,Do stir with thanks to thee, as stirs this mornWith waving of the corn.
Unseen, the farmer's boy from round the hillWhistles a snatch that seeks his soul unsought,And fills some time with tune, howbeit shrill;The cricket tells straight on his simple thought —Nay, 'tis the cricket's way of being still;The peddler bee drones in, and gossips naught;Far down the wood, a one-desiring doveTimes me the beating of the heart of love:And these be all the sounds that mix, each morn,With waving of the corn.
From here to where the louder passions dwell,Green leagues of hilly separation roll:Trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell.Ye terrible Towns, ne'er claim the trembling soulThat, craftless all to buy or hoard or sell,From out your deadly complex quarrel stoleTo company with large amiable trees,Suck honey summer with unjealous bees,And take Time's strokes as softly as this mornTakes waving of the corn.
____ West Chester, Pa., 1876.
The Song of the Chattahoochee.
Out of the hills of Habersham,Down the valleys of Hall,I hurry amain to reach the plain,Run the rapid and leap the fall,Split at the rock and together again,Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,And flee from folly on every sideWith a lover's pain to attain the plainFar from the hills of Habersham,Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills of Habersham,All through the valleys of Hall,The rushes cried `Abide, abide,'The willful waterweeds held me thrall,The laving laurel turned my tide,The ferns and the fondling grass said `Stay,'The dewberry dipped for to work delay,And the little reeds sighed `Abide, abide,Here in the hills of Habersham,Here in the valleys of Hall.'
High o'er the hills of Habersham,Veiling the valleys of Hall,The hickory told me manifoldFair tales of shade, the poplar tallWrought me her shadowy self to hold,The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,Said, `Pass not, so cold, these manifoldDeep shades of the hills of Habersham,These glades in the valleys of Hall.'
And oft in the hills of Habersham,And oft in the valleys of Hall,The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stoneDid bar me of passage with friendly brawl,And many a luminous jewel lone— Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,Ruby, garnet and amethyst —Made lures with the lights of streaming stoneIn the clefts of the hills of Habersham,In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
But oh, not the hills of Habersham,And oh, not the valleys of HallAvail: I am fain for to water the plain.Downward the voices of Duty call —Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,And the lordly main from beyond the plainCalls o'er the hills of Habersham,Calls through the valleys of Hall.
____ 1877.
From the Flats.
What heartache — ne'er a hill!Inexorable, vapid, vague and chillThe drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.With one poor word they tell me all they know;Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,Do drawl it o'er again and o'er again.They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:Always the same, the same.
Nature hath no surprise,No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyesFrom brake or lurking dell or deep defile;No humors, frolic forms — this mile, that mile;No rich reserves or happy-valley hopesBeyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes.Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:Ever the same, the same.
Oh might I through these tearsBut glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,Where white the quartz and pink the pebble shine,The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadineSwings o'er the slope, the oak's far-falling shadeDarkens the dogwood in the bottom glade,And down the hollow from a ferny nookBright leaps a living brook!
____ Tampa, Florida, 1877.
The Mocking-Bird.
Superb and sole, upon a plumed sprayThat o'er the general leafage boldly grew,He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drewThe watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismayOf languid doves when long their lovers stray,And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dewAt morn in brake or bosky avenue.Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.Then down he shot, bounced airily alongThe sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made songMidflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:How may the death of that dull insect beThe life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?
Tampa Robins.
The robin laughed in the orange-tree:"Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:While breasts are red and wings are boldAnd green trees wave us globes of gold,Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me— Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree.
Burn, golden globes in leafy sky,My orange-planets: crimson IWill shine and shoot among the spheres(Blithe meteor that no mortal fears)And thrid the heavenly orange-treeWith orbits bright of minstrelsy.
If that I hate wild winter's spite —The gibbet trees, the world in white,The sky but gray wind over a grave —Why should I ache, the season's slave?I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree`Gramercy, winter's tyranny.'
