As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,A light shone round about the place;The leper no longer crouched at his side,305But stood before him glorified,Shining and tall and fair and straightAs the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,—Himself the Gate whereby men canEnter the temple of God in Man.
As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,A light shone round about the place;The leper no longer crouched at his side,305But stood before him glorified,Shining and tall and fair and straightAs the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,—Himself the Gate whereby men canEnter the temple of God in Man.
VIII.
310His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine,And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine,That mingle their softness and quiet in oneWith the shaggy unrest they float down upon;And the voice that was softer than silence said,315"Lo, it is I, be not afraid!In many climes, without avail,Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;Behold, it is here,—this cup which thouDidst fill at the streamlet for me but now;320This crust is my body broken for thee,This water his blood that died on the tree;The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,In whatso we share with another's need,—Not what we give, but what we share,—325For the gift without the giver is bare;Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,—Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."
310His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine,And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine,That mingle their softness and quiet in oneWith the shaggy unrest they float down upon;And the voice that was softer than silence said,315"Lo, it is I, be not afraid!In many climes, without avail,Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;Behold, it is here,—this cup which thouDidst fill at the streamlet for me but now;320This crust is my body broken for thee,This water his blood that died on the tree;The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,In whatso we share with another's need,—Not what we give, but what we share,—325For the gift without the giver is bare;Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,—Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."
IX.
Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound:—"The Grail in my castle here is found!330Hang my idle armor up on the wall,Let it be the spider's banquet-hall;He must be fenced with stronger mailWho would seek and find the Holy Grail."
Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound:—"The Grail in my castle here is found!330Hang my idle armor up on the wall,Let it be the spider's banquet-hall;He must be fenced with stronger mailWho would seek and find the Holy Grail."
X.
The castle gate stands open now,335And the wanderer is welcome to the hallAs the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough;No longer scowl the turrets tall,The Summer's long siege at last is o'er;When the first poor outcast went in at the door,340She entered with him in disguise,And mastered the fortress by surprise;There is no spot she loves so well on ground,She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land345Has hall and bower at his command;And there's no poor man in the North CountreeBut is lord of the earldom as much as he.
The castle gate stands open now,335And the wanderer is welcome to the hallAs the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough;No longer scowl the turrets tall,The Summer's long siege at last is o'er;When the first poor outcast went in at the door,340She entered with him in disguise,And mastered the fortress by surprise;There is no spot she loves so well on ground,She lingers and smiles there the whole year round;The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land345Has hall and bower at his command;And there's no poor man in the North CountreeBut is lord of the earldom as much as he.
There came a youth upon the earth,Some thousand years ago,Whose slender hands were nothing worth,Whether to plow, or reap, or sow.5He made a lyre, and drew therefromMusic so strange and rich,That all men loved to hear,—and someMuttered of fagots for a witch.But King Admetus, one who had10Pure taste by right divine,Decreed his singing not too badTo hear between the cups of wine.And so, well pleased with being soothedInto a sweet half-sleep,15Three times his kingly beard he smoothed.And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.His words were simple words enough,And yet he used them so,That what in other mouths were rough20In his seemed musical and low.Men called him but a shiftless youth,In whom no good they saw;And yet, unwittingly, in truth,They made his careless words their law.25They knew not how he learned at all,For, long hour after hour,He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,Or mused upon a common flower.It seemed the loveliness of things30Did teach him all their use,For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,He found a healing power profuse.Men granted that his speech was wise,But, when a glance they caught35Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.Yet after he was dead and gone,And e'en his memory dim,Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,40More full of love, because of him.And day by day more holy grewEach spot where he had trod,Till after-poets only knewTheir first-born brother as a god.
There came a youth upon the earth,Some thousand years ago,Whose slender hands were nothing worth,Whether to plow, or reap, or sow.
5He made a lyre, and drew therefromMusic so strange and rich,That all men loved to hear,—and someMuttered of fagots for a witch.
But King Admetus, one who had10Pure taste by right divine,Decreed his singing not too badTo hear between the cups of wine.
And so, well pleased with being soothedInto a sweet half-sleep,15Three times his kingly beard he smoothed.And made him viceroy o'er his sheep.
His words were simple words enough,And yet he used them so,That what in other mouths were rough20In his seemed musical and low.
Men called him but a shiftless youth,In whom no good they saw;And yet, unwittingly, in truth,They made his careless words their law.
