The stars are all watching;God's angel is catchingAt thy skirts in the darkness deep!Gold hinges grating,The mighty dead waiting,Why dost thou sleep?
Years without number,Ages of slumber,Stiff in the track of the infinite One!Dead, can I think it?Dropt like a trinket,A thing whose uses are done!
White wings are crossing,Glad waves are tossing,The earth flames out in crimson and greenSpring is appearing,Summer is nearing—Where hast thou been?
Down in some cavern,Death's sleepy tavern,Housing, carousing with spectres of night?There is my right hand!Grasp it full tight andSpring to the light.
Wonder, oh, wonder!How the life-thunderBursts on his ear in horror and dread!Happy shapes meet him;Heaven and earth greet him:Life from the dead!
Seek not my name—it doth no virtue bear;Seek, seek thine own primeval name to find—The name God called when thy ideal fairArose in deeps of the eternal mind.
When that thou findest, thou art straight a lordOf time and space—art heir of all things grown;And not my name, poor, earthly label-word,But I myself thenceforward am thine own.
Thou hearest not? Or hearest as a manWho hears the muttering of a foolish spell?My very shadow would feel strange and wanIn thy abode:—I sayNo, andFarewell.
Thou understandest? Then it is enough;No shadow-deputy shall mock my friend;We walk the same path, over smooth and rough,To meet ere long at the unending end.
Dear friend, you love the poet's song,And here is one for your regard.You know the "melancholy bard,"Whose grief is wise as well as strong;
Already something understandFor whom he mourns and what he sings,And how he wakes with golden stringsThe echoes of "the silent land;"
How, restless, faint, and worn with grief,Yet loving all and hoping all,He gazes where the shadows fall,And finds in darkness some relief;
And how he sends his cries across,His cries for him that comes no more,Till one might think that silent shoreFull of the burden of his loss;
And how there comes sublimer cheer—Not darkness solacing sad eyes,Not the wild joy of mournful cries,But light that makes his spirit clear;
How, while he gazes, something high,Something of Heaven has fallen on him,His distance and his future dimBroken into a dawning sky!
Something of this, dear friend, you know;And will you take the book from meThat holds this mournful melody,And softens grief to sadness so?
Perhaps it scarcely suits the dayOf joyful hopes and memories clear,When love should have no thought of fear,And only smiles be round your way;
Yet from the mystery and the gloom,From tempted faith and conquering trust,From spirit stronger than the dust,And love that looks beyond the tomb,
What can there be but good to win,But hope for life, but love for all,But strength whatever may befall?—So for the year that you begin,
For all the years that follow thisWhile a long happy life endures,This hope, this love, this strength be yours,And afterwards a larger bliss!
May nothing in this mournful songToo much take off your thoughts from time,For joy should fill your vernal prime,And peace your summer mild and long.
And may his love who can restoreAll losses, give all new good things,Like loving eyes and sheltering wingsBe round us all for evermore!
They are blind, and they are dead:We will wake them as we go;There are words have not been said,There are sounds they do not know:We will pipe and we will sing—With the Music and the SpringSet their hearts a wondering!
They are tired of what is old,We will give it voices new;For the half hath not been toldOf the Beautiful and True.Drowsy eyelids shut and sleeping!Heavy eyes oppressed with weeping!Flashes through the lashes leaping!
Ye that have a pleasant voice,Hither come without delay;Ye will never have a choiceLike to that ye have to-day:Round the wide world we will go,Singing through the frost and snowTill the daisies are in blow.
Ye that cannot pipe or sing,Ye must also come with speed;Ye must come, and with you bringWeighty word and weightier deed—Helping hands and loving eyes!These will make them truly wise—Then will be our Paradise.
March 27, 1852.
When the storm was proudest,And the wind was loudest,I heard the hollow caverns drinking down below;When the stars were bright,And the ground was white,I heard the grasses springing underneath the snow.
Many voices spake—The river to the lake,And the iron-ribbed sky was talking to the sea;And every starry sparkMade music with the dark,And said how bright and beautiful everything must be.
When the sun was setting,All the clouds were gettingBeautiful and silvery in the rising moon;Beneath the leafless treesWrangling in the breeze,I could hardly see them for the leaves of June.
When the day had ended,And the night descended,I heard the sound of streams that I heard not through the day,And every peak afarWas ready for a star,And they climbed and rolled around until the morning gray.
Then slumber soft and holyCame down upon me slowly,And I went I know not whither, and I lived I know not how;My glory had been banished,For when I woke it vanished;But I waited on its coming, and I am waiting now.
"Which of you, knight or squire, will darePlunge into yonder gulf?A golden beaker I fling in it—there!The black mouth swallows it like a wolf!Who brings me the cup again, whoever,It is his own—he may keep it for ever!"
'Tis the king who speaks. He flings from the browOf the cliff, that, rugged and steep,Hangs out o'er the endless sea below,The cup in the whirlpool's howling heap:—"Again I ask, what hero will follow,What hero plunge into yon dark hollow?"
The knights and the squires the king aboutHear, and dumbly stareInto the wild sea's tumbling rout;To win the beaker they hardly care!The king, for the third time, round him glaring—"Not one soul of you has the daring?"
Speechless all, as before, they stand.Then a squire, young, gentle, gay,Steps from his comrades' shrinking band,Flinging his girdle and cloak away;And all the women and men that surroundedGazed on the noble youth, astounded.