I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime;My wing is king of the summer-time;My breast to the sun his torch shall hold;And I'll call down through the green and gold`Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me,Bestir thee under the orange-tree.'"
____ Tampa, Florida, 1877.
The Crystal.
At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,When far within the spirit's hearing rollsThe great soft rumble of the course of things —A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, —When darkness clears our vision that by dayIs sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owlFor truth and flitteth here and there aboutLow-lying woody tracts of time and oftIs minded for to sit upon a bough,Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken treeAnd muse in that gaunt place, — 'twas then my heart,Deep in the meditative dark, cried out:
"Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming newsFrom steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, allThat brood about the skies of poesy,Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;Yet, if a man look hard upon you, noneWith total lustre blazeth, no, not oneBut hath some heinous freckle of the fleshUpon his shining cheek, not one but winksHis ray, opaqued with intermittent mistOf defect; yea, you masters all must askSome sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meetYour largesse so with love, and interplightYour geniuses with our mortalities.
Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakespeare sole,A hundred hurts a day I do forgive('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee):Small curious quibble; Juliet's prurient punIn the poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death;Cold rant of Richard; Henry's fustian roarWhich frights away that sleep he invocates;Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield;Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as menIn faint disguises that could ne'er disguise —Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind;Fatigues most drear, and needless overtaxOf speech obscure that had as lief be plain;Last I forgive (with more delight, because'Tis more to do) the labored-lewd discourseThat e'en thy young invention's youngest heirBesmirched the world with.
Father Homer, thee,Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastesOf prose and catalogue, thy drear haranguesThat tease the patience of the centuries,Thy sleazy scrap of story, — but a rogue'sRape of a light-o'-love, — too soiled a patchTo broider with the gods.
Thee, Socrates,Thou dear and very strong one, I forgiveThy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringenciesThat were but dandy upside-down, thy wordsOf truth that, mildlier spoke, had mainlier wrought.
So, Buddha, beautiful! I pardon theeThat all the All thou hadst for needy manWas Nothing, and thy Best of being wasBut not to be.
Worn Dante, I forgiveThe implacable hates that in thy horrid hellsOr burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosedBy death, nor time, nor love.
And I forgiveThee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful warsWhere, armed with gross and inconclusive steel,Immortals smite immortals mortalwiseAnd fill all heaven with folly.
Also thee,Brave Aeschylus, thee I forgive, for thatThine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked,Turned not, nor ever learned to look where LoveStands shining.
So, unto thee, Lucretius mine(For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to thisThat's now complaining?), freely I forgiveThy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earthWhose graves eat souls and all.
Yea, all you heartsOf beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large:Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild SaintA Kempis, overmild; Epictetus,Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct;Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg,O'ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touchOf art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the topOf English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now,And most adorable; Caedmon, in the mornA-calling angels with the cow-herd's callThat late brought up the cattle; Emerson,Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lostThy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nervesWhere men's were better; Tennyson, largest voiceSince Milton, yet some register of witWanting; — all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked,Your more or less, your little mole that marksYou brother and your kinship seals to man.
But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,O perfect life in perfect labor writ,O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, —What `if' or `yet', what mole, what flaw, what lapse,What least defect or shadow of defect,What rumor, tattled by an enemy,Of inference loose, what lack of graceEven in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, —Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?"
____ Baltimore, 1880.
The Revenge of Hamish.
It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ranDown the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.
Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fernShe reared, and rounded her ears in turn.Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go
Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,For their day-dream slowlier came to a close,Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.
Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvellous bound,The hounds swept after with never a sound,But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was nigh.
For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy to the hunt had waxed wild,And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off with the houndsFor to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds:"I will kill a red deer," quoth Maclean, "in the sight of the wifeand the child."
So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to his chosen stand;But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead: "Go turn," —Cried Maclean — "if the deer seek to cross to the burn,Do thou turn them to me: nor fail, lest thy back be red as thy hand."
Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his breath with the heightof the hill,Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck and the doesDrew leaping to burn-ward; huskily roseHis shouts, and his nether lip twitched, and his legs were o'er-weakfor his will.
So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away to the burn.But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting belowStill Hamish hung heavy with fear for to goAll the space of an hour; then he went, and his face was greenish and stern,
And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eyeballs shone,As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see."Now, now, grim henchman, what is't with thee?"Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind hath upblown.
"Three does and a ten-tined buck made out," spoke Hamish, full mild,"And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, and they passed;I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast."Cried Maclean: "Now a ten-tined buck in the sight of the wife and the child
I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a snail's own wrong!"Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and clansmen all:"Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall,And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of thong!"
So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes; at the last he smiled."Now I'll to the burn," quoth Maclean, "for it still may be,If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me,I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife and the child!"
Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that; and over the hillSped Maclean with an outward wrath for an inward shame;And that place of the lashing full quiet became;And the wife and the child stood sad; and bloody-backed Hamish sat still.
But look! red Hamish has risen; quick about and about turns he."There is none betwixt me and the crag-top!" he screams under breath.Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death,He snatches the child from the mother, and clambers the crag toward the sea.
Now the mother drops breath; she is dumb, and her heart goes dead for a space,Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, shrieks through the glen,And that place of the lashing is live with men,And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up in a desperate race.
Not a breath's time for asking; an eye-glance reveals all the tale untold.They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea,And the lady cries: "Clansmen, run for a fee! —Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold
Fast Hamish back from the brink!" — and ever she flies up the steep,And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle and strain.But, mother, 'tis vain; but, father, 'tis vain;Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the child o'er the deep.
Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand still.And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her knees,Crying: "Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but pleaseFor to spare him!" and Hamish still dangles the child, with a wavering will.
On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream, and a gibe, and a song,Cries: "So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all,Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall,And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of the thong!"
Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his tooth was red,Breathed short for a space, said: "Nay, but it never shall be!Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea!"But the wife: "Can Hamish go fish us the child from the sea, if dead?
Say yea! — Let them lash ME, Hamish?" — "Nay!" — "Husband,the lashing will heal;But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his grave?Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave?Quick! Love! I will bare thee — so — kneel!" Then Maclean 'gan slowlyto kneel
With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the earth.Then the henchman — he that smote Hamish — would tremble and lag;"Strike, hard!" quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag;Then he struck him, and "One!" sang Hamish, and danced with the childin his mirth.
And no man spake beside Hamish; he counted each stroke with a song.When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace down the height,And he held forth the child in the heartaching sightOf the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting a wrong.
And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the thanksgiving prayer —And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace,Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face —In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in the air,
And sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible height in the sea,Shrill screeching, "Revenge!" in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean,Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain,Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead rootsof a tree —
And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip-drippedin the brine,And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew,And the mother stared white on the waste of blue,And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began to shine.
____ Baltimore, 1878.
To Bayard Taylor.
