2'tli+T' tri,davllor. -Peauty. Books, Art Loquence. E.NiERSON. Pow Wealthi Illusions. J 3,. a: -,~ nendsi.pin, Domestic Life. EMERSON. :ccess: reatnss I,nmmortality. 4, S0ow-Boun,d Thle'ent on the Beach.'i,HiTTIEIR avo ile Poems. 5. TIhe Vision of Sir Launfai. The Cathedral. LowELL. Favorite Poemss. 6. Ia and Out of Doors with Charles Dickens. Ftia: A Christmas Carol DICKENS. Barry Corrnwall and some oF his Friends. FIELD: 7. The Ancienrt Mariner. } COLERIDGEI Favorite Poems. Favonrite Poems. WORDSWORTH. 8. Undine, FOUQUE Sintram. I Fouqufi. Paui and Virginia. ST. PIERRE. 9. Rab and his Friends; Mariorie Fleming. ) Thackeray. DR JOHN B1oI John Leech. so. Enoch Arden. In Memoriam. TENNYSON. Favorite Poems. Seeptage opposite inside of tast cver. t~ ~;~ eobtrn eaoit. THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. THE CATHEDRAL. FAVORITE POEMS. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. ILL USTR A TED. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYV lbe Eibti%tre pre##, Cambritrt. Copyright, 1848, 1857, i866, i868, I869, and 1876, By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 7'The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S. A..1 Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. , (, -,, t, l ,-, I - " -"- i' - I ILLUSTRATIONS. THE HOLY GRAIL. (Frontzpeee.) Page "Over his keys the musing organist"... 12 "WiWhat is so rare as a day in June". o. 17 "Here on the rushes will I sleep"... 28 "Down swept the cliill wind".... 42 "Within the hall are song and laughter"... 48 "He mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime". 58 "The leper no longer crouched at hIis side, Bat stood before him glorified"..... 65 "The castle-gate stands open now".... 71 PRELUDE TO PART FIRST. -or ~$~ PRELUDE. ~ IVER his keys the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: Then, as the touch of his loved instrument Gives hope and feivor, nearer draws his theme, 14 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent Along the wavering vista of his dream. Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not. Over our manhood bend the skies; Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies; With our faint hearts the mountain strives; Its arms outstretched, the druid wood THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 15 Waits with its benedicite; And to our age's drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea. Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, We bargain for the graves we lie in; At the Devil's booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; 16 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. For a cap aid bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking: 'T is heaven alone that is given away, 'T is only God may be had for the asking; No price is set oi the lavish summer, June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, _~~~~~, I I THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 19 And over it softly her warm ear lays: Whether we look, or whether we listeiin, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 20 THIE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. Andthere's inever a leaf norablade toome-,ii To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among, the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flut ters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? THYt VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 21 Now is the liigh-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back witl a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and )ay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barreit the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 22 TIIE VISION OF SIR LAUNt'AL. How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut,cur eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; fnd if the breeze kept the good news back, THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 23 For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, - And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing! Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving; 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, - )4 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 'T is the natural way of living: Who knows whither the clouds have fled ~ In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have sled. The heart forgets its sorrow an(d ache; The soul partakes the season's youtlh, And the sulphurous rifts of passion an d woe Lie deep'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Lainfal now Remembered the keepiong of his vow, THE VISION OF tir tuttfal PART FIRST. PART FIRST. I. Y olden spurs nowv brino to me, And bring to me my richest iai, For to-morrow I go over land and sea In search of the Holy Grail; Stall never a bed for me be spread, Nor shall a pillow be under my head, Till I be,gin my vow to keep; 30 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. Here on the rushes will I sleep, And perchance there may come a vision true Ere day create the world anew." Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, Slumber fell like a cloud on him, And into his soul the vision flew. II. The crows flapped over by twos and threes, In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, The little birds sang as if it were THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 31 The one day of summer in all the year, And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees: The castle alone in the landscape lay Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray: 'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, And never its gates might opened be, Save to lord or lady of high degree; Summer besieged it on every side, But the churlish stone her assaults defied; She could not scale the chilly wall, 32 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. Though round it for leagues her pavilions tall Stretched left and right, Over the hills an(d out of sight; Green and broad was every tent, And out of each a murmur went Till the breeze fell off at night. III. The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, And through the dark arch a charger sprang, Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 33 In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long, And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, And lightsome as a locust-leaf, Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 34 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. IV. It was morning on hill and stream and tree, Adl(d imornig, in the young knights heart; Oil!y the castle moodily Rchtiffe( the gifts of the sunshine free, And loomed by itself apart; The season brimmed all other things up Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. V. As Sir Launfal made morn througli the darksome gate, THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 35 He was'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, \hlio be,gged with his hand and moaned as he sate; Ald a loathing over Sir Launfal came; Tile sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, The flesh'neath his armor'gan shrink and crawl, An(l midway its leap his heart stood still Like a frozen waterfall; For this man, so foul and bent of stature, Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 36 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. VI. The leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 37 But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beautv Which runs through all and doth all unite, - The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before." PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. I'''I ii PRELUDE. ; OWN swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand slmmers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak It had gathered all the cold, And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; j : 44 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. It carried a shiver everywhere From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him, winter. proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars: He sculptured every summer delight - In his halls and chambers out of sight; THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 45 Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt - Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 46 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. Anid huIng thein thickly with diamtnond drops, Ahlichl ci-rstalled thie bealns of mlooii and Stll. And made a star of every olie: No mortal builder's most rare device Could miatch this winter-palace of ice; 'T was as if every imag'e that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the sumu'ei dav, Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonrmy 1y- the elfin builders of the frost. I THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 49 Within the hall are song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks, 50 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. Now pausing, now scattering away as ill fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled (leer. But the wind without was eag,er and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp And rattles and wrinogs The icy strings, Singing, in dreary mnonotone, A Christmas carol of its own, VWhose burden still, as he might guess, WVas "Shelterless. shelterless, shelterless!" THIE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 51 The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. I THE VISION OF *ir?aunfal, PART SECOND. PART SECOND. I. ' HERE was never a leaf oin l)usil or tree, rile bare boughs rattled shudderingIlv; Tlie river was dumb and could not speak, For the weaver Winter its shroud ha(d spui; A sitigle crow on thie tree-top bleak I 56 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun; Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold, As if her veins were sapless and old, And she rose up decrepitly For a last dim look at earth and sea. II. Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, For another heir in his earldom sate; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; Little he recked of his earldom's loss, - I THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 59 No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, But deep in his soul the sign he wore, The badge of the suffering and the poor. III. Sir Launfai's raimelnt thin and spare WAas idle mail'gainst the barbed air, For it was just at the Christmas time; So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, And sought for shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long-ago; He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 60 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can coumt the camels in the sun, As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its slender necklace of.grass, The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, And with its own self like an infant played, And waved its signal of palms. IV. "For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms"; — The happy camels may reach the spring, THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 61 But Sir Launfal sees naught save the grew some thing, The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, That cowers beside him, a thing as lone And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas In the desolate horror of his disease. V. And Sir Launfal said, "I behold in thee An image of Him who died on the tree; Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — Thou also hast had the world's buffets and and scorns, 62 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. And to thy life were not denied The wouii(ls in the hands and feet and side: Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me; Behold, through him, I give to thee!" VI. Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eves And looked at Sir Launfal, and straight way he Remembered in what a haughtier guise He had flung an alms to leprosie, TIlEL VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. C3 Wheen he girt his youiig life up ill gilded( mail .\ld set forth in search of the Holv Grail. Thle heart witilill -himi was ashes and ditst; He parted ill twain his single crust, He broke the ice on the streanilet's brink, nd( gave the leper to eat and drink, 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'T w-as water olt of a wiooden bowl, ~-,t w-ith fine wheaten bread was the leper fed. 64 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. And't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. VII. As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place i The leper no longer crouched at his side, But stood before him glorified, Shining and tall and fair and straight As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, Himself the Gate whereby men can Enter the temple of God in Man. ~: j & lY v ___ .I\\ \\ ____ ____' THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 67 VIII. His 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 iii one With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; And the voice that was calmer than silence said, "Lo, it is I, be not afraid! 68 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. In many climes, without avail, Thou hlast spent thy life for the Holy Grail Behold, it is here,- this cup which thou Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; This 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, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 69 IX. Sir Launfal awoke as fiom a swound: "The Grail in my castle here is found! Hai ig my idle arnimor up on the wall, Let it be the spider's banquet-hall; He must be fenced with stronger miail Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." X. The castle-gate stands open now, And the w-anderer is welcome to the hall 70 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No log,er scowl the turrets tall, The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast weut in at the door, She entered with him in disguise, And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on grolund, Slle lilgers and smiles there the whole year round; The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land Has hall and bowcer at his command; >~ ~~~~'ti_____ ~ /~~~~;>~j/jI II / — I I ) THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAI,. 73 Aidi tihere's no poor man iii the North Countree But is lord of the earldom as miuch as he. -- I", (IiI NOTE. NOTE. CCORDING to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy L Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbelt upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one ef the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's COUlt to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read ia I 78 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems. The plot (if I may give that name to any. thing so slight) of the foregoing poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the date of King Arthur's reign. THE CATHEDRAL. I I i i i i i - I I i i I ,F.lzl L ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IN' CONTENTS. Page TIE CATHEDRAL....... 15 ODE RECITED AT THIE HARVARD COMMEM OR.ATION, JULY 21 1866....... 67 Is~ ht I THE CATHEDRAL. -I R tlirouti,l l thei memory shinies a happy Cday, Cloudless of care, downa-shod to every sense, And simply perfect fi'omi its own resource, As to a bee thle iiew camipanula's Illuminiate seclusioi swung iii air. Sucit days are not the prey of settitlg suns, Nor eveer blu'rrted Mili Iiiist of after-tllioughlt; Lile wor(ids niade iiag'ieal l)y poets dead, Wllerciu tlhe niusc of atll meaning' is Tlie selIse iht ll I-ga-I l'ed or tlhe soul diviued, 14 THE CATHEDRAL. They minglle withl our life's ethereal part, Sw-eeteningi aid gathering sweetness evermore, By Beauty's franchise diselintliralled of time. I can recall, nay, tihey are present still, Parts of myseli, tile perfume of my mind, Days that seem farther off tlhaii Homer's nlow Ere yet the child had loutidened to the boy, Anid I, recluse from pliviymiates, found perforce Companioniship in thiniigs that not denied Nor granited wholly; as is Natire's wiont, Whlo, safe in unconlta iniate reserve, JL,ets us miistakle our loniging for her love, Anid mrnocks with various echo of ourselves. These first sweet frauds upon our consscious ness, That blenlid the sensual w-ithi its imaged wmorld, THE CATHEDRAL. These virgiual cognitions, gifts of morn, Ere life grow nloisy, and slower-footed thoghllt Can overtake the rapture of the sense, To thrust betweell ourselves and what we feel, Have something in them secretly divine. V-ainllv the eve, once schooled to serve t,lh brain, With pains deliberate studies to renew The ideal vision: second-tlhoughts are prose; For Beautv's acme hathl a term as brief As the wave's poise before it breakl in pearl. Our ownl breath dims tlhe mirror of t,lhe sense, Looking too Inng and closely at a flash We suatchl tle essential grace of meaning out. And that first passion beggars all