25They knew not how he learned at all,For, long hour after hour,He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,Or mused upon a common flower.
It seemed the loveliness of things30Did teach him all their use,For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,He found a healing power profuse.
Men granted that his speech was wise,But, when a glance they caught35Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.
Yet after he was dead and gone,And e'en his memory dim,Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,40More full of love, because of him.
And day by day more holy grewEach spot where he had trod,Till after-poets only knewTheir first-born brother as a god.
He spoke of Burns: men rude and roughPressed round to hear the praise of oneWhose heart was made of manly, simple, stuff,As homespun as their own.5And, when he read, they forward leaned,Drinking, with eager hearts and ears,His brook-like songs whom glory never weanedFrom humble smiles and tears.Slowly there grew a tender awe,10Sunlike, o'er faces brown and hard.As if in him who read they felt and sawSome presence of the bard.It was a sight for sin and wrongAnd slavish tyranny to see,15A sight to make our faith more pure and strongIn high humanity.I thought, these men will carry hencePromptings their former life above.And something of a finer reverence20For beauty, truth, and love,God scatters love on every side,Freely among his children all,And always hearts are lying open wide,Wherein some grains may fall.25There is no wind but soweth seedsOf a more true and open life,Which burst unlocked for, into high-souled deeds,With wayside beauty rife.We find within these souls of ours30Some wild germs of a higher birth,Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowersWhose fragrance fills the earth.Within the hearts of all men lieThese promises of wider bliss,35Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,In sunny hours like this.All that hath been majesticalIn life or death, since time began,Is native in the simple heart of all,40The angel heart of man.And thus, among the untaught poor,Great deeds and feelings find a home,That cast in shadow all the golden loreOf classic Greece and Rome.45O, mighty brother-soul of man.Where'er thou art, in low or high,Thy skyey arches with, exulting spanO'er-roof infinity!All thoughts that mould the age begin50Deep down within the primitive soul,And from the many slowly upward winTo one who grasps the whole.In his wide brain the feeling deepThat struggled on the many's tongue55Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leapO'er the weak thrones of wrong.All thought begins in feeling,—wideIn the great mass its base is hid,And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,60A moveless pyramid.Nor is he far astray, who deemsThat every hope, which rises and grows broadIn the world's heart, by ordered impulse streamsFrom the great heart of God.65God wills, man hopes; in common soulsHope is but vague and undefined,Till from the poet's tongue the message rollsA blessing to his kind.Never did Poesy appear70So full of heaven to me, as whenI saw how it would pierce through pride and fear,To the lives of coarsest men.It may be glorious to writeThoughts that shall glad the two or three75High souls, like those far stars that come in sightOnce in a century;—But better far it is to speakOne simple word, which now and thenShall waken their free nature in the weak80And friendless sons of men;To write some earnest verse or lineWhich, seeking not the praise of art.Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shineIn the untutored heart.85He who doth this, in verse or prose,May be forgotten in his day,But surely shall be crowned at last with thoseWho live and speak for aye.
He spoke of Burns: men rude and roughPressed round to hear the praise of oneWhose heart was made of manly, simple, stuff,As homespun as their own.
5And, when he read, they forward leaned,Drinking, with eager hearts and ears,His brook-like songs whom glory never weanedFrom humble smiles and tears.
Slowly there grew a tender awe,10Sunlike, o'er faces brown and hard.As if in him who read they felt and sawSome presence of the bard.
It was a sight for sin and wrongAnd slavish tyranny to see,15A sight to make our faith more pure and strongIn high humanity.
I thought, these men will carry hencePromptings their former life above.And something of a finer reverence20For beauty, truth, and love,
God scatters love on every side,Freely among his children all,And always hearts are lying open wide,Wherein some grains may fall.
25There is no wind but soweth seedsOf a more true and open life,Which burst unlocked for, into high-souled deeds,With wayside beauty rife.
We find within these souls of ours30Some wild germs of a higher birth,Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowersWhose fragrance fills the earth.
Within the hearts of all men lieThese promises of wider bliss,35Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,In sunny hours like this.
All that hath been majesticalIn life or death, since time began,Is native in the simple heart of all,40The angel heart of man.
And thus, among the untaught poor,Great deeds and feelings find a home,That cast in shadow all the golden loreOf classic Greece and Rome.
45O, mighty brother-soul of man.Where'er thou art, in low or high,Thy skyey arches with, exulting spanO'er-roof infinity!