To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,O'erseeing all that man but undersees;To loiter down lone alleys of delight,And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,And think the thoughts that lilies speak in whiteBy greenwood pools and pleasant passages;
With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul,To pace, in mighty meditations drawn,From out the forest to the open knollWhere much thyme is, whence blissful leagues of lawnBetwixt the fringing woods to southward rollBy tender inclinations; mad with dawn,
Ablaze with fires that flame in silver dewWhen each small globe doth glass the morning-star,Long ere the sun, sweet-smitten through and throughWith dappled revelations read afar,Suffused with saintly ecstasies of blueAs all the holy eastern heavens are, —
To fare thus fervid to what daily toilEmploys thy spirit in that larger LandWhere thou art gone; to strive, but not to moilIn nothings that do mar the artist's hand,Not drudge unriched, as grain rots back to soil, —No profit out of death, — going, yet still at stand, —
Giving what life is here in hand to-dayFor that that's in to-morrow's bush, perchance, —Of this year's harvest none in the barn to lay,All sowed for next year's crop, — a dull advanceIn curves that come but by another wayBack to the start, — a thriftless thrift of ants
Whose winter wastes their summer; O my Friend,Freely to range, to muse, to toil, is thine:Thine, now, to watch with Homer sails that bendUnstained by Helen's beauty o'er the brineTow'rds some clean Troy no Hector need defendNor flame devour; or, in some mild moon's shine,
Where amiabler winds the whistle heed,To sail with Shelley o'er a bluer sea,And mark Prometheus, from his fetters freed,Pass with Deucalion over Italy,While bursts the flame from out his eager reedWild-stretching towards the West of destiny;
Or, prone with Plato, Shakespeare and a throngOf bards beneath some plane-tree's cool eclipseTo gaze on glowing meads where, lingering long,Psyche's large Butterfly her honey sips;Or, mingling free in choirs of German song,To learn of Goethe's life from Goethe's lips;
These, these are thine, and we, who still are dead,Do yearn — nay, not to kill thee back againInto this charnel life, this lowlihead,Not to the dark of sense, the blinking brain,The hugged delusion drear, the hunger fedOn husks of guess, the monarchy of pain,
The cross of love, the wrench of faith, the shameOf science that cannot prove proof is, the twistOf blame for praise and bitter praise for blame,The silly stake and tether round the wristBy fashion fixed, the virtue that doth claimThe gains of vice, the lofty mark that's missed
By all the mortal space 'twixt heaven and hell,The soul's sad growth o'er stationary friendsWho hear us from our height not well, not well,The slant of accident, the sudden bendsOf purpose tempered strong, the gambler's spell,The son's disgrace, the plan that e'er depends
On others' plots, the tricks that passion plays(I loving you, you him, he none at all),The artist's pain — to walk his blood-stained ways,A special soul, yet judged as general —The endless grief of art, the sneer that slays,The war, the wound, the groan, the funeral pall —
Not into these, bright spirit, do we yearnTo bring thee back, but oh, to be, to beUnbound of all these gyves, to stretch, to spurnThe dark from off our dolorous lids, to seeOur spark, Conjecture, blaze and sunwise burn,And suddenly to stand again by thee!
Ah, not for us, not yet, by thee to stand:For us, the fret, the dark, the thorn, the chill;For us, to call across unto thy Land,"Friend, get thee to the minstrels' holy hill,And kiss those brethren for us, mouth and hand,And make our duty to our master Will."
____ Baltimore, 1879.
A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman.
As Love will carve dear names upon a tree,Symbol of gravure on his heart to be,
So thought I thine with loving text to setIn the growth and substance of my canzonet;
But, writing it, my tears begin to fall —This wild-rose stem for thy large name's too small!
Nay, still my trembling hands are fain, are fainCut the good letters though they lap again;
Perchance such folk as mark the blur and stainWill say, `It was the beating of the rain;'
Or, haply these o'er-woundings of the stemMay loose some little balm, to plead for them.
____ 1876.
To Charlotte Cushman.
Look where a three-point star shall weave his beamInto the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seemFulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;So in this night of art thy soul doth showHer excellent double in the steadfast flowOf wishing love that through men's hearts doth go:At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below.E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky(Each star must o'er a strenuous orbit fly),Full calm thine image in our love doth lie,A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity.So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene —Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good queen!
____ Baltimore, 1875.
The Stirrup-Cup.
Death, thou'rt a cordial old and rare:Look how compounded, with what care!Time got his wrinkles reaping theeSweet herbs from all antiquity.
David to thy distillage went,Keats, and Gotama excellent,Omar Khayyam, and Chaucer bright,And Shakespeare for a king-delight.
Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt:Hand me the cup whene'er thou wilt;'Tis thy rich stirrup-cup to me;I'll drink it down right smilingly.
____ Tampa, Florida, 1877.
A Song of Eternity in Time.