And when he stepped to the rock's rough browAnd looked down on the gulf so black,The waters which it had swallowed, nowCharybdis bellowing rendered back;And, with a roar as of distant thunder,Foaming they burst from the dark lap under.
It wallows, seethes, hisses in raging rout,As when water wrestles with fire,Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout;And flood upon flood keeps mounting higher:It will never its endless coil unravel,As the sea with another sea were in travail!
But, at last, slow sinks the writhing spasm,And, black through the foaming white,Downward gapes a yawning chasm—Bottomless, cloven to hell's wide night;And, sucked up, see the billows roaringDown through the whirling funnel pouring!
Then in haste, ere the out-rage return again,The youth to his God doth pray,And—ascends a cry of horror and pain!—Already the vortex hath swept him away,And o'er the bold swimmer, in darkness eternal,Close the great jaws of the gulf infernal!
Then the water above grows smooth as glass,While, below, dull roarings ply;And trembling they hear the murmur pass—"High-hearted youth, farewell, good-bye!"And hollower still comes the howl affraying,Till their hearts are sick with the frightful delaying.
If the crown itself thou in should fling,And say, "Who back with it hiesHimself shall wear it, and shall be king,"I would not covet the precious prize!What Ocean hides in that howling hell of itLive soul will never come back to tell of it!
Ships many, caught in that whirling surge,Shot sheer to their dismal doom:Keel and mast only did ever emerge,Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!—Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer,Comes its roaring nearer and ever nearer!
It wallows, seethes, hisses, in raging rout,As when water wrestles with fire,Till to heaven the yeasty tongues they spout,Wave upon wave's back mounting higher;And as with the grumble of distant thunder,Bellowing it bursts from the dark lap under.
And, see, from its bosom, flowing dark,Something heave up, swan-white!An arm and a shining neck they mark,And it rows with never relaxing might!It is he! and high his golden captureHis left hand waves in success's rapture!
With long deep breaths his path he ploughed,And he hailed the heavenly day;Jubilant shouted the gazing crowd,"He lives! he is there! he broke away!Out of the grave, the whirlpool uproarious,The hero hath rescued his life victorious!"
He comes; they surround him with shouts of glee;At the king's feet he sinks on the sod,And hands him the beaker upon his knee;To his lovely daughter the king gives a nod:She fills it brim-full of wine sparkling and playing,And then to the king the youth turned him saying:
"Long live the king!—Well doth he fareWho breathes in this rosy light,But, ah, it is horrible down there!And man must not tempt the heavenly Might,Or ever seek, with prying unwholesome,What he graciously covers with darkness dolesome!
"It tore me down with a headlong swing;Then a shaft in a rock outpours,Wild-rushing against me, a torrent spring;It seized me, the double stream's raging force,And like a top, with giddy twisting,It spun me round—there was no resisting!
"Then God did show me, sore beseechingIn deepest, frightfullest need,Up from the bottom a rock-ledge reaching—At it I caught, and from death was freed!And, behold, on spiked corals the beaker suspended,Which had else to the very abyss descended!
"For below me it lay yet mountain-deepThe purply darksome maw;And though to the ear it was dead asleep,The ghasted eye, down staring, sawHow with dragons, lizards, salamanders crawling,The hell-jaws horrible were sprawling.
"Black swarming in medley miscreate,In masses lumped hideously,Wallowed the conger, the thorny skate,The lobster's grisly deformity;And bared its teeth with cruel sheen aTerrible shark, the sea's hyena.
"And there I hung, and shuddering knewThat human help was none;One thinking soul mid the horrid crew,In the ghastly solitude I was alone—Deeper than man's speech ever sounded,By the waste sea's dismal monsters surrounded.
"I thought and shivered. Then something crept near,Moved at once a hundred joints!Now it will have me!—Frantic with fearI lost my grasp of the coral points!Away the whirl in its raging tore me,But it was my salvation, and upward bore me!"
The king at the tale is filled with amaze:—"The beaker, well won, is thine;And this ring I will give thee too," he says,"Precious with gems that are more than fine,If thou dive yet once, and bring me the story—What thou sawst in the sea's lowest repertory."
His daughter she hears with a tender dismay,And her words sweet-suasive plead:"Father, enough of this cruel play!For you he has done an unheard-of deed!And can you not master your soul's desire,'Tis the knights' turn now to disgrace the squire!"
The king he snatches and hurls the cupInto the swirling pool:—"If thou bring me once more that beaker up,My best knight I hold thee, most worshipful;And this very day to thy home thou shall lead herWho there for thee stands such a pitying pleader."
A heavenly passion his being invades,His eyes dart a lightning ray;He sees on her beauty the flushing shades,He sees her grow pallid and sink away!Determination thorough him flashes,And downward for life or for death he dashes!
They hear the dull roar!—it is turning again,Its herald the thunderous brawl!Downward they bend with loving strain:They come! they are coming, the waters all!—They rush up!—they rush down!—up, down, for ever!The youth again bring they never.
Through the unchanging heaven, as ye have sped,Speed onward still, a strange wild company,Fleet children of the waters! Glorious ye,Whether the sun lift up his shining head,High throned at noontide and establishedAmong the shifting pillars, or we seeThe sable ghosts of air sleep mournfullyAgainst the sunlight, passionless and dead!Take thus a glory, oh thou higher Sun,From all the cloudy labour of man's hand—Whether the quickening nations rise and run,Or in the market-place we idly standCasting huge shadows over these thy plains—Even thence, O God, draw thy rich gifts of rains.