All thoughts that mould the age begin50Deep down within the primitive soul,And from the many slowly upward winTo one who grasps the whole.
In his wide brain the feeling deepThat struggled on the many's tongue55Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leapO'er the weak thrones of wrong.
All thought begins in feeling,—wideIn the great mass its base is hid,And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,60A moveless pyramid.
Nor is he far astray, who deemsThat every hope, which rises and grows broadIn the world's heart, by ordered impulse streamsFrom the great heart of God.
65God wills, man hopes; in common soulsHope is but vague and undefined,Till from the poet's tongue the message rollsA blessing to his kind.
Never did Poesy appear70So full of heaven to me, as whenI saw how it would pierce through pride and fear,To the lives of coarsest men.
It may be glorious to writeThoughts that shall glad the two or three75High souls, like those far stars that come in sightOnce in a century;—
But better far it is to speakOne simple word, which now and thenShall waken their free nature in the weak80And friendless sons of men;
To write some earnest verse or lineWhich, seeking not the praise of art.Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shineIn the untutored heart.
85He who doth this, in verse or prose,May be forgotten in his day,But surely shall be crowned at last with thoseWho live and speak for aye.
I saw the twinkle of white feet.I saw the flash of robes descending;Before her ran an influence fleet,That bowed my heart like barley bending.5As, in bare fields, the searching beesPilot to blooms beyond our finding,It led me on, by sweet degreesJoy's simple honey-cells unbinding.Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;10With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;The long-sought Secret's golden gatesOn musical hinges swung before me.I saw the brimmed bowl in her graspThrilling with godhood; like a lover15I sprang the proffered life to clasp;—The beaker fell; the luck was over.The Earth has drunk the vintage up;What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?Can Summer fill the icy cup,20Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?O spendthrift Haste! await the gods;Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;Haste scatters on unthankful sodsThe immortal gift in vain libations.25Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,And shuns the hands would seize upon her;Follow thy life, and she will sueTo pour for thee the cup of honor.
I saw the twinkle of white feet.I saw the flash of robes descending;Before her ran an influence fleet,That bowed my heart like barley bending.
5As, in bare fields, the searching beesPilot to blooms beyond our finding,It led me on, by sweet degreesJoy's simple honey-cells unbinding.
Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;10With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;The long-sought Secret's golden gatesOn musical hinges swung before me.
I saw the brimmed bowl in her graspThrilling with godhood; like a lover15I sprang the proffered life to clasp;—The beaker fell; the luck was over.
The Earth has drunk the vintage up;What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?Can Summer fill the icy cup,20Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?
O spendthrift Haste! await the gods;Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;Haste scatters on unthankful sodsThe immortal gift in vain libations.
25Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,And shuns the hands would seize upon her;Follow thy life, and she will sueTo pour for thee the cup of honor.
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,First pledge of blithesome May,Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,5High-hearted buccaneers, o'er joyed that theyAn Eldorado in the grass have found,Which not the rich earth's ample round.May match in wealth—thou art more dear to meThan all the prouder summer-blooms may be.10Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prowThrough the primeval hush of Indian seas,Nor wrinkled the lean browOf age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now15To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,Though most hearts never understandTo take it at God's value, but pass byThe offered wealth with unrewarded eye.Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;20To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;The eyes thou givest meAre in the heart, and heed not space or time:Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed beeFeels a more summer-like, warm ravishment25In the white lily's breezy tent,His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when firstFrom the dark green thy yellow circles burst.Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,—Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,30Where, as the breezes pass,The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,—Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,Or whiten in the wind, of waters blueThat from the distance sparkle through35Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,Who, from the dark old tree40Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,And I, secure in childish piety,Listened as if I heard an angel singWith news from Heaven, which he could bringFresh every day to my untainted ears,45When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.Thou art the type of those meek charitiesWhich make up half the nobleness of life,Those cheap delights the wisePluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife:50Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes,Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may giveThe morsel that may keep aliveA starving heart, and teach it to beholdSome glimpse of God where all before was cold.55Thy wingèd seeds, whereof the winds take care,Are like the words of poet and of sageWhich through the free heaven fare,And, now unheeded, in another ageTake root, and to the gladdened future bear60That witness which the present would not heed,Bringing forth many a thought and deed,And, planted safely in the eternal sky,Bloom into stars which earth is guided by.Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full65Than all thy common brethren of the ground,Wherein, were we not dull,Some words of highest wisdom might be found;Yet earnest faith from day to day may cullSome syllables, which, rightly joined, can make70A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache,And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still,Yea, nearer ever than the gates of Ill.How like a prodigal doth nature seem,When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!75Thou teachest me to deemMore sacredly of every human heart,Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleamOf Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,Did we but pay the love we owe,80And with a child's undoubting wisdom lookOn all these living pages of God's book.But let me read thy lesson right or no,Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure:Old I shall never grow85While thou each, year dost come to keep me pureWith legends of my childhood; ah, we oweWell more than half life's holiness to theseNature's first lowly influences,At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope,90In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope.