Once, at night, in the manor woodMy Love and I long silent stood,Amazed that any heavens couldDecree to part us, bitterly repining.My Love, in aimless love and grief,Reached forth and drew aside a leafThat just above us played the thiefAnd stole our starlight that for us was shining.
A star that had remarked her painShone straightway down that leafy lane,And wrought his image, mirror-plain,Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming."Thus Time," I cried, "is but a tearSome one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear,Yet in his little lucent sphereOur star of stars, Eternity, is beaming."
____ Macon, Georgia, 1867. Revised in 1879.
Owl against Robin.
Frowning, the owl in the oak complained himSore, that the song of the robin restrained himWrongly of slumber, rudely of rest."From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,Over and over and over and over,Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven:How can we sleep?
`Peep!' you whistle, and `cheep! cheep! cheep!'Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if 'tis cheap,And have done; for an owl must sleep.Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first?Each day's the same, yet the last is worst,And the summer is cursed with the silly outburstOf idiot red-breasts peeping and cheepingBy day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping.Lord, what a din! And so out of all reason.Have ye not heard that each thing hath its season?Night is to work in, night is for play-time;Good heavens, not day-time!
A vulgar flaunt is the flaring day,The impudent, hot, unsparing day,That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold, —Day the reporter, — the gossip of old, —Deformity's tease, — man's common scold —Poh! Shut the eyes, let the sense go numbWhen day down the eastern way has come.'Tis clear as the moon (by the argument drawnFrom Design) that the world should retire at dawn.Day kills. The leaf and the laborer breatheDeath in the sun, the cities seethe,The mortal black marshes bubble with heatAnd puff up pestilence; nothing is sweetHas to do with the sun: even virtue will taint(Philosophers say) and manhood grow faintIn the lands where the villainous sun has swayThrough the livelong drag of the dreadful day.What Eden but noon-light stares it tame,Shadowless, brazen, forsaken of shame?For the sun tells lies on the landscape, — nowReports me the `what', unrelieved with the `how', —As messengers lie, with the facts alone,Delivering the word and withholding the tone.
But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the lightOf the high-fastidious night!Oh, to awake with the wise old stars —The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars,That wink at the work-a-day fact of crimeAnd shine so rich through the ruins of timeThat Baalbec is finer than London; oh,To sit on the bough that zigzags lowBy the woodland pool,And loudly laugh at man, the foolThat vows to the vulgar sun; oh, rare,To wheel from the wood to the window whereA day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care,And perch on the sill and straightly stareThrough his visions; rare, to sailAslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale, —To flit down the shadow-shot-with-gleam,Betwixt hanging leaves and starlit stream,Hither, thither, to and fro,Silent, aimless, dayless, slow(`Aimless? Field-mice?' True, they're slain,But the night-philosophy hoots at pain,Grips, eats quick, and drops the bonesIn the water beneath the bough, nor moansAt the death life feeds on). Robin, prayCome away, come awayTo the cultus of night. Abandon the day.Have more to think and have less to say.And CANNOT you walk now? Bah! don't hop!Stop!Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard,O irritant, iterant, maddening bird!"
____ Baltimore, 1880.
A Song of the Future.
Sail fast, sail fast,Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past,Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams;Sail fast, sail fast.Breaths of new buds from off some drying leaWith news about the Future scent the sea:My brain is beating like the heart of Haste:I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;Go, trembling song,And stay not long; oh, stay not long:Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove,But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.
____ Baltimore, 1878.
Opposition.
Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,Complain no more; for these, O heart,Direct the random of the willAs rhymes direct the rage of art.
The lute's fixt fret, that runs athwartThe strain and purpose of the string,For governance and nice consortDoth bar his wilful wavering.
The dark hath many dear avails;The dark distils divinest dews;The dark is rich with nightingales,With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse.
Bleeding with thorns of petty strife,I'll ease (as lovers do) my smartWith sonnets to my lady LifeWrit red in issues from the heart.