Rich is the fancy which can double backAll seeming forms, and from cold iciclesBuild up high glittering palaces where dwellsSummer perfection, moulding all this wrackTo spirit symmetry, and doth not lackThe power to hear amidst the funeral bellsThe eternal heart's wind-melody which swellsIn whirlwind flashes all along its track!So hath the sun made all the winter mineWith gardens springing round me fresh and fair;On hidden leaves uncounted jewels shine;I live with forms of beauty everywhere,Peopling the crumbling waste and icy poolWith sights and sounds of life most beautiful.
Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains;A wildered maze of comets and of suns;The blood of changeless God that ever runsWith quick diastole up the immortal veins;A phantom host that moves and works in chains;A monstrous fiction, which, collapsing, stunsThe mind to stupor and amaze at once;A tragedy which that man best explainsWho rushes blindly on his wild careerWith trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,But is extinguished like a falling star;—Such will at times this life appear to meUntil I learn to read more perfectly.
HOM. IL. v. 403.
If thou art tempted by a thought of ill,Crave not too soon for victory, nor deemThou art a coward if thy safety seemTo spring too little from a righteous will;For there is nightmare on thee, nor untilThy soul hath caught the morning's early gleamSeek thou to analyze the monstrous dreamBy painful introversion; rather fillThine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth;But see thou cherish higher hope than this,—hope hereafter that thou shall be fitCalm-eyed to face distortion, and to sitTransparent among other forms of youthWho own no impulse save to God and bliss.
And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to knowThee standing sadly by me like a ghost?I am perplexed with thee that thou shouldst costThis earth another turning! All aglowThou shouldst have reached me, with a purple showAlong far mountain-tops! and I would postOver the breadth of seas, though I were lostIn the hot phantom-chase for life, if soThou earnest ever with this numbing senseOf chilly distance and unlovely light,Waking this gnawing soul anew to fightWith its perpetual load: I drive thee hence!I have another mountain-range from whenceBursteth a sun unutterably bright!
"And yet it moves!" Ah, Truth, where wert thou thenWhen all for thee they racked each piteous limb?Wert thou in heaven, and busy with thy hymnWhen those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen?Art thou a phantom that deceives! menTo their undoing? or dost thou watch himPale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim?And wilt thou ever speak to him again?"It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak!That was a hideous dream! I'll cry aloudHow the green bulk wheels sunward day by day!Ah me! ah me! perchance my heart was proudThat I alone should know that word to speak!And now, sweet Truth, shine upon these, I pray."
If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed,Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.Others will live in peace, and thou be fainTo bargain with despair, and in thy needTo make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.These palaces, for thee they stand in vain;Thine is a ruinous hut, and oft the rainShall drench thee in the midnight; yea, the speedOf earth outstrip thee, pilgrim, while thy feetMove slowly up the heights. Yet will there comeThrough the time-rents about thy moving cell,Shot from the Truth's own bow, and flaming sweet,An arrow for despair, and oft the humOf far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.
Speak, Prophet of the Lord! We may not startTo find thee with us in thine ancient dress,Haggard and pale from some bleak wilderness,Empty of all save God and thy loud heart,Nor with like rugged message quick to dartInto the hideous fiction mean and base;But yet, O prophet man, we need not lessBut more of earnest, though it is thy partTo deal in other words, if thou wouldst smiteThe living Mammon, seated, not as thenIn bestial quiescence grimly dight,Butrobed as priest, and honoured of good menYetthrice as much an idol-god as whenHe stared at his own feet from morn to night.
From out a windy cleft there comes a gazeOf eyes unearthly, which go to and froUpon the people's tumult, for belowThe nations smite each other: no amazeTroubles their liquid rolling, or affraysTheir deep-set contemplation; steadily glowThose ever holier eyeballs, for they growLiker unto the eyes of one that prays.And if those clasped hands tremble, comes a powerAs of the might of worlds, and they are holdenBlessing above us in the sunrise golden;And they will be uplifted till that hourOf terrible rolling which shall rise and shakeThis conscious nightmare from us, and we wake.
One do I see and twelve; but second thereMethinks I know thee, thou beloved one;Not from thy nobler port, for there are noneMore quiet-featured: some there are who bearTheir message on their brows, while others wearA look of large commission, nor will shunThe fiery trial, so their work is done;But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer—Unearthly are they both; and so thy lipsSeem like the porches of the spirit land;For thou hast laid a mighty treasure byUnlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eyeBurns with a vision and apocalypseThy own sweet soul can hardly understand.
A Boanerges too! Upon my heartIt lay a heavy hour: features like thineShould glow with other message than the shineOf the earth-burrowing levin, and the startThat cleaveth horrid gulfs! Awful and swartA moment stoodest thou, but less divine—Brawny and clad in ruin—till with mineThy heart made answering signals, and apartBeamed forth thy two rapt eyeballs doubly clearAnd twice as strong because thou didst thy duty,And, though affianced to immortal Beauty,Hiddest not weakly underneath her veilThe pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale:Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear!
There is not any weed but hath its shower,There is not any pool but hath its star;And black and muddy though the waters areWe may not miss the glory of a flower,And winter moons will give them magic powerTo spin in cylinders of diamond spar;And everything hath beauty near and far,And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour!And I, when I encounter on my roadA human soul that looketh black and grim,Shall I more ceremonious be than God?Shall I refuse to watch one hour with himWho once beside our deepest woe did budA patient watching flower about the brim?