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,First pledge of blithesome May,Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,5High-hearted buccaneers, o'er joyed that theyAn Eldorado in the grass have found,Which not the rich earth's ample round.May match in wealth—thou art more dear to meThan all the prouder summer-blooms may be.
10Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prowThrough the primeval hush of Indian seas,Nor wrinkled the lean browOf age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;'T is the Spring's largess, which she scatters now15To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,Though most hearts never understandTo take it at God's value, but pass byThe offered wealth with unrewarded eye.
Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;20To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;The eyes thou givest meAre in the heart, and heed not space or time:Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed beeFeels a more summer-like, warm ravishment25In the white lily's breezy tent,His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when firstFrom the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,—Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,30Where, as the breezes pass,The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,—Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,Or whiten in the wind, of waters blueThat from the distance sparkle through35Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.
My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,Who, from the dark old tree40Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,And I, secure in childish piety,Listened as if I heard an angel singWith news from Heaven, which he could bringFresh every day to my untainted ears,45When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.
Thou art the type of those meek charitiesWhich make up half the nobleness of life,Those cheap delights the wisePluck from the dusty wayside of earth's strife:50Words of frank cheer, glances of friendly eyes,Love's smallest coin, which yet to some may giveThe morsel that may keep aliveA starving heart, and teach it to beholdSome glimpse of God where all before was cold.
55Thy wingèd seeds, whereof the winds take care,Are like the words of poet and of sageWhich through the free heaven fare,And, now unheeded, in another ageTake root, and to the gladdened future bear60That witness which the present would not heed,Bringing forth many a thought and deed,And, planted safely in the eternal sky,Bloom into stars which earth is guided by.
Full of deep love thou art, yet not more full65Than all thy common brethren of the ground,Wherein, were we not dull,Some words of highest wisdom might be found;Yet earnest faith from day to day may cullSome syllables, which, rightly joined, can make70A spell to soothe life's bitterest ache,And ope Heaven's portals, which are near us still,Yea, nearer ever than the gates of Ill.
How like a prodigal doth nature seem,When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!75Thou teachest me to deemMore sacredly of every human heart,Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleamOf Heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,Did we but pay the love we owe,80And with a child's undoubting wisdom lookOn all these living pages of God's book.
But let me read thy lesson right or no,Of one good gift from thee my heart is sure:Old I shall never grow85While thou each, year dost come to keep me pureWith legends of my childhood; ah, we oweWell more than half life's holiness to theseNature's first lowly influences,At thought of which the heart's glad doors burst ope,90In dreariest days, to welcome peace and hope.
Not as all other women areIs she that to my soul is dear;Her glorious fancies come from far,Beneath the silver evening-star,5And yet her heart is ever near.Great feelings hath she of her own,Which lesser souls may never know;God giveth them to her alone,And sweet they are as any tone10Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.Yet in herself she dwelleth not,Although no home were half so fair;No simplest duty is forgot,Life hath no dim and lowly spot15That doth not in her sunshine share.She doeth little kindnesses,Which most leave undone, or despise;For naught that sets one heart at ease,And giveth happiness or peace,20Is low-esteemèd in her eyes.She hath no scorn of common things,And, though she seem of other birth,Round us her heart entwines and clings,And patiently she folds her wings25To tread the humble paths of earth.Blessing she is: God made her so,And deeds of week-day holinessFall from her noiseless as the snow,Nor hath she ever chanced to know30That aught were easier than to bless.She is most fair, and thereuntoHer life doth rightly harmonize;Feeling or thought that was not trueNe'er made less beautiful the blue35Unclouded heaven of her eyes.She is a woman: one in whomThe spring-time of her childish yearsHath never lost its fresh perfume,Though knowing well that life hath room40For many blights and many tears.I love her with a love as stillAs a broad river's peaceful might,Which, by high tower and lowly mill,Goes wandering at its own will,45And yet doth ever flow aright.And, on its full, deep breast serene,Like quiet isles my duties lie;It flows around them and between,And makes them fresh and fair and green,50Sweet homes wherein to live and die.