behind, Heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed. Who, seeing, once, hias tltruly seen again 15 16 THE CATHEDRAL. The gray vague of unsymnpathizing sea That dragged his Fancy from her moorings back To shores inhospitable of eldest time, Till blank foreboding of earthl-geudered power, Pitiless seignories in the elements. Omrnipotences blind that darkling smite, Misgave him, and repaganized the world? Yet, by somle subtler touch of sympathy, These primal apprehensions, dimly stirred, Perplex the eye with pictures from within. This hath made poets dream of lives foregone In worlds fantastical, more fair than iours; So IMemoryv cheats Ius, glimpsing hlalf-revealed. Even as I write she tries her wonted spell In that continuous redbreast boding rain: The bird I hear sings not from yonder elm But the flown ecstasy my elhildhlood heard THE CATHEDRAL. Is vocal ill my mind, renlewed by him, Haply made sweeter by the accumulate tliiill That threads my undivi(ded life alud steals A patlios from the years and graves between. I know not how it is withl other men, Whom I but guess, deciplering myself; For nme, once felt is so felt nevermore. Thle fleeting relish at sensation's brim Had in it tlhe best ferment of thle wine. One spring I lknew as never any since: All nighlt thle surges of the warmn southwest Boomed intermittent tlirough the slthudderiig elms, And bro,ught a morili,g fromn the Gulf adrift, Omnipotelt with sunslhine, whose quicl charbn Startled withi crocuses the sullen turf And wiled tlhe bluebird to his whiff of song: 1 7 rHE CATHEDRAL. One sutimer hour abides, what time I perched, Dappled withi noonday, under simmnering leav-es, And pulled tlle pulpy oxhlearts, whlile aloof An oriole clattered and thle robins shrilled, Denouncing me an alien and a thlief: One morn of autumn lords it o'er thle rest, WIhen in thle lane I watchled the asli-leaves fall, Balancing softly earthward withlout wind, Or twirling with directer impulse down On those fallen yvesterday, now barbed witlI frost, Whlile I grew pensive with the pensive year: And once I learned how mai'vellous winter was, Wlhen past the fence-rails, downy-gray with rime, I creaked adventurous o'er the spatngled crust That mnade familiar fields seem far and strange 18 THE CATHEDRAL. As those stark wastes that whiten endlessly In ghlastly solitude about the pole, And gleam relentless to the unsetting sun: Instant the candid chambers of my brain Were painted with these sovran images; And later visions seem but copies pale From those unfading frescos of thle past, vllicih I, young savage, in,ny age of flint, Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me Parted from Nature by the joy in her That doubtfully revealed me to myself. Thenceforward I mniust stand outside the gate; And paradise was paradise the more, Known once and barred against satiety. AVWhat we call Nature, all outside ourselves, Is but our own conceit of what we see, ()tit' own i laetion upon what we feel; 19 THE CATHEDRAL. The world's a woman to our shifting mood, Feeling with us, or making due pretence; And therefore we the more persuade ourselves To make all things our thought's confederates, Conniving with us in whate'er we dream. So when our Fancy seeks analogies, Though she have hidden what she after finds, She loves to lcheat herself with feigned surprise. I find myi own complexion everywhere: No rose, I doubt, was ever, like the first, A marvel to the bush it dawned upon, The rapture of its life nmade visible, The mystery of its yearning realized, As tile first babe to the first woman born; No falcon ever felt delight of wings As when, an eyas, from the stolid cliff Loosing himself, lie followed his high heart To swim on sunshine, masterless as wind; 20 THE CATHEDRAL. And I believe the brownEl Earthl takes delight In the new snowdrop looking back at her, To think that by some vernal alchemy It could transmute her darkness into pearl; WhaVt is the buxom peony after that, With its coarse constancy of hoyden blush? VWhat the full summer to that wonder new? But, if in nothing else, in us there is A sense fastidious hardly reconciled To the poor makeshifts of life's scenery, Where the same slide must double all its parts, Shoved in for Tarsus and hitched back for Tyre. I blame not in the soul this daintiness, Rasher of surfeit than a humming-bird, In things indifferent by sense purveyed; It argues her an immortality Acli datteless incomies of experience, 21 22 THE CATHEDRAL. This unthrift Ihousekeeping that will not brook A dish warmed-over at the feast of life, Nud finds Twice stale, served with whatever sauce. Nor matters lliiucli how it may go with me Who dwell ill Grub Street and am proud to drudge Whlere men, my betters, wet their crust withl tears: Use can make sweet the peaceh's shady side, That only by reflection tastes of sun. But she, my Princess, who will sometimes deigi My garret to illumine till the walls, Narrow and dingy, scrawled with hackneyed thought (Poor Richard slowly elbowing Plato out), Dilate anid diape themselves with tapestries THE CATHEDRAL. Nausikaa might hlave stooped o'er, while, be tw,een, MAlirrors, effaced in their own clearness, send Her only image on through deepening deeps WAVithl endless repercuession of deliglt, Bring,er of life, witching each sense to soul, That sometimes almost gives me to believe I mighlt have been a poet, gives at least A brain desaxonized, an ear thllat makes Altuse whlere none is, and a keener pang Of exquisite surmise ouitleaping, thoulght, Her will I pamper in hler luxury: No crumpled rose-leaf of too careless choice Shall bring a northern nightmare to her dreams, Aexiing witlh sense of exile; hers shlall be The invitiate firstlings of experience, V\ibraLtions felt but once and felt lifelong: 0, mnore than lialf-way turn that Grecian front 23 24 THE CATHEDRAL. Upon me, while with self-rebuke I spell, On the plain fillet that confines thy hair In conscious bounds of seeming unonstraint, The NV(yght in overplus, thy race's badge! One feast for her I secretly designed In that Old World so strangely beautiful To us the disinherited of eld, A day at Chartres, with no soul beside To roil with pedant prate my joy serene And make the minster shy of confidence. I went, and, with the Saxon's pious care, First ordered dinner at the pea-green inn, The flies and I its only customers, Till by and by there came two Englishmen, Who made me feel, in their engaging way, I was a poacher on their self-preserve, Intent constructively on lese-anglicism, THE CATHEDRAL. To them (in those old razor-ridden days) MAv beard translated me to hostile French; So they, desiring guidance in the town, Ilalf conidescended to nmyv baser sphere, And, cluhhingj in one mess their lack of phrase, Set their best man to grapple with the Gaul. " Esker vous ate a nahitang? " he asked " I never ate one; are they good?" asked I; Whereat they stared, then laughed, and we were friends, The seas, the wars, the centuries interposed, Abolished in the triiuce of common speech And motiual comfort of the miother-tonguie. Like escaped convicts of Propriety, They furtively partook the joys of men, Glancing heliind when buzzed some louder fly. Eludii thfhese, I loitered thlroughl the town, 25 26 THE CATHEDRAL. With hope to take my minster unawares In its grave solitude of memory. A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumnorots now Upon the mind's horizon, as of storm Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, That mingle with our mnood, but not disturb. Its once grin] bulwarks, tamed to lovers' walks, Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure, Whliose listless leisure suits the quiet place, Lisping among his shallows homelike sounds At Concord and by Balkside heard before. Chiance led me to a public pleasure-ground, Whilere I grew kindly with the merry groups, And blessed the Frenchman for his simple art Of being domestic in the light of day. His language has no word, we growl, for Home; But le can find a fireside in the sun, THE CATHEDRAL. Play wvithl his child, make love, and shriek his mind, By thlrongs of strangers undisprivacied. -Ie makes his life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back IJ I)allaifold reflection fromi without; WIhile we, each pore alert with consciousnless, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, And each bysta'ider a detective were, Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise. So, musing o'er the problem which was best,A life wide-windowed, shininig all abroad, 01 cui'taios drawn to shield from sight pro Tiit rites we pay to the mysterious I, Withl outward sellsas furloughed and hlead bowed 27, THE CATHEDRAL. I followed some fine instinct in my feet, Till, to unbend me from the loom of thought, Looking uip suddenly, I found mine eyes Confronted with the minster's vast repose. Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat, That hears afar the breeze-borne rote and longs, Remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell, Spl)ume-sliding, down the baffled decuman, It rose before me, patiently remnote From the great tides of life it breasted once, Hearing the noise of men as in a dream. I stood before the triple northern port, Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings, Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch, Looked down benignly grave and seemed.,o say, 28 THE CATHEDRAL. Ye come and go incessaint; we remain Safe in the halloiwed qciets of the past; Be reverert, ye who Jlit and are forgot, Offaitih so niobly realized as thi8. I seemi to have heard it said by learined folk Wtho drench you wiith esthetics till you feel As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, The faucet to let loose a washi of words, That Gothic is not Grecian, tlherefore worse; But, beiiig convinced by muchl experiment How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies, I give tlhanks For a new relish, careless to inquire My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. The Grecian gluts nme with its perfectness, Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, Thile one thing finished in this hasty world, 29 30 THE CATHEDRAL. Forever finished, though the barbarous pit, Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout As if a miracle could be encored. But ah! this other, this that nlever endls, Still climbing, luring fancy still to climil), As full of miorals half-divined as life, Graceful, grotesque, with ever inew surprise Of hazardous caprices sure to please, Heavy as nigihtmare, airy-liglt as fern, Imaginiatioi's very self in stone! With one long sighl of infinite release Froni pedantries past, present, or to come, 1 looked, and owned myself a hlappy Goth. Your blood is minie, yve rclhitects of dreanm, Builders of aspiration incomplete, So mtore consummate, souls self-confident, WYlio felt your own thouglt worthy of record In monumental pomp! No Grecian drop THE CATHEDRAL. RPebukes these veins that leap with kindred tlr. illL, After lonig exile, to thle iothler-tongue. Ovid in Pontus, puling fior his Rome Of men illvirile andI disnatured daines Tlhat poison sucked from the Attic blooimi de cayed, Shlrauk with a shludder firoi the blue-eyeId race Wvliose force rough-Ihanded shouLld renewv tlhe world, And from the dregs of Romulus express Suchl wiie as Dante po'ured, or lie wilio blew Rolaid's vain blast, or sanig the Campeador Iii verse that clakis like armnor in the chlarge, Homeric juice, if brimmned in Odin's liorn. And they could build, if not the columned failie Thlit froum tlhe hleiglit gleamed seaward maniy hued, 3 1 THE CATHEDRAL. Sonetlhing more friendly with their ruder skies: The gray spire, molten now in driving mist, Now lulled with the incomniuicable blue; The carvings touched to meanings new with SlOW, Or commented with fleeting grace of shade; The statues, motley as man's memory, Partial as that, so mixed of true and false, History and Legend meeting with a kiss Across this bound-mark where their realms confine; The painted windows, freaking gloom with glow, Dusking thle sunshine which they seem to cheer, Meet symbol of the sellses and the soul And the whole pile, grim with the Northman's thought Of life and death, and doomn), life's equal fee, - 32 THE CATHEDRAL. These were before mle: and I gazed abashed, Child of anl age that lectures, not creates, Plastering our swallow-nests on hlie awful Past, And twittering round the work of larger men, As we had builded what we but deface. Far up the great hells wallowed in delight, Tossing their clangors o'er the heedless town, To call the wvorshlippers who never camne, Or women mostly, in loath twos and threes. I entered, reverent of whatever shrine Guards piety and solace for my kind Or gives the soul a moment's truce of God, And shared decorous in the ancient rite ,My sterner fathers held idolatrous. The service over, I was tranced in thought: Solemn the deepening vaults, and most to me, Fresh from the fragile realm of deal and paint, Or brick mock-pious with a marble front; 33 34 THE CATHEDRAL. Solemin thle lift of hligi-emnbowered roof, The clustered stemns thlat spread in boiughis dis leav-ed, Tilroughi whicil the orgaii blew a dieam ('f storm, Thloughi not more potent to sublime withi awe Aid shut the hleart up in tranquillity, Tlhan aisles to me familiar that o'erarch The conscious silences of brooding vo((tl,s, Ceiturial shadows, cloisters of the (-k: Yet lhere was sense of undefined regret, I'reparable loss, uncertain what: Was all thlis grandeur butit anachi'oliism,A shlell divorced of its iliformilig life, Where the priest housed him like a lieriit-c, ib, An alien to that faithi of elder days That gathered rounid it this fair qliape of stone? Is old Religion but a spectre,o,w, THE CATHEDRAL. Haunting the solitude of darkened minds, Mocked out of memory by the sceptic dav'? Is there no cornler safe from peepingi Doubt, Since Gutenberg made thoug,ht cosmopolite And stretched electric tlhreads from mind to mind? Nay, did Faith build this wonder? or did Fear, That makes a fetish and misnames it God (Blockish or mietaphysic, matters not), Contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in, Appeased with playthlings, that he might not harm? I turned and saw a beldame oln hler knees; Withl eyes astray, she told mechanic beads Before some shrine of saintly wonianliood, Bribed intercessor withl the far-off Judge: Suclh my first thlouglLt. by kindlier soon re buked, 35 THE CATHEDRAL. Pleading for whatsoever touches life With upward impulse: be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles: Blessed the natures shored onl every side With landmarks of hereditary thought! Thrice happy they that wander not lifelong Beyond near succor of the household faith, The guarded fold that shelters, not confines! Their steps find patience in familiar paths, Printed with hope by loved feet gone before Of parent, child, or lover, glorified By simple magic of dividing Time. MIy lids were moistened as the woman knelt, And- was it will, or some vibrationl faint Of sacred Nature, deeper than the will? AMy heart occultly felt itself in hers, Through mutual intercession gently leagued. 36 THE CATHEDRAL. Dr was it not mere svympathy of brain? A sweetness intellectually conceived In siimpler creeds to me impossible? A jLuggLle of that pity for ourselves In others, which puts on such pretty masks And snares self-love with bait of cliarity? Somethinlg of all it might be, or of none Yet for a moment I was snatched away And had the evidence of things not seen; For one rapt moment; then it all came back, This age that blots out life with question-marks, This nineteenth cenltul y with its knife and glass That miake thought physical, and thrust far off Thie Heaven, so neighborly with malt of old, To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars. 'T is irrecoverable, that ancient faith, Homely and lwholesome, suited to the time, 37 38 THE CATHEDRAL. WAithl rod or candy for child-minded men: No thleologic tube, with lens on lens Of syllogism transparent, brings it near,At best resolving some new nebula, Or blurring some fixed-star of hope to mist. Science was Faith once; FaithI were Science 110w, Would she but lay her bow and arrows by And arm her with the weapons of the time. Nothilng that keeps thought out is safe from thiou,ght. For tiere's no vigiin-fort but self-respect, And Truth defensive bathI lost hold on God. Shall we treat Him as if He were a child That kiewnot His own lpurpose? nor dare trust Tile Rock of Ages to their chliemic tests, Lest some day the all-sustaininig base divine Should fail from under us, dissolved in gas? THE CATHEDRAL. The arimed eye that witl a glaice discerns III a dry blood-speck betweeil ox antd mall, Stares lhelpless at this mit-acle called life, This shlaping potency belh,iid the egg, This circulation swift of deity, Wlhere SUits and Systeims inconSpicuous float As tile poor blood-disks inl our niortal veins. Eachl age must worship its owni tlhoughlt of God, -lore or less eartlhy, clarifying still With subsidence contijinous of the dregs Nor saint nor sage could fix itmmutably The flttent image of the unstable