'Tis not the violent hands alone that bringThe curse, the ravage, and the downward doom,Although to these full oft the yawning tombOwes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting,A more immortal agony will clingTo the half fashioned sin which would assumeFair Virtue's garb; the eye that sows the gloomWith quiet seeds of Death henceforth to springWhat time the sun of passion burning fierceBreaks through the kindly cloud of circumstance;The bitter word, and the unkindly glance,The crust and canker coming with the years,Are liker Death than arrows and the lanceWhich through the living heart at once doth pierce.
I pray you, all ye men who put your trustIn moulds and systems and well-tackled gear,Holding that Nature lives from year to yearIn one continual round because she must—Set me not down, I pray you, in the dustOf all these centuries, like a pot of beer—A pewter-pot disconsolately clear,Which holds a potful, as is right and just!I will grow clamorous—by the rood, I will,If thus ye use me like a pewter pot!Good friend, thou art a toper and a sot—will not be the lead to hold thy swill,Nor any lead: I will arise and spillThy silly beverage—spill it piping hot!
Nature, to him no message dost thou bearWho in thy beauty findeth not the powerTo gird himself more strongly for the hourOf night and darkness. Oh, what colours rareThe woods, the valleys, and the mountains wearTo him who knows thy secret, and, in shower,And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bowerWhere he may rest until the heavens are fair!Not with the rest of slumber, but the tranceOf onward movement steady and serene,Where oft, in struggle and in contest keen,His eyes will opened be, and all the danceOf life break on him, and a wide expanseRoll upward through the void, sunny and green.
Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see!For in a season of such wretched weatherI thought that thou hadst left us altogether,Although I could not choose but fancy theeSkulking about the hill-tops, whence the gleeOf thy blue laughter peeped at times, or ratherThy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whetherThou shouldst be seen in such a companyOf ugly runaways, unshapely heapsOf ruffian vapour, broken from restraintOf their slim prison in the ocean deeps.But yet I may not chide: fall to thy books—Fall to immediately without complaint—There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.
Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer!We hold thee very dear, as well we may:It is the kernel of the year to-day—All hail to thee! thou art a welcome comer!If every insect were a fairy drummer,And I a fifer that could deftly play,We'd give the old Earth such a roundelayThat she would cast all thought of labour from her.—Ah! what is this upon my window-pane?Some sulky, drooping cloud comes pouting up,Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!—Well, I will let that idle fancy drop!Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain!And all the earth shines like a silver cup!
Whence do ye come, ye creatures? Each of youIs perfect as an angel! wings and eyesStupendous in their beauty—gorgeous dyesIn feathery fields of purple and of blue!Would God I saw a moment as ye do!I would become a molecule in size,Rest with you, hum with you, or slanting riseAlong your one dear sunbeam, could I viewThe pearly secret which each tiny fly—Each tiny fly that hums and bobs and stirsHides in its little breast eternallyFrom you, ye prickly, grim philosophersWith all your theories that sound so high:Hark to the buz a moment, my good sirs!
Here stands a giant stone from whose far topComes down the sounding water: let me gazeTill every sense of man and human waysIs wrecked and quenched for ever, and I dropInto the whirl of time, and without stopPass downward thus! Again my eyes I raiseTo thee, dark rock; and through the mist and hazeMy strength returns when I behold thy propGleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack.Surely thy strength is human, and like meThou bearest loads of thunder on thy back!And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black—A breezy tuft of grass which I can seeWaving serenely from a sunlit crack!
Above my head the great pine-branches tower;Backwards and forwards each to the other bends,Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wendsLike a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power:Hark to the patter of the coming shower!Let me be silent while the Almighty sendsHis thunder-word along—but when it endsI will arise and fashion from the hourWords of stupendous import, fit to guardHigh thoughts and purposes, which I may wave,When the temptation cometh close and hard,Like fiery brands betwixt me and the graveOf meaner things—to which I am a slave,If evermore I keep not watch and ward.
I do remember how, when very young,I saw the great sea first, and heard its swellAs I drew nearer, caught within the spellOf its vast size and its mysterious tongue.How the floor trembled, and the dark boat swungWith a man in it, and a great wave fellWithin a stone's cast! Words may never tellThe passion of the moment, when I flungAll childish records by, and felt ariseA thing that died no more! An awful powerI claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes,Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.—The noise of waters soundeth to this hourWhen I look seaward through the quiet skies.
Hears't thou the dash of water, loud and hoarse,With its perpetual tidings upward climb,Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!For not in vain from its portentous sourceThy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force,But from thine ice-toothed caverns, dark as time,At last thou issuest, dancing to the rimeOf thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy courseLies straight before thee as the arrow flies!Right to the ocean-plains away, away!Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyesAre ruffled for thy coming, and the grayOf all her glittering borders flashes highAgainst the glittering rocks!—oh, haste, and fly!
Lie down upon the ground, thou hopeless one!Press thy face in the grass, and do not speak.Dost feel the green globe whirl? Seven times a weekClimbeth she out of darkness to the sun,Which is her God; seven times she doth not shunAwful eclipse, laying her patient cheekUpon a pillow ghost-beset with shriekOf voices utterless, which rave and runThrough all the star-penumbra, craving lightAnd tidings of the dawn from East and West.Calmly she sleepeth, and her sleep is blestWith heavenly visions, and the joy of NightTreading aloft with moons; nor hath she frightThough cloudy tempests beat upon her breast.