Not as all other women areIs she that to my soul is dear;Her glorious fancies come from far,Beneath the silver evening-star,5And yet her heart is ever near.
Great feelings hath she of her own,Which lesser souls may never know;God giveth them to her alone,And sweet they are as any tone10Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.
Yet in herself she dwelleth not,Although no home were half so fair;No simplest duty is forgot,Life hath no dim and lowly spot15That doth not in her sunshine share.
She doeth little kindnesses,Which most leave undone, or despise;For naught that sets one heart at ease,And giveth happiness or peace,20Is low-esteemèd in her eyes.
She hath no scorn of common things,And, though she seem of other birth,Round us her heart entwines and clings,And patiently she folds her wings25To tread the humble paths of earth.
Blessing she is: God made her so,And deeds of week-day holinessFall from her noiseless as the snow,Nor hath she ever chanced to know30That aught were easier than to bless.
She is most fair, and thereuntoHer life doth rightly harmonize;Feeling or thought that was not trueNe'er made less beautiful the blue35Unclouded heaven of her eyes.
She is a woman: one in whomThe spring-time of her childish yearsHath never lost its fresh perfume,Though knowing well that life hath room40For many blights and many tears.
I love her with a love as stillAs a broad river's peaceful might,Which, by high tower and lowly mill,Goes wandering at its own will,45And yet doth ever flow aright.
And, on its full, deep breast serene,Like quiet isles my duties lie;It flows around them and between,And makes them fresh and fair and green,50Sweet homes wherein to live and die.
I had a little daughter,And she was given to meTo lead me gently backwardTo the Heavenly Father's knee,5That I, by the force of nature,Might in some dim wise divineThe depth of his infinite patienceTo this wayward soul of mine.I know not how others saw her,10But to me she was wholly fair,And the light of the heaven she came fromStill lingered and gleamed in her hair;For it was as wavy and golden,And as many changes took,15As the shadows of sun-gilt ripplesOn the yellow bed of a brook.To what can I liken her smilingUpon me, her kneeling lover?How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,20And dimpled her wholly over,Till her outstretched hands smiled also,And I almost seemed to seeThe very heart of her motherSending sun through her veins to me!25She had been with us scarce a twelve-month,And it hardly seemed a day,When a troop of wandering angelsStole my little daughter away;Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari30But loosed the hampering strings,And when they had opened her cage-door,My little bird used her wings.But they left in her stead a changeling,A little angel child,35That seems like her bud in full blossom,And smiles as she never smiled:When I wake in the morning, I see itWhere she always used to lie,And I feel as weak as a violet40Alone 'neath the awful sky.As weak, yet as trustful also;For the whole year long I seeAll the wonders of faithful NatureStill worked for the love of me;45Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,Rain falls, suns rise and set,Earth whirls, and all but to prosperA poor little violet.This child is not mine as the first was,50I cannot sing it to rest,I cannot lift it up fatherlyAnd bliss it upon my breast;Yet it lies in my little one's cradleAnd sits in my little one's chair,55And the light of the heaven she's gone toTransfigures its golden hair.
I had a little daughter,And she was given to meTo lead me gently backwardTo the Heavenly Father's knee,5That I, by the force of nature,Might in some dim wise divineThe depth of his infinite patienceTo this wayward soul of mine.
I know not how others saw her,10But to me she was wholly fair,And the light of the heaven she came fromStill lingered and gleamed in her hair;For it was as wavy and golden,And as many changes took,15As the shadows of sun-gilt ripplesOn the yellow bed of a brook.
To what can I liken her smilingUpon me, her kneeling lover?How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,20And dimpled her wholly over,Till her outstretched hands smiled also,And I almost seemed to seeThe very heart of her motherSending sun through her veins to me!
25She had been with us scarce a twelve-month,And it hardly seemed a day,When a troop of wandering angelsStole my little daughter away;Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari30But loosed the hampering strings,And when they had opened her cage-door,My little bird used her wings.
But they left in her stead a changeling,A little angel child,35That seems like her bud in full blossom,And smiles as she never smiled:When I wake in the morning, I see itWhere she always used to lie,And I feel as weak as a violet40Alone 'neath the awful sky.