Best, Still elcanginig ili their very hands that wroughtTo-day's eternal truthl To-morrow proved Frail as frost-landscapes ou a wildow-pane. Mleainwhile Thlou smiledst, inaccessible, At Thlought's oiwn substance made a cage for TIouglIt, 39 40 THE CATHEDRAL. And Truthl locked fast with her own master key; Nor didst Thou reck what image man might make Of his own shadow on the flowing world; Tile climbing instinct was enough for Thlee. Or wast Thou, then, an ebbing tide that left Strewn with dead miracle those eldest shlores, For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood? Idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched By virtue in their mantles left below; Shall the soul live on other men's report, Herself a pleasing fable of herself? Malan cannot be God's outlaw if he would, Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense But Nature still shall search some crevice out WitlI passaget~ fscndor from that Source THE CATIlEDRAL. hVlicl, dive he, soar hlie, baffles still and lures. This life were brutish did we not sometimes Have intimtation clear of wider scope, Hilnts of occasion infinite, to keep The soul alert with noble discontent And onward yearnings of unstilled desire Fruitless, except we now and then divined A mystery of Purpose, gleaming, tlhrough The secular confusions of the world, Whlose will we darkly accomplish, doing ours. No man can think nor in himself perceive, Sometimes at waking, in the street sometimes, Or on the hillside, always unforewarned, A grace of beiing, finer than himself, That beckons and is gone,- a larger life Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse Of spacious circles luminous with mind, To which the ethereal substance of his own 4i THE CATHEDRAL. Seems but gross cloud to imake that visible, Touched to a sudden glory round the edge. WVho that hathl known these visitations fleet Would strive to make them trite and ritual? I, that still pray at morning, and at eve, Loving those roots that feed us from thle past, And prizing more than Plato tlings I learned At that best academe, a motlher's knee, Thriice ill my life perhaps have truly prayed, TT)rice, stirred below my conscious self, hlave felt That perfect diselithralment which is God; Nor know I whl)ichl to hold worst enemy, Him who on speculation's windy waste Would turn nie loose, stript of the raiment warmi By Faith contrived against our nakedness, Oi' him iwho, cruel-kind, would faiii obscure, 12 THE CATHEDRAL. Witll painled saints and paraplhrase of God The soul's east-window of divine surprise. Whliere othlers worshlip I but look and loig; For, tlloughl not recreant to niy fathlers' faitlh. Its forms to me are weariness, and most That drony vacuum of compulsory prayer, Still pumping phrases for the Ioeffable, Thlough all thle valves of memory gasp and wheeze. Words that hlave drawn transcendent meanings up From hle best passion of all bygonle time, Steeped thlroiugh withl tears of triumph and remorse, Sweet wvitll all sainthood, cleansed in nimartvyr fires, Ca] thley, so consecrate and so inspired, By repetition wane to vexinl wind? 4 44 THE CATIHEDRAL. A;las! we cannot draw habitual breath Ill tlhe thin air of life's supremer heights, We callnnot make eaclh mneal a sacrament, Nor with our tailors be disbodied souls, We men, too conscious of earth's comedy, vWhIo see two sides, with our posed selves de bate, And only for great stakes can be sublime Let us be thankful wlhen, as 1 do here, We call read Bethlel on a pile of stones, And, seeing wihere God has been, trust in Him. Brave Peter Fischlier thlere ill Nuremberg, Moutlding, Saint Sebald's nmiracles in bronze, Put saiiit and stander-by ill that quaint garb Familiar to hini in his daily walk, Not doubting God could grail a miracle THE CATHEDRAL. Theni and ill Niirenberg, if so He would But never artist for three hlundred years Hatli dared the contradiction ludicrous Of supernatural in modern clothes. Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come Will see God rather in the strenuous doubt, Thanl ill the creed held as an ijfalt's lihand Holds purpl)oseless wliatso is placed therein. Say it is drift, not progress, none tile less, With the old sextant of the fathers' creed, WVe shape our courses by new-risen stars, Aud, still lip-loyal to what once was truth, Smu,ggle new meanings under ancient names, Uilconscious perverts of the Jesuit, Time. Change is the mask that all Continuance wears To keep us youngsters harmlessly amused; MAeanwhile, some ailing or more watchful chlild, 45 THE CATHEDRAL. Sitting, apart, sees tlie old eyes gleam out, Stern, and yet soft withl hum-orous pity too. WlIilere, nmen burnt men for a doubtful point, As if the mind were quenchable withl fire, And Faithl danced round them with her war paint on, Devoutly savage as an Iroquois; Now Calvin aind Servetus at one board SnuIf ili grave sympatly a milder roast, And o'er their claret settle Comnte unread. Fagot and stake were desperately sincere Our cooler martyrdoms are done ill types; And flames that slime in controversial eyes Burn out no brains but his who kindles tlhem. Tlhis is no age to get cathedrals built Did Godcl, then, wait for one in Bethlelhem? Worst is not yet: lo, wlhere his coming looms, Of Earthl's anarchlic children ]atest born, 46 THE CATHEDRAL. Democracy, a Titan who liath learned To laogl at Jove's old-fashioned tltimdei. bolts, Could lie not also for;e them, if he would? Hlie, better skilled, with solvents merciless, Loosened in air and borne on every wind, Saps unperceived: the calm Olympian heigllt Of ancient order feels its bases yield, And pale gods glance for help to gods as pale. Whllat will be left of good or worslhipful, Of spiritual secrets, mysteries, Of fair Religion's guarded heritage, Heirlooms of soul, passed downward unpro. failed From eldest IJd? This WTestern giant coarse Scorning refinements which le lacks bimiself, Loves not nor hleeds the ancestral hierarcliifis, Each rakll dependent on the next above 4 t' 48 THE CATHEDRAL. Ill orderly gradation fixed as fate. King, by mere malnhood, nor allowing auglit Of hlolier unction tlhan the sweat of toil; In his own strength sufficient; called to solve, 0n the rou,gh eldges of society, Problems long sacred to the chloicer few, And iimprovise what elsewhere men receive As gifts of Deity; toulgh foundling reared Wlhere everv inai's his own Melechisedek, IHov make liim reverent of a King of kinilgs? Or JLdge self-made, executor of laws Bv him not first discussed and voted on? For him no tree of knowledge is forbid, Or sweeter if forbid. How save the ark, O hloly of hlolies, unprofaned a day From hlis unscrupulous curiosity That handles everything as if to buy, Tossiu, aside whlat fabrics delicate THE CATHEDRAL. Suit not the rough-and-tumble of his ways? What hope for those fine-nerved humanities That made earth gracious once with gentler arts, Now the rude hands have caught the trick of thoulght And claim an equal suffrage with the brain? Thle born disciple of an elder time, (To me sufficient, friendlier than the new,) WhVlo in my blood feel motions of the Past, I thank benignant Nature most for this, A force of sympatlhyv, or call it lack Of character firmn-planted, loosing me From the pent chamber of habitual self To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, Haply distasteful, whlolesomer for that, And through imagination to possess, 49 THE CATHEDRAL. As they were mine, the lives of oth,er men. This growth originial of virgin soil, By fascination felt in opposites, Pleases and shlocks, entices and perturbs. In tlhis browni-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid, This backwoods Charlemagne of empires new, VWhlose blundering heel instinctively fillds out The goutier foot of speechless di,gnities, Who, meeting CTsar's self, would slap his back, Call him "Old Horse," and challenge to a drink, AIv lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates WAVithl ampler manhood, and I front both worlds, Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, To shape and then reshape them as I will. It was the first mnan's chlarter; why not mine? How forfeit? wheli deposed in other hands? 50 THE CATHEDRAL. Thou sliiidder'st, Ovid? Dost in himi forebode A new avatar of the large-linibed Goth, To break, or seem to break, tradition's clew, And chlase to dreanilaiid back thy g,ods de throned? I think man's soul dwells nearer to the east, Nearer to niorning's fountains thlan the sun; Herself the sollurce whence all tradiltion spran, Herself at once bothli labyrinlith and clew. The mniracle fades out of history, But faitll and wonder and thle primal earth Are born into the iwoild witll every child. Slall tllis self-maker witl tlle prying eyes, This creature disenchanted of respect By the New World's new fiend, Publicity, Whlose testing thumb leaves everywhere its smutch, Not oile day feel within himself tlle need 51 52 THE CATHEDRAL. Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall ennoble him withli the upward look? Shall he not catch the Voice that wanders earth, With spiritual summons, dreamed or heard, As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the senlse, We hear our mother call firom deeps of Timie, And, waking, find it vision,- none the less Thile benediction hides, old skies return, Aid that unreal thing, pre-eminent, Makes air and dream of all we see and feel? Shall he divine no strength unmade of votes, IJnward, impregnable, found soon as sought, Not cognizable of sense, o'er sense supreme? His holy places may not be of stone, Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than aught By artist feigned or pious ardor reared, Fit altars for who guards inviolate THE CATHEDRAL. God's chosen seat, the sacred form of man. Doubtless hlis church will be no hospital For superannuate forims and mumnpinug sliaiiis, No parlor where imen issue policies Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind, Nor his religion but an ambulance To fetch life's wounded and malingerers in, Scorned by the strong; yet hlie, unconscious heir To the influence sweet of Athenls and of Rome, And old Judaea's gift of secret fire, Spite of himself shall surely learn to know And worship some ideal of himself, Some divine thing, large-hearted, brotherly, Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, Pleased with his world, and hating only cant. And, if his Church be doubtful, it is sure That, in a world, mnade for whatever else, 53 THE CATHEDRAL. Not made for nie'e enjoymnent, in a world OL toil but half-requited, or, at best, Paid is somne futile currency of breatlh, A worild of incomnpleteness, sorrow swift Anid consolation laggaid, whatsoe'er 'Tile formi of building or the creed professed, T1'ie Cross, bold type of slhamte to homage turnled, Of al unfilishled life that sways the world, Shall tower as sovereign enibleiii over all. The kobold Thlought moves with us when wt shift Our dwelling to escape him; perched aloft On the first l(oad of househlold-stuff he went; Foir, where the mind goes, goes old furniture. 1, who to Chartres came to feed my eye Andl give to Fancy one cl(ar hloliday, 54 THE CATHEDRAL. Scarce saw the nminster for the thoughits it stirred Buzzing o'er past and future with vain quest. Here once there stood a homely woodien church, W,hich slow devotion nobly changed for this That echoes vaguely to my modern steps. By suffrage universal it was built, As practised then, for all the country came From far as Rouen, to give votes for God, Each vote a block of stone securely laid Obedient to the master's deep-mused plan. Will what our ballots rear, responsible To no grave forethloughlt, stand so long as this? Delight like this the eye of after days Brightening with pride that here, at least, were men V hio meant and did the noblest thing they knew? 55 56 THE CATHEDRAL. Can our religion cope with deeds like this? We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, because Our deacons have discovered that it pays, And pews sell better under vaulted roofs Of plaster painted like an Iudian squaw. Shall not that Western Goth, of whom we spoke, So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, Find out, some day, that nothing pays but God, Served whether on the smoke-shut battle-field, Ill work obscure done honestly, or vote For truth unpopular, or faith maintained To ruinous convictions, or good deeds Wroulght for good's sake, mindless of heaven or hell? Shall he not learn that all prosperity, Whose bases stretch not deeper than the sense, Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, THE CATHEDRAL. A desert-bornl mirage of spire and dome, Or find too late, the Past's long lesson missed, That dust the prophets shake from off their feet Grows heavy to drag down both tower and wall? I know not; but, sustained by sure belief That man still rises level with the height Of noblest opportunities, or makes Such, if the time supply not, I can wait. I gaze round on the windows, pride of France, Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild Who loved their city and thought gold well spent To make her beautiful with piety; I pause, transfig,ured by some stripe of bloom, And my mind throngs with shining auguries, Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, With golden trumpets, silent, tihat await The signal to blow news of good to men. 57 58 THE CATHEDRAL. Tlhen the revulsion came that always comes After these dizzy elations of the mind: And with a passionate pang of doubt I cried, 0 mountain-born, sweet with snow-filtered air From uncontaminate wells of ether drawn And never-broken secrecies of sky, Freedom, with ainguish won, misprized till lost, They keep thee not who from thy sacred eyes Catch the consuming lust of sensual good And the brute's license of unfettered will. Fal from the popular shout and venal breath Of Cleon hblowingi the mob's baser mind To bubbles of wind-piloted conceit, Thou shrilkest, gathering up thy skirts, to hide In fortresses of solitary thought And private virtue strong in self-restraint. MIust we too forfeit thee misunderstood, Coutent witlh namtes, nor inly wise to know THE CATHEDRAL. That best things perish of their own excess, And quality o'er-driveli becomes defect? Nav, is it thou indeed that we have glimpsed, Or rather such illusion as of old Thlrough Athens glided menladlike and Rome, A shape of vapor, mother of vain drcai)s And Imutinous traditions, specious plea Of the glaived tyrant and long-nmemoried priest?" I walked forth saddened; for all thouglht is sad, And leaves a bitterish savor in the brain, Tonic, it may be, not delectable, And turned, reluctant. for a parting look At those old weather-pitted images Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm. About their shoulders sparrows liad built nests, 59 60 THE CATHEDRAL. And fluttered, chirping, from gray perlch to perch, Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, Ih'reverently happy. While I tllought How confident they were, what careless hearts Flew on those lightsome wings and shared the SUll, A larger shadow crossed; and looking up, I saw whlere, nesting in the hoary towers, Tile sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air, With sidelong head that watched the joy below, Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of Kelts. Eilduring Nature, force conservative, Indifferent to our noisy whims! Men prate Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered On level with the dullest, and expect (Sick of no worse distemper than themselves) A w'ondrolIs cure-all in equality; THE CATHEDRAL. They reason that To-morrow must be wise Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, As if good days were shapen of themselves, Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls; MIeanwhile, long-suffering, imperturbable, Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, And from the premise sparrow here below Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk above, Pleased with the soft-billed songster, pleased no less With the fierce beak of natures aquiline. Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away In the Past's valley of Avilion, Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed, Then to reclaimn the sword and crown again! Thrice beautiful to us; perchance less fair To who possessed thee, as a mountain seems 61 62 THE CATHEDRAL. To dwellers round its bases but a hleap Of barren obstacle that lairs the stormn And the avalanche's silent bolt holds back Leashled with a hlair,- meanwhile sonme far-of' clown, Hereditary delver of the plain, Sees it an unmoved visioli of repose, Nest of tile morning, and conjectures thlere Tie dance of streams to idle shepherds' pipes, And faiirer habitations softly hung On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, For happier men. No mortal ever dreams That the scant isthmus lie encamps upon Between two oceans, one, the Stormiy, passed, And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, Has been that future whereto prophets yearned For the fulfilment of Earthl's cheated hope, Shlall be that past whichl nerveless poets moai THE CATHEDRAL. As tle lost opportunity of song. O Power, more near my life than life itself (Or what seems life to us in senlse iimmured), Even as the roots, shut in the darksomne earl }i, Share in the tree-top's joyanlce, and conceive Of sunshine anld wide air and wiiiged things By svympathly of nature, so do I Have evidence of Thee so far above, Yet in anld of me! Rather Tlhou llie root Invisibly sustainingi, hid in lighllt, Not darkness, or in darkness miade by its. If sometimies I must l]ear good meli debate Of other witness of Thyself thlan Tlhou, As if there needed any help of ours To nurse Thy flickering life, that else must cease, Blown out, as;t were a candle, by nien's breatlh, MIy soutl shlall not be taken in their snare, 63 64 THE CATHEDRAL. To change her inward surety for their doubt Aluffled from sight in formal robes of proof: While she can only feel herself through Thee, I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear, Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked with dreams Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, Thou, Walking Thy garden still, commun'st with men, Missed il the commonplace of miracle. ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMIMEMIORATION, JULY 21, 1865. V 'ii~ II[ ,i I I ~, if'! U~~~~~~~~~~~~~1 I F ODE. I. EAK-VEAWYN GED is song, Nor aims at that clear-ethered height VWhithler the brave deed climbs for light - We seem to do therm wrong, Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, Our trivial song to honor those who come With ears attuned to strenunous fri-up and drum, 68 COMNIEMORATION ODE. And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, A gracious memory to buoy up and save From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave Of the unventurous throng. II. To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back Her wisest Scholars, those who understood The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, Anld offered their fresh ives to make it good: No lore of Greece or Rome, No science peddling with the names of things, Or reading, stars to find inglorious fatos, Canl lift our life with wings COMMEMORATION ODE. Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, And lengthen out our dates With that clear fame whose memory sings In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all I Not such the trumpet-call Of thy diviner mood, That could thy sons entice From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, Into War's tumult rude; But rather far that stern device The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood In the dimi, iuventured wood, 69 70 COMMNIEMORATION ODE. The VERITAS that lurks beneath The letter's unprolifie sheath,' Life of whate'er makes life worth living, Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, One heavenly thing whereof earth bath the ,iving. III. Malay loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil Amiid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdoni of their toil, With the cast mantle she bath left behind her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Manay with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, COM3IE3MORATION ODE. Tasting, the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: Their higher insticet knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, Niid whlat they dare to dreami of, dare to do; They followed her and found her Whlere all may hope to find, Not in the ashles of the burnt-oitt mind, But beautiful, with dauger's sweetness round her. Wliere faithl made whlole witli deed Breatlies its awalkening breath Into thle lifeless creed, They saw lher plumed and mailed, WYithl sweet, sternl face unveiled, And all-repaying eyes, look proud on thlem in death. 71 72 COMIMEMORATION ODE. IV. Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides Inlto the silent hollow of the past; What is there that abides To make the next age better for the last? Is earth too poor to give us Something to live for here that shall outlive us Some more substantial boon Than slieh as flows and ebbs witi Fortune's fickle moon? The little that we see Fromn doubt is never free; The little that we do Is but half-nobly true; With our laborious hiving Wlhat men call treasure, and the gods call dross, COMMEMORATION ODE. Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving;,, Only secure in every onle's conniving, A long account of nothlings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and desires, Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. But stay! no age was e'er degenerate, Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, For in our likeness still we shape our fate. Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, Something that gives our feeble light A high immunity from Night, Something that leaps life's narrow bars To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; 73 74 CCMMEMORATION ODE. A seed of sunshine that dotli leaven Our earthly dulness with the beams of star's, And glorify our clay With light from fountains elder than ilthe Day; A conscience more divine thlan we, A gladness fed with secret tears, A vexing, forward-reaching sense Of some more noble permanence; A light across the sea, Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, Still glimmering from the heights of uidegener ate years. V. Whither leads the path To ampler fates that leads? Not down throuigh flowery meads, COMMEMORATION ODE. To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds, But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-liostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds, Peace liath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword Dreams in its easeful sheath; Bitt some day the live coal behind fthie tlhouglit, Wh ether from Baal's stone obscene, Or from the shrine serene Of God's pure altar brought, Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraugh]it, And,.helpless in the fiery passion cauglit, 75 6 COMMEMORAT1ION ODE. Snakes all the pillared state with shock of men: Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful: " Was it, then, my praise, And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; Give me thy life, or cower ill empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate! Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, inetliinks, God's plan COMMEMORATION ODE. And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed firomi within with all the strength lihe needs. VI. Such was he, our Martyr-Chllief, Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head, Wept with the passion of anll alngtry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burnl And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, Algd cannot make a man 77 78 COMMEMORATION ODEF. Save on some wornl'l-out plan, Repeating, us by rote: For him her Old-World moulds aside she thlrew And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff uitaiitcd shaped a hero nlew, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. How beautiful to see Ollce more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; Olle whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, But by his clear-grained human wortlh, Allid brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's ulfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will COMMEMIORATION ODE. That bent like perfect steel to spri,ng again and thrust. His was no lonely mountaini-peak of mind, Tli rusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, Yet also nigh, to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. Notlhing of Europe hlere, Or, tlhen, of Europe froiting mornward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface And thwart hler genial will; Here was a type of tlhe true elder race, And one of Plutarch's mien talkedwith us face to face. I praise himi not; it were too late; 79 80 COMMIEMORATION ODE. And some inuative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of oiur new soil, the first American. COMMEMORATION ODE. VII. Long as man's hope insatiate can discern Or only guess some more inispiring goal Outside or Self, enduring as the pole, Along whose course the flyiiing axles burn Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's manlier brood; Long as below we cannot find The meed that stills the inexorable mind; So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal names it masks, Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood Flat thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, Feeling its chiallenged pulses leap, Wliile others skulk in subterfuges