What grace may lie within the chillOf favor frozen fast in scorn!When Good's a-freeze, we call it Ill!This rosy Time is glacier-born.
Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill,Complain thou not, O heart; for theseBank-in the current of the willTo uses, arts, and charities.
____ Baltimore, 1879-80.
Rose-Morals.
I. — Red.
Would that my songs might beWhat roses make by day and night —Distillments of my clod of miseryInto delight.
Soul, could'st thou bare thy breastAs yon red rose, and dare the day,All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?Say yea — say yea!
Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;The wind is up; so; drift away.That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,I strive, I pray.
II. — White.
Soul, get thee to the heartOf yonder tuberose: hide thee there —There breathe the meditations of thine artSuffused with prayer.
Of spirit grave yet light,How fervent fragrances uprisePure-born from these most rich and yet most whiteVirginities!
Mulched with unsavory death,Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath,Thy work, thy fate.
____ Baltimore, 1875.
Corn.
To-day the woods are trembling through and throughWith shimmering forms, that flash before my view,Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.The leaves that wave against my cheek caressLike women's hands; the embracing boughs expressA subtlety of mighty tenderness;The copse-depths into little noises start,That sound anon like beatings of a heart,Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;Through that vague wafture, expirations strongThrob from young hickories breathing deep and longWith stress and urgence bold of prisoned springAnd ecstasy of burgeoning.Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,Forth venture odors of more qualityAnd heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,Long muscadinesRich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines,And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.I pray with mosses, ferns and flowers shyThat hide like gentle nuns from human eyeTo lift adoring perfumes to the sky.I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and greenDying to silent hints of kisses keenAs far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen.I start at fragmentary whispers, blownFrom undertalks of leafy souls unknown,Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, betweenOld companies of oaks that inward leanTo join their radiant amplitudes of greenI slowly move, with ranging looks that passUp from the matted miracles of grassInto yon veined complex of spaceWhere sky and leafage interlaceSo close, the heaven of blue is seenInwoven with a heaven of green.
I wander to the zigzag-cornered fenceWhere sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,Contests with stolid vehemenceThe march of culture, setting limb and thornAs pikes against the army of the corn.
There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyesTake harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise,Of inward dignitiesAnd large benignities and insights wise,Graces and modest majesties.Thus, without theft, I reap another's field;Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield,And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed.
Look, out of line one tall corn-captain standsAdvanced beyond the foremost of his bands,And waves his blades upon the very edgeAnd hottest thicket of the battling hedge.Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublimeThat leads the vanward of his timid timeAnd sings up cowards with commanding rhyme —Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to growBy double increment, above, below;Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalryThat moves in gentle curves of courtesy;Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,By every godlike senseTransmuted from the four wild elements.Drawn to high plans,Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's,Yet ever piercest downward in the mouldAnd keepest holdUpon the reverend and steadfast earthThat gave thee birth;Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,Serene and brave,With unremitting breathInhaling life from death,Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,Thyself thy monument.
As poets should,Thou hast built up thy hardihoodWith universal food,Drawn in select proportion fairFrom honest mould and vagabond air;From darkness of the dreadful night,And joyful light;From antique ashes, whose departed flameIn thee has finer life and longer fame;From wounds and balms,From storms and calms,From potsherds and dry bonesAnd ruin-stones.Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wroughtWhate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;Yea, into cool solacing green hast spunWhite radiance hot from out the sun.So thou dost mutually leavenStrength of earth with grace of heaven;So thou dost marry new and oldInto a one of higher mould;So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,The dark and bright,And many a heart-perplexing opposite,And so,Akin by blood to high and low,Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part,Richly expending thy much-bruised heartIn equal care to nourish lord in hallOr beast in stall:Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.