As weak, yet as trustful also;For the whole year long I seeAll the wonders of faithful NatureStill worked for the love of me;45Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,Rain falls, suns rise and set,Earth whirls, and all but to prosperA poor little violet.
This child is not mine as the first was,50I cannot sing it to rest,I cannot lift it up fatherlyAnd bliss it upon my breast;Yet it lies in my little one's cradleAnd sits in my little one's chair,55And the light of the heaven she's gone toTransfigures its golden hair.
What visionary tints the year puts on,When falling leaves falter through motionless airOr numbly cling and shiver to be gone!How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare,5As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fillsThe bowl between me and those distant-hills,And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!No more the landscape holds its wealth apart,Making me poorer in my poverty,10But mingles with my senses and my heart;My own projected spirit seems to meIn her own reverie the world to steep;'T is she that waves to sympathetic sleep,Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree.15How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees,Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms,Each into each, the hazy distances!The softened season all the landscape charms;Those hills, my native village that embay,20In waves of dreamier purple roll away,And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.Far distant sounds the hidden chickadeeClose at my side; far distant sound the leaves;The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory25Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheavesOf wheat and barley wavered in the eyeOf Boaz as the maiden's glow went by,So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives.The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn,30Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates,Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne,Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits;Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails;Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails,35With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits.The sobered robin, hunger-silent now,Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer;The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's bough,Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear,40Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a boundWhisks to his winding fastness underground;The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere.O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadowsDrowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call45Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows;The single crow a single caw lets fall;And all around me every bush and treeSays Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be,Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all.50The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees,Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves,And hints at her foregone gentilitiesWith some saved relics of her wealth of leaves;The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on,55Glares red as blood across the sinking sun,As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves.He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt,Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites,Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt,60With distant eye broods over other sights,Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace,The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace,And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights.The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost,65And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry,After the first betrayal of the frost,Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky:The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold,To the faint Summer, beggared now and old,70Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye.The ash her purple drops forgivinglyAnd sadly, breaking not the general hush:The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea,Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush;75All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blazeOf bushes low, as when, on cloudy days,Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush.O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone,Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine80Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stoneIs massed to one soft gray by lichens fine,The tangled blackberry, crossed and re-crossed, weavesA prickly network of ensanguined leaves;Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine.85Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary,Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough-boy's foot,Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye,Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot,The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires,90Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires;In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute.Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky,Now hid by rounded apple-trees between,Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by,95Now flickering golden through a woodland screen,Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond,A silver circle like an inland pond—Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green.Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight100Who cannot in their various incomes share,From every season drawn, of shade and light,Who sees in them but levels brown and bare;Each change of storm or sunshine scatters freeOn them its largess of variety,105For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare.In spring they lie one broad expanse of green,O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet:Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen,There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet;110And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd,As if the silent shadow of a cloudHung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet.All round, upon the river's slippery edge,Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide,115Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge;Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide,Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun,And the stiff banks in eddies melt and runOf dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide.120In summer 't is a blithesome sight to see,As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass,The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee,Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass;Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring,125Their nooning take, while one begins to singA stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass.Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink.Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stopsJust ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink,130And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops,A decorous bird of business, who providesFor his brown mate and fledglings six besides,And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops.Another change subdues them in the fall,135But saddens not; they still show merrier tints,Though sober russet seems to cover all;When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints,Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across,Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss,140As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints.Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest,Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill,While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west,Glow opposite;—the marshes drink their fill145And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fadeThrough pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade,Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill.Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts,Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates,150And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts,While firmer ice the eager boy awaits,Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire,And until bedtime plays with his desire,Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;—155Then, every morn, the river's banks shine brightWith smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail,By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night,'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail,Giving a pretty emblem of the day160When guiltier arms in light shall melt away,And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail.And now those waterfalls the ebbing riverTwice every day creates on either sideTinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver165In grass-arched channels to the sun denied;High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow,The silvered flats gleam frostily below,Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide.But crowned in turn by vying seasons three,170Their winter halo hath a fuller ring;This glory seems to rest immovably,—The others were too fleet and vanishing;When the hid tide is at its highest flow,O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow175With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything.The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind,As pale as formal candles lit by day;Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind;The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play,180Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee,White