Oft, as I rest in quiet peace, am IThrust out at sudden doors, and madly drivenThrough desert solitudes, and thunder-rivenBlack passages which have not any sky:The scourge is on me now, with all the cryOf ancient life that hath with murder striven.How many an anguish hath gone up to heaven,How many a hand in prayer been lifted highWhen the black fate came onward with the rushOf whirlwind, avalanche, or fiery spume!Even at my feet is cleft a shivering tombBeneath the waves; or else, with solemn hushThe graveyard opens, and I feel a crushAs if we were all huddled in one doom!
Comes there, O Earth, no breathing time for thee,No pause upon thy many-chequered lands?Now resting on my bed with listless handsI mourn thee resting not. ContinuallyHear I the plashing borders of the seaAnswer each other from the rocks and sands!Troop all the rivers seawards; nothing stands,But with strange noises hasteth terribly!Loam-eared hyenas go a moaning by;Howls to each other all the bloody crewOf Afric's tigers! but, O men, from youComes this perpetual sound more loud and highThan aught that vexes air! I hear the cryOf infant generations rising too!
I have a fellowship with every shadeOf changing nature: with the tempest hourMy soul goes forth to claim her early dowerOf living princedom; and her wings have staidAmidst the wildest uproar undismayed!Yet she hath often owned a better power,And blessed the gentle coming of the shower,The speechless majesty of love arrayedIn lowly virtue, under which disguiseFull many a princely thing hath passed her by;And she from homely intercourse of eyesHath gathered visions wider than the sky,And seen the withered heart of man arisePeaceful as God, and full of majesty.
One is a slow and melancholy maid;I know riot if she cometh from the skiesOr from the sleepy gulfs, but she will riseOften before me in the twilight shade,Holding a bunch of poppies and a bladeOf springing wheat: prostrate my body liesBefore her on the turf, the while she tiesA fillet of the weed about my head;And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hearA gentle rustle like the stir of corn,And words like odours thronging to my ear:"Lie still, beloved—still until the morn;Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere—Still till the judgment; thou art faint and worn."
The other meets me in the public throng;Her hair streams backward from her loose attire;She hath a trumpet and an eye of fire;She points me downward, steadily and long:—"There is thy grave—arise, my son, be strong!Hands are upon thy crown—awake, aspireTo immortality; heed not the lyreOf the Enchantress, nor her poppy-song,But in the stillness of the summer calmTremble for what is Godlike in thy being.Listen a while, and thou shall hear the psalmOf victory sung by creatures past thy seeing;And from far battle-fields there comes the neighingOf dreadful onset, though the air is balm."
Maid with the poppies, must I let thee go?Alas, I may not; thou art likewise dear!I am but human, and thou hast a tearWhen she hath nought but splendour, and the glowOf a wild energy that mocks the flowOf the poor sympathies which keep us here:Lay past thy poppies, and come twice as near,And I will teach thee, and thou too shalt grow;And thou shalt walk with me in open dayThrough the rough thoroughfares with quiet grace;And the wild-visaged maid shall lead the way,Timing her footsteps to a gentler paceAs her great orbs turn ever on thy face,Drinking in draughts of loving help alway.
There is a bellowing in me, as of mightUnfleshed and visionless, mangling the airWith horrible convulse, as if it bareThe cruel weight of worlds, but could not fightWith the thick-dropping clods, and could but biteA vapour-cloud! Oh, I will climb the stairOf the great universe, and lay me thereEven at the threshold of his gate, despiteThe tempest, and the weakness, and the rushOf this quick crowding on me!—Oh, I dream!Now I am sailing swiftly, as we seemTo do in sleep! and I can hear the gushOf a melodious wave that carries meOn, on for ever to eternity!
Cry out upon the crime, and then let slipThe dogs of hate, whose hanging muzzles trackThe bloody secret; let the welkin crackReverberating, while ye dance and skipAbout the horrid blaze! or else ye strip,More secretly, for the avenging rack,Him who hath done the deed, till, oozing blackYe watch the anguish from his nostrils drip,And all the knotted limbs lie quivering!Or, if your hearts disdain such banqueting,With wide and tearless eyes go staring throughThe murder cells! but think—that, if your kneesBow not to holiness, then even in youLie deeper gulfs and blacker crimes than these.
Now have I grown a sharpness and an edgeUnto my future nights, and I will cutSheer through the ebon gates that yet will shutOn every set of day; or as a sledgeDrawn over snowy plains; where not a hedgeBreaks this Aurora's dancing, nothing butThe one cold Esquimaux' unlikely hutThat swims in the broad moonlight! Lo, a wedgeOf the clean meteor hath been brightly drivenRight home into the fastness of the north!Anon it quickeneth up into the heaven!And I with it have clomb and spreaded forthUpon the crisp and cooling atmosphere!My soul is all abroad: I cannot find it here!
Within each living man there doth reside,In some unrifled chamber of the heart,A hidden treasure: wayward as thou artI love thee, man, and bind thee to my side!By that sweet act I purify my prideAnd hasten onward—willing even to partWith pleasant graces: though thy hue is swart,I bear thee company, thou art my guide!Even in thy sinning wise beyond thy kenTo thee a subtle debt my soul is owing!I take an impulse from the worst of menThat lends a wing unto my onward going;Then let me pay them gladly back againWith prayer and love from Faith and Duty flowing!
O wild and dark! a night hath found me nowWherein I mingle with that elementSent madly loose through the wide staring rentIn yon tormented branches! I will bowA while unto the storm, and thenceforth growInto a mighty patience strongly bentBefore the unconquering Power which hither sentThese winds to fight their battles on my brow!—Again the loud boughs thunder! and the dinLicks up my footfall from the hissing earth!But I have found a mighty peace within,And I have risen into a home of mirth!Wildly I climb above the shaking spires,Above the sobbing clouds, up through the steady fires!