O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spotWhere thou wast born, that still repinest not —Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! —Deeply thy mild content rebukes the landWhose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sandOf trade, for ever rise and fallWith alternation whimsical,Enduring scarce a day,Then swept awayBy swift engulfments of incalculable tidesWhereon capricious Commerce rides.Look, thou substantial spirit of content!Across this little vale, thy continent,To where, beyond the mouldering mill,Yon old deserted Georgian hillBares to the sun his piteous aged crestAnd seamy breast,By restless-hearted children left to lieUntended there beneath the heedless sky,As barbarous folk expose their old to die.Upon that generous-rounding side,With gullies scarifiedWhere keen Neglect his lash hath plied,Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,Then sat him down and waited for the rain.He sailed in borrowed ships of usury —A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea,Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle tranceHe lay, content that unthrift CircumstanceShould plough for him the stony field of Chance.Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell,He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell,And turned each field into a gambler's hell.Aye, as each year began,My farmer to the neighboring city ran;Passed with a mournful anxious faceInto the banker's inner place;Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass;Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;With many an `oh' and `if' and `but alas'Parried or swallowed searching questions rude,And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,He issues smiling from the fatal door,And buys with lavish hand his yearly storeTill his small borrowings will yield no more.Aye, as each year declined,With bitter heart and ever-brooding mindHe mourned his fate unkind.In dust, in rain, with might and main,He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,Fretted for news that made him fret again,Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail —In hope or fear alike for ever pale.And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,With many a curse and many a secret tear,Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,At lastHe woke to find his foolish dreaming past,And all his best-of-life the easy preyOf squandering scamps and quacks that lined his wayWith vile array,From rascal statesman down to petty knave;Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,He fled away into the oblivious West,Unmourned, unblest.
Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy LearWhom the divine Cordelia of the year,E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer —King, that no subject man nor beast may own,Discrowned, undaughtered and alone —Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,And bring thee back into thy monarch stateAnd majesty immaculate.Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlornVisions of golden treasuries of corn —Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heartThat manfully shall take thy part,And tend thee,And defend thee,With antique sinew and with modern art.
____ Sunnyside, Georgia, August, 1874.
The Symphony.
"O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead!The Time needs heart — 'tis tired of head:We're all for love," the violins said."Of what avail the rigorous taleOf bill for coin and box for bale?Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope:Level red gold with blue sky-slope,And base it deep as devils grope:When all's done, what hast thou wonOf the only sweet that's under the sun?Ay, canst thou buy a single sighOf true love's least, least ecstasy?"Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling,All the mightier strings assemblingRanged them on the violins' sideAs when the bridegroom leads the bride,And, heart in voice, together cried:"Yea, what avail the endless taleOf gain by cunning and plus by sale?Look up the land, look down the landThe poor, the poor, the poor, they standWedged by the pressing of Trade's handAgainst an inward-opening doorThat pressure tightens evermore:They sigh a monstrous foul-air sighFor the outside leagues of liberty,Where Art, sweet lark, translates the skyInto a heavenly melody.`Each day, all day' (these poor folks say),`In the same old year-long, drear-long way,We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns,We sieve mine-meshes under the hills,And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills,To relieve, O God, what manner of ills? —The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die;And so do we, and the world's a sty;Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry?"Swinehood hath no remedy"Say many men, and hasten by,Clamping the nose and blinking the eye.But who said once, in the lordly tone,"Man shall not live by bread aloneBut all that cometh from the Throne?"Hath God said so?But Trade saith "No:"And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go!There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know.Move out, if you think you're underpaid.The poor are prolific; we're not afraid;Trade is trade."'"Thereat this passionate protestingMeekly changed, and softened tillIt sank to sad requestingAnd suggesting sadder still:"And oh, if men might some time seeHow piteous-false the poor decreeThat trade no more than trade must be!Does business mean, `Die, you — live, I?'Then `Trade is trade' but sings a lie:'Tis only war grown miserly.If business is battle, name it so:War-crimes less will shame it so,And widows less will blame it so.Alas, for the poor to have some partIn yon sweet living lands of Art,Makes problem not for head, but heart.Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it:Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."