crests as of some just enchanted sea,Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway.But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant.From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains185Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt,And the roused Charles remembers in his veinsOld Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost,That tyrannous silence on the shores is tostIn dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns.190Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device,With leaden pools between or gullies bare,The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice;No life, no sound, to break the grim despair,Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff195Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff,Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there.But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenesTo that whose pastoral calm before me lies:Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes;200The early evening with her misty dyesSmooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh,Relieves the distant with her cooler sky,And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes.There gleams my native village, dear to me,205Though higher change's waves each day are seen,Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history,Sanding with houses the diminished green;There, in red brick, which softening time defies,Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories;—210How with my life knit up is every well-known scene!Flow on, dear river! not alone you flowTo outward sight, and through your marshes wind;Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago,Your twin flows silent through my world of mind:215Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray!Before my inner sight ye stretch away,And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind.Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell,Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise,220Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell,Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise,Where dust and mud the equal year divide,There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died,Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze.225Virgilium vidi tantum,—I have seenBut as a boy, who looks alike on all,That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien.Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;—Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame230That thither many times the Painter came;—One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall.Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,—Our only sure possession is the past;The village blacksmith died a month ago,235And dim to me the forge's roaring blast;Soon fire-new medievals we shall seeOust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree,And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and vast.How many times, prouder than king on throne,240Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's,Panting have I the creaky bellows blown,And watched the pent volcano's red increase,Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought downBy that hard arm voluminous and brown,245From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees.Dear native town! whose choking elms each yearWith eddying dust before their time turn gray,Pining for rain,—to me thy dust is dear;It glorifies the eve of summer day,250And when the westering sun half sunken burns,The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns,The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away.So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few,The six old willows at the causey's end255(Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew),Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send,Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread,Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red,Past which, in one bright trail, the hang-bird's flashes blend.260Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er,Beneath the awarded crown of victory,Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer;Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three,Yetcollegisse juvat, I am glad265That here what colleging was mine I had,—It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee!Nearer art thou than simply native earth,My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie;A closer claim thy soil may well put forth,270Something of kindred more than sympathy;For in thy bounds I reverently laid awayThat blinding anguish of forsaken clay,That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky.That portion of my life more choice to me275(Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole)Than all the imperfect residue can be;—The Artist saw his statue of the soulWas perfect; so, with one regretful stroke,The earthen model into fragments broke,280And without her the impoverished seasons roll.
What visionary tints the year puts on,When falling leaves falter through motionless airOr numbly cling and shiver to be gone!How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare,5As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fillsThe bowl between me and those distant-hills,And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!
No more the landscape holds its wealth apart,Making me poorer in my poverty,10But mingles with my senses and my heart;My own projected spirit seems to meIn her own reverie the world to steep;'T is she that waves to sympathetic sleep,Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree.
15How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees,Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms,Each into each, the hazy distances!The softened season all the landscape charms;Those hills, my native village that embay,20In waves of dreamier purple roll away,And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.
Far distant sounds the hidden chickadeeClose at my side; far distant sound the leaves;The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory25Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheavesOf wheat and barley wavered in the eyeOf Boaz as the maiden's glow went by,So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives.
The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn,30Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates,Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne,Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits;Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails;Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails,35With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits.
The sobered robin, hunger-silent now,Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer;The chipmunk, on the shingly shagbark's bough,Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear,40Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, with a boundWhisks to his winding fastness underground;The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere.
O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadowsDrowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call45Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows;The single crow a single caw lets fall;And all around me every bush and treeSays Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be,Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all.
50The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees,Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves,And hints at her foregone gentilitiesWith some saved relics of her wealth of leaves;The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on,55Glares red as blood across the sinking sun,As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves.
He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt,Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites,Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt,60With distant eye broods over other sights,Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace,The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace,And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights.
The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost,65And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry,After the first betrayal of the frost,Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky:The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold,To the faint Summer, beggared now and old,70Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye.
The ash her purple drops forgivinglyAnd sadly, breaking not the general hush:The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea,Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush;75All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blazeOf bushes low, as when, on cloudy days,Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush.
O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone,Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine80Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stoneIs massed to one soft gray by lichens fine,The tangled blackberry, crossed and re-crossed, weavesA prickly network of ensanguined leaves;Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine.
85Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary,Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the plough-boy's foot,Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye,Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot,The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires,90Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires;In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute.