A power is on me, and my soul must speakTo thee, thou grey, grey man, whom I beholdWith those white-headed children. I am boldTo commune with thy setting, and to wreakMy doubts on thy grey hair; for I would seekThee in that other world, but I am toldThou goest elsewhere and wilt never holdThy head so high as now. Oh I were weak,Weak even to despair, could I foregoThe tender vision which will give somehowThee standing brightly one day even as now!Thou art a very grey old man, and soI may not pass thee darkly, but bestowA look of reverence on thy wrinkled brow.
Methought I stood among the stars alone,Watching a grey parched orb which onward flewHalf blinded by the dusty winds that blew,Empty as Death and barren as a stone,The pleasant sound of water all unknown!When, as I looked in wonderment, there grew,High in the air above, a drop of dew,Which, gathering slowly through long cycles, shoneLike a great tear; and then at last it fellClasping the orb, which drank it greedily,With a delicious noise and upward swellOf sweet cool joy that tossed me like a sea;And then the thick life sprang as from a grave,With trees, flowers, boats upon the bounding wave!
Oh, melancholy fragment of the nightDrawing thy lazy web against the sun,Thou shouldst have waited till the day was doneWith kindred glooms to build thy fane aright,Sublime amid the ruins of the light!But thus to shape our glories one by oneWith fearful hands, ere we had well begunTo look for shadows—even in the bright!Yet may we charm a lesson from thy breast,A secret wisdom from thy folds of thunder:There is a wind that cometh from the westWill rend thy tottering piles of gloom asunder,And fling thee ruinous along the grass,To sparkle on us as our footsteps pass!
First came the red-eyed sun as I did wake;He smote me on the temples and I rose,Casting the night aside and all its woes;And I would spurn my idleness, and takeMy own wild journey even like him, and shakeThe pillars of all doubt with lusty blows,Even like himself when his rich glory goesRight through the stalwart fogs that part and break.But ere my soul was ready for the fight,His solemn setting mocked me in the west;And as I trembled in the lifting night,The white moon met me, and my heart confess'dA mellow wisdom in her silent youth,Which fed my hope with fear, and made my strength a truth.
An angel saw me sitting by a brook,Pleased with the silence, and the melodiesOf wind and water which did fall and rise:He gently stirred his plumes and from them shookAn outworn doubt, which fell on me and tookThe shape of darkness, hiding all the skies,Blinding the sun, but giving to my eyesAn inextinguishable wish to look;When, lo! thick as the buds of spring there came,Crowd upon crowd, informing all the sky,A host of splendours watching silently,With lustrous eyes that wept as if in blame,And waving hands that crossed in lines of flame,And signalled things I hope to hold although I die!
Is there a secret Joy, that may not weep,For every flower that ends its little span,For every child that groweth up to man,For every captive bird a cage doth keep,For every aching eye that went to sleepLong ages back, when other eyes beganTo see and know and love as now they can,Unravelling God's wonders heap by heap?Or doth the Past lie 'mid EternityIn charnel dens that rot and reek alway,A dismal light for those that go astray,A pit of foul deformity—to be,Beauty, a dreadful source of growth for theeWhen thou wouldst lift thine eyes to greet the day?
I missed him when the sun began to bend;I found him not when I had lost his rim;With many tears I went in search of him,Climbing high mountains which did still ascend,And gave me echoes when I called my friend;Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim,And high cathedrals where the light was dim,Through books and arts and works without an end,But found him not—the friend whom I had lost.And yet I found him—as I found the lark,A sound in fields I heard but could not mark;I found him nearest when I missed him most;I found him in my heart, a life in frost,A light I knew not till my soul was dark.
She comes! again she comes, the bright-eyed moon!Under a ragged cloud I found her out,Clasping her own dark orb like hope in doubt!That ragged cloud hath waited her since noon,And he hath found and he will hide her soon!Come, all ye little winds that sit without,And blow the shining leaves her edge about,And hold her fast—ye have a pleasant tune!She will forget us in her walks at nightAmong the other worlds that are so fair!She will forget to look on our despair!She will forget to be so young and bright!Nay, gentle moon, thou hast the keys of light—I saw them hanging by thy girdle there!
I came upon a fountain on my wayWhen it was hot, and sat me down to drinkIts sparkling stream, when all around the brinkI spied full many vessels made of clay,Whereon were written, not without display,In deep engraving or with merely ink,The blessings which each owner seemed to thinkWould light on him who drank with each alway.I looked so hard my eyes were looking doubleInto them all, but when I came to seeThat they were filthy, each in his degree,I bent my head, though not without some trouble,To where the little waves did leap and bubble,And so I journeyed on most pleasantly.
I said, I will arise and work some thing,Nor be content with growth, but cause to growA life around me, clear as yes from no,That to my restless hand some rest may bring,And give a vital power to Action's spring:Thus, I must cease to be! I cried; when, lo!An angel stood beside me on the snow,With folded wings that came of pondering."God's glory flashes on the silence hereBeneath the moon," he cried, and upward threwHis glorious eyes that swept the utmost blue,"Ere yet his bounding brooks run forth with cheerTo bear his message to the hidden yearWho cometh up in haste to make his glory new."