And then, as when from words that seem but rudeWe pass to silent pain that sits abroodBack in our heart's great dark and solitude,So sank the strings to gentle throbbingOf long chords change-marked with sobbing —Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heardThan half wing-openings of the sleeping bird,Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred.Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo!Every least ripple of the strings' song-flowDied to a level with each level bowAnd made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so,As a brook beneath his curving bank doth goTo linger in the sacred dark and greenWhere many boughs the still pool overleanAnd many leaves make shadow with their sheen.But presentlyA velvet flute-note fell down pleasantlyUpon the bosom of that harmony,And sailed and sailed incessantly,As if a petal from a wild-rose blownHad fluttered down upon that pool of toneAnd boatwise dropped o' the convex sideAnd floated down the glassy tideAnd clarified and glorifiedThe solemn spaces where the shadows bide.From the warm concave of that fluted noteSomewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float,As if a rose might somehow be a throat:"When Nature from her far-off glenFlutes her soft messages to men,The flute can say them o'er again;Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone,Breathes through life's strident polyphoneThe flute-voice in the world of tone.Sweet friends,Man's love ascendsTo finer and diviner endsThan man's mere thought e'er comprehendsFor I, e'en I,As here I lie,A petal on a harmony,Demand of Science whence and whyMan's tender pain, man's inward cry,When he doth gaze on earth and sky?I am not overbold:I holdFull powers from Nature manifold.I speak for each no-tongued treeThat, spring by spring, doth nobler be,And dumbly and most wistfullyHis mighty prayerful arms outspreadsAbove men's oft-unheeding heads,And his big blessing downward sheds.I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves,Lichens on stones and moss on eaves,Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves;Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes,And briery mazes bounding lanes,And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains,And milky stems and sugary veins;For every long-armed woman-vineThat round a piteous tree doth twine;For passionate odors, and divinePistils, and petals crystalline;All purities of shady springs,All shynesses of film-winged thingsThat fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings;All modesties of mountain-fawnsThat leap to covert from wild lawns,And tremble if the day but dawns;All sparklings of small beady eyesOf birds, and sidelong glances wiseWherewith the jay hints tragedies;All piquancies of prickly burs,And smoothnesses of downs and fursOf eiders and of minevers;All limpid honeys that do lieAt stamen-bases, nor denyThe humming-birds' fine roguery,Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly;All gracious curves of slender wings,Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings,Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings;Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bellWherewith in every lonesome dellTime to himself his hours doth tell;All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones,Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans,And night's unearthly under-tones;All placid lakes and waveless deeps,All cool reposing mountain-steeps,Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; —Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights,And warmths, and mysteries, and mights,Of Nature's utmost depths and heights,— These doth my timid tongue present,Their mouthpiece and leal instrumentAnd servant, all love-eloquent.I heard, when `"All for love"' the violins cried:So, Nature calls through all her system wide,`Give me thy love, O man, so long denied.'Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways,Since Nature, in the antique fable-days,Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays,False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise.The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain,Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fainNever to lave its love in them again.Later, a sweet Voice `Love thy neighbor' said;Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspreadBeyond all confines of old ethnic dread.Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head:`"All men are neighbors,"' so the sweet Voice said.So, when man's arms had circled all man's race,The liberal compass of his warm embraceStretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space;With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace,Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face:Yea man found neighbors in great hills and treesAnd streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees,And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these.But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor!That stand by the inward-opening doorTrade's hand doth tighten ever more,And sigh their monstrous foul-air sighFor the outside hills of liberty,Where Nature spreads her wild blue skyFor Art to make into melody!Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days!Change thy ways,Change thy ways;Let the sweaty laborers fileA little while,A little while,Where Art and Nature sing and smile.Trade! is thy heart all dead, all dead?And hast thou nothing but a head?I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said,And into sudden silence fled,Like as a blush that while 'tis redDies to a still, still white instead.