Below, the Charles, a stripe of nether sky,Now hid by rounded apple-trees between,Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by,95Now flickering golden through a woodland screen,Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond,A silver circle like an inland pond—Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green.
Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight100Who cannot in their various incomes share,From every season drawn, of shade and light,Who sees in them but levels brown and bare;Each change of storm or sunshine scatters freeOn them its largess of variety,105For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare.
In spring they lie one broad expanse of green,O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet:Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen,There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet;110And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd,As if the silent shadow of a cloudHung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet.
All round, upon the river's slippery edge,Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide,115Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge;Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide,Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun,And the stiff banks in eddies melt and runOf dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide.
120In summer 't is a blithesome sight to see,As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass,The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee,Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass;Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring,125Their nooning take, while one begins to singA stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass.
Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink.Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stopsJust ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink,130And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops,A decorous bird of business, who providesFor his brown mate and fledglings six besides,And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops.
Another change subdues them in the fall,135But saddens not; they still show merrier tints,Though sober russet seems to cover all;When the first sunshine through their dew-drops glints,Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across,Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss,140As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints.
Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest,Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill,While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west,Glow opposite;—the marshes drink their fill145And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fadeThrough pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade,Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill.
Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts,Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates,150And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts,While firmer ice the eager boy awaits,Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire,And until bedtime plays with his desire,Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;—
155Then, every morn, the river's banks shine brightWith smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail,By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night,'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail,Giving a pretty emblem of the day160When guiltier arms in light shall melt away,And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail.
And now those waterfalls the ebbing riverTwice every day creates on either sideTinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver165In grass-arched channels to the sun denied;High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow,The silvered flats gleam frostily below,Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide.
But crowned in turn by vying seasons three,170Their winter halo hath a fuller ring;This glory seems to rest immovably,—The others were too fleet and vanishing;When the hid tide is at its highest flow,O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow175With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything.
The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind,As pale as formal candles lit by day;Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind;The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play,180Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee,White crests as of some just enchanted sea,Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway.
But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant.From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains185Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt,And the roused Charles remembers in his veinsOld Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost,That tyrannous silence on the shores is tostIn dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns.
190Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device,With leaden pools between or gullies bare,The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice;No life, no sound, to break the grim despair,Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff195Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff,Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there.
But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenesTo that whose pastoral calm before me lies:Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes;200The early evening with her misty dyesSmooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh,Relieves the distant with her cooler sky,And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes.
There gleams my native village, dear to me,205Though higher change's waves each day are seen,Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history,Sanding with houses the diminished green;There, in red brick, which softening time defies,Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories;—210How with my life knit up is every well-known scene!
Flow on, dear river! not alone you flowTo outward sight, and through your marshes wind;Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago,Your twin flows silent through my world of mind:215Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray!Before my inner sight ye stretch away,And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind.
Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell,Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise,220Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell,Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise,Where dust and mud the equal year divide,There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died,Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze.
225Virgilium vidi tantum,—I have seenBut as a boy, who looks alike on all,That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien.Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;—Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame230That thither many times the Painter came;—One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall.
Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,—Our only sure possession is the past;The village blacksmith died a month ago,235And dim to me the forge's roaring blast;Soon fire-new medievals we shall seeOust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree,And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and vast.
How many times, prouder than king on throne,240Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's,Panting have I the creaky bellows blown,And watched the pent volcano's red increase,Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought downBy that hard arm voluminous and brown,245From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees.
Dear native town! whose choking elms each yearWith eddying dust before their time turn gray,Pining for rain,—to me thy dust is dear;It glorifies the eve of summer day,250And when the westering sun half sunken burns,The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns,The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away.
So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few,The six old willows at the causey's end255(Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew),Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send,Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread,Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red,Past which, in one bright trail, the hang-bird's flashes blend.
260Yes, dearer far thy dust than all that e'er,Beneath the awarded crown of victory,Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer;Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three,Yetcollegisse juvat, I am glad265That here what colleging was mine I had,—It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee!
Nearer art thou than simply native earth,My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie;A closer claim thy soil may well put forth,270Something of kindred more than sympathy;For in thy bounds I reverently laid awayThat blinding anguish of forsaken clay,That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky.
That portion of my life more choice to me275(Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole)Than all the imperfect residue can be;—The Artist saw his statue of the soulWas perfect; so, with one regretful stroke,The earthen model into fragments broke,280And without her the impoverished seasons roll.