There may be seeming calm above, but no!—There is a pulse below which ceases not,A subterranean working, fiery hot,Deep in the million-hearted bosom, thoughEarthquakes unlock not the prodigious showOf elemental conflict; and this spotNurses most quiet bones which lie and rot,And here the humblest weeds take root and grow.There is a calm upon the mighty sea,Yet are its depths alive and full of being,Enormous bulks that move unwieldily;Yet, pore we on it, they are past our seeing!—From the deep sea-weed fields, though wide and ample,Comes there no rushing sound:thesedo not trample!
Power that is not of God, however great,Is but the downward rushing and the glareOf a swift meteor that hath lost its shareIn the one impulse which doth animateThe parent mass: emblem to me of fate!Which through vast nightly wastes doth onward fare,Wild-eyed and headlong, rent away from prayer—A moment brilliant, then most desolate!And, O my brothers, shall we ever learnFrom all the things we see continuallyThat pride is but the empty mockeryOf what is strong in man! Not so the sternAnd sweet repose of soul which we can earnOnly through reverence and humility!
Yes, there is one who makes us all lay downOur mushroom vanities, our speculations,Our well-set theories and calculations,Our workman's jacket or our monarch's crown!To him alike the country and the town,Barbaric hordes or civilized nations,Men of all names and ranks and occupations,Squire, parson, lawyer, Jones, or Smith, or Brown!He stops the carter: the uplifted whipFalls dreamily among the horses' straw;He stops the helmsman, and the gallant shipHoldeth to westward by another law;No one will see him, no one ever saw,But he sees all and lets not any slip.
They all were looking for a kingTo slay their foes, and lift them high:Thou cam'st a little baby thingThat made a woman cry.
O son of man, to right my lotNought but thy presence can avail;Yet on the road thy wheels are not,Nor on the sea thy sail!
My fancied ways why shouldst thou heed?Thou com'st down thine own secret stair:Com'st down to answer all my need,Yea, every bygone prayer!
Uplifted is the stoneAnd all mankind arisen!We are thy very own,We are no more in prison!What bitterest grief can stayBeside thy golden cup,When earth and life give wayAnd with our Lord we sup!
To the marriage Death doth call,The lamps are burning clear,The virgins, ready all,Have for their oil no fear.Would that even now were ringingThe distance with thy throng!And that the stars were singingTo us a human song!
Courage! for life is hastingTo endless life away;The inward fire, unwasting,Transfigures our dull clay!See the stars melting, sinkingIn life-wine golden-bright!We, of the splendour drinking,Shall grow to stars of light.
Lost, lost are all our losses!Love is for ever free!The full life heaves and tossesLike an unbounded sea!One live, eternal story!One poem high and broad!And sun of all our gloryThe countenance of God!
The homely words how often read!How seldom fully known!"Which father of you, asked for bread,Would give his son a stone?"
How oft has bitter tear been shed,And heaved how many a groan,Because thou wouldst not give for breadThe thing that was a stone!
How oft the child thou wouldst have fed,Thy gift away has thrown!He prayed, thou heard'st, and gav'st the bread:He cried, "It is a stone!"
Lord, if I ask in doubt and dreadLest I be left to moan,Am I not he who, asked for bread,Would give his son a stone?
O wind of God, that blowest in the mind,Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me;Blow, swifter blow, a strong warm summer wind,Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see;Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree,And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove—High the imperfect soars, descends the perfect love!
Blow not the less though winter cometh then;Blow, wind of God, blow hither changes keen;Let the spring creep into the ground again,The flowers close all their eyes and not be seen:All lives in thee that ever once hath been!Blow, fill my upper air with icy storms;Breathe cold, O wind of God, and kill my cankerworms.
I cannot praise thee. By his instrumentThe master sits, and moves nor foot nor hand;For see the organ-pipes this, that way bent,Leaning, o'erthrown, like wheat-stalks tempest-fanned!
I well could praise thee for a flower, a dove,But not for life that is not life in me;Not for a being that is less than love—A barren shoal half lifted from a sea!
Unto a land where no wind bloweth shipsThy wind one day will blow me to my own:Rather I'd kiss no more their loving lipsThan carry them a heart so poor and prone!
I bless thee, Father, thou art what thou art,That thou dost know thyself what thou dost know—A perfect, simple, tender, rhythmic heart,Beating its blood to all in bounteous flow.
And I can bless thee too for every smart,For every disappointment, ache, and fear;For every hook thou fixest in my heart,For every burning cord that draws me near.
But prayer these wake, not song. Thyself I crave.Come thou, or all thy gifts away I fling.Thou silent, I am but an empty grave:Think to me, Father, and I am a king!
My organ-pipes will then stand up awake,Their life soar, as from smouldering wood the blaze;And swift contending harmonies shall shakeThy windows with a storm of jubilant praise.
Sighing above,Rustling below,Thorough the woodsThe winds go.Beneath, dead crowds;Above, life bare;And the besom tempestSweeps the air:Heart, leave thy woe:Let the dead things go.
Through the brownGold doth push;Misty greenVeils the bush.Here a twitter,There a croak!They are coming—The spring-folk!Heart, be not numb;Let the live things come.
Through the beechThe winds go,With gentle speech,Long and slow.The grass is fine,And soft to lie in:The sun doth shineThe blue sky in:Heart, be alive;Let the new things thrive.
Round again!Here art thou,A rimy fruitOn a bare bough!Winter comes,Winter and snow;And a weary sighingTo fall and go!Heart, thy hour shall be;Thy dead will comfort thee.
Why do the houses standWhen they that built them are gone;When remaineth even of oneThat lived there and loved and plannedNot a face, not an eye, not a hand,Only here and there a bone?Why do the houses standWhen they who built them are gone?
Oft in the moonlighted landWhen the day is overblown,With happy memorial moanSweet ghosts in a loving bandRoam through the houses that stand—For the builders are not gone.
The miser lay on his lonely bed;Life's candle was burning dim.His heart in an iron chest was hidUnder heaps of gold and an iron lid;And whether it were alive or deadIt never troubled him.
Slowly out of his body he crept.He said, "I am just the same!Only I want my heart in my breast;I will go and fetch it out of my chest!"Through the dark a darker shadow he leapt,Saying "Hell is a fabled flame!"
He opened the lid. Oh, Hell's own night!His ghost-eyes saw no gold!—Empty and swept! Not a gleam was there!In goes his hand, but the chest is bare!Ghost-fingers, aha! have only mightTo close, not to clasp and hold!
But his heart he saw, and he made a clutchAt the fungous puff-ball of sin:Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust,He grasped a handful of rotten dust,And shrieked, as ghosts may, at the crumbling touch,But hid it his breast within.
And some there are who see him sitUnder the church, apart,Counting out coins and coins of goldHeap by heap on the dank death-mould:Alas poor ghost and his sore lack of wit—They breed in the dust of his heart!
Another miser has now his chest,And it hoards wealth more and more;Like ferrets his hands go in and out,Burrowing, tossing the gold about—Nor heed the heart that, gone from his breast,Is the cold heap's bloodless core.
Now wherein differ old ghosts that sitCounting ghost-coins all dayFrom the man who clings with spirit proneTo whatever can never be his own?Who will leave the world with not one whitBut a heart all eaten away?
Satan, avaunt!Nay, take thine hour,Thou canst not daunt,Thou hast no power;Be welcome to thy nest,Though it be in my breast.
Burrow amain;Dig like a mole;Fill every veinWith half-burnt coal;Puff the keen dust about,And all to choke me out.
Fill music's waysWith creaking cries,That no loud praiseMay climb the skies;And on my labouring chestLay mountains of unrest.
My slumber steepIn dreams of haste,That only sleep,No rest, I taste—With stiflings, rimes of rote,And fingers on my throat.
Satan, thy mightI do defy;Live core of nightI patient lie:A wind comes up the grayWill blow thee clean away.
Christ's angel, Death,All radiant white,With one cold breathWill scare thee quite,And give my lungs an airAs fresh as answered prayer.
So, Satan, doThy worst with meUntil the TrueShall set me free,And end what he began,By making me a man.
Lord, what is manThat thou art mindful of him!Though in creation's van,Lord, what is man!He wills less than he can,Lets his ideal scoff him!Lord, what is manThat thou art mindful of him!
All things are shadows of thee, Lord;The sun himself is but thy shade;My spirit is the shadow of thy word,A thing that thou hast said.
Diamonds are shadows of the sun,They gleam as after him they hark:My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.And feebly fights the dark!
All knowledges are broken shades,In gulfs of dark a scattered horde:Together rush the parted glory-grades—Then, lo, thy garment, Lord!
My soul, the shadow, still is lightBecause the shadow falls from thee;I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,And home flit shadowy.
Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;The brighter I, the more thy shade!My motion be thy lovely moveless will!My darkness, light delayed!
Come through the gloom of clouded skies,The slow dim rain and fog athwart;Through east winds keen with wrong and liesCome and lift up my hopeless heart.
Come through the sickness and the pain,The sore unrest that tosses still;Through aching dark that hides the gainCome and arouse my fainting will.
Come through the prate of foolish words,The science with no God behind;Through all the pangs of untuned chordsSpeak wisdom to my shaken mind.
Through all the fears that spirits bowOf what hath been, or may befall,Come down and talk with me, for thouCanst tell me all about them all.
Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat,Heart of all joy, below, above!Come near and let me kiss thy feet,And name the names of those I love!
Roses all the rosy way!Roses to the rosier westWhere the roses of the dayCling to night's unrosy breast!
Thou who mak'st the roses, whyGive to every leaf a thorn?On thy rosy highway IStill am by thy roses torn!
Pardon! I will not mistakeThese good thorns that make me fret!Goads to urge me, stings to wake,For my freedom they are set.
Yea, on one steep mountain-side,Climbing to a fancied fold,Roses grasped had let me slideBut the thorns did keep their hold.
Out of darkness light is born,Out of weakness make me strong:One glad day will every thornBreak into a rose of song.
Though like sparrow sit thy birdLonely on the house-top dark,By the rosy dawning stirredUp will soar thy praising lark;
Roses, roses all his song!Roses in a gorgeous feast!Roses in a royal throng,Surging, rosing from the east!
I am a bubbleUpon thy ever-moving, resting sea:Oh, rest me now from tossing, trespass, trouble!Take me down into thee.
Give me thy peace.My heart is aching with unquietness:Oh, make its inharmonious beating cease!Thy hand upon it press.
My Night! my Day!Swift night and day betwixt, my world doth reel:Potter, take not thy hand from off the clayThat whirls upon thy wheel.
O Heart, I cryFor love and life, pardon and hope and strength!O Father, I am thine; I shall not die,But I shall sleep at length!
Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,For as his work thou giv'st the man.From us, not thee, come all our wrongs;Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs:With small-cord whips and scorpion thongsThou lay'st on every ill thy ban.Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs,For as his work thou giv'st the man.