cheap, &nld, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, 81 82 COMIMEMORATION ODE. Slitall win maii's p)raise aid woman's 1e, Shall be a wisdlom that we set above All othler skills anId gifts to culture dear, A virtue round whose forehlead we inwreatlhe Laurels that with a living passion breathe When otlher clrowns gl'row, whlile we twine thlem, sear. What bring,s us thronging these high rites to pay, And seal these hlours the noblest of our yea,,, Save that our brothers found this be ter way? VrIII. We sit here in lie Promised Land That flows with Freedom's hloney and m, I, But't was they won it, sword in hand, M:aking the nettle danger soft for us as silk COMii'IlMlt.q iATION ODE. We welcome back our bravest and our bcst; Ah me! not all! some come not withl tlhe rest, Wlio went forth brave and bright as any hlere' r strive to mix sone gladness with my strain, But thle sad strings complain, And w-ill not please the ear: I sweep tlem fo' a plan, but they wane Again and yet again Illto a dirge, and die away, in pain. In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me tlle past is unforgiving; 83 84 COMMEMORATION ODE. I with uncovered head Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not. — Say not so! 'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No bar of endless night exiles the brave; And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shiining track; In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, COMMEMORATION ODE. Of all our saintlier aspiration; They conme transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expectatiou! IX. But is there hope to save Even this ethereal essence from the grave? What ever'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song? Before my musing eye Tile mighty ones of old sweep by, Disvoiced now and insubstantial things, As noisy once as we; poor ghosts of kings, Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, And many races, nameless long ago, 85 6 COMMEMORATION ODE. To darkness driven by that imperious gust Of ever-ruhiing Tiime that here dotli blow O visionary world, condition strange, Wilere naught abiding is but only Chainge, Whlere the deep-bolted stars theniselves still shift and irange! Shall we to more continuance make pre teiee? Renown builds tombs; a life-estate is Wit; And, bit by bit, The cunning years steal all from us but woe; Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. But, when we vanish hence, Shall they lie forceless in the dark below, Save to make green their little length of sods, Or deepenl pansies for a year or two, COMMEMORATION ODE. Who now to us are shining,-sweet as gods? Was dying all they had the skill to do? That were not fruitless: but the Soul resents Such short-lived service, as if blind events Ruled without her, or earth could so en dure; She claims a more divine investiture Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents; Whate'er she touches doth her nature share; Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air, Gives eyes to mountains blind, Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, And her clear trump sings succor every where By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind; For soul inherits all that soul could dare: Yea, Manhood hath a wider span And larger privilege of life than man. 87 88 COMM0EMORATION ODE. The single deed, the private sacrifice, So radiant now through proudly-iidden tears, Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years; But that high privilege that makes all men peers, That leap of heart whereby a people rise Up to a noble anger's height, And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright, That swift validity in noble veins, Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, Of being set on flame By thie pure fire that flies all contact base, But wraps its chosen with angelic might, These are imperishable gains, COMMEMORATION ODE. Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, These hold great futures in their lusty reins And certify to earth a new imperial race. x. Who now shall sneer? Who dare again to say we trace Our lines to a plebeian race? Roundhead and Cavalier! Duilb are those names erewhile in battle loud; Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, They flit across the ear: That is best blood that hath most iron in't. To edge resolve with, p,Turing without stint For what makes manlhood dear. Tell us not of Plantag-nets, Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl 89 90 COMMEMORATION ODE. Down from some victor in a border-brawl! How poor their outworn coronets, MIatched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears With vain resentments and more vain re. grets! Not in anger, not in pride, Pure from passion's mixture rude Ever to base earth allied, But with far-heard gratitude, Still with heart and voice renewed, To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, XI. COMMEMORATION ODE. The strain should close that consecrates our brave. Lift the heart and lift the head! Lofty be its mood and grave, Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing Through whose heart in such an hnar Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'T is no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, huimblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then 91 92 COMMEMORATION ODE. Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. Come back, thlen, noble pride, for't is her dower! How could poet ever tower, If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people? Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves! Clashl out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! Balnners, advance with triumphli, bend your staves! And from every mountain-peak Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, COMMEMORATION ODE. Katahldiii tell Monladnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, Till the glad news be sent Across a kindling continent, Makiing, earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: "B. proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, She of the open soul and open door,? With room about her hearth for all man kind! The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; From her bold front the helm she dotli unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled 93 94 COMMEMORATION ODE. Their crashing battle, hold their thunders In, Swimming like birds of calm along the tin harmiful shore. No challeinge sends she to the elder world, That looked askaiince and hated; a light sCOrll Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees Shle calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, enthlronled between her subject seas." XII. Bow down, dealr Land, for thou hast found re lease! Thly God, in these distempered days, COMMEMORATION ODE. Halth taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, Aod through thinle enemies hath-wrought thy peace! Bow dolwn in prayer and praise! No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow, O Beautiful! mny Country! ours once more! Smoothing tihy gold of war-dislhevelled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrathl's pale eclipse, Tile rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, Among the Nations bright beyond compare? AVIW t were oar lives without thee? 95 96 COMMEMORATION ODE. What all our lives to save thlee? We reek not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare! I FAVORITE POEMS. FAVORITE POEMS. I CONTENTS. Page Mvy LOVE...... 11 ABOVE AND BELOW. 13 THE CHANGELING......16 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 18 AMIBROSE.......21 MASACCIO........... 24 AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG.. 26 TO THE DANDELION.. 30 BEAVER BROOK......... 33 AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH... 37 THE COURTIN'.....44 WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINNS... 51 IR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE AT LANTIC MONTHLY.. 55 TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON........ 63 THE FIRSTr SNOW-FALL.......... 65 WITHOUT AND WITHIN.... 69 CONTENTS. GODMIINSTER CHIMES........... 71 AUF WIEDERSEHEN........... 73 PALINODE............. 75 AFTER THE BURIAL..... 76 THE DEAD HOUSE...........79 YUSSOUF............. 81 WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID........ 83 ALL-SAINTS............ 85 THE DARKEN-,ED MIND..........86 AN EMBER PICTURE...... 88 To H. W. L............. 90 THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 93 IN THE TWILIGHT...... 96 THE FOOT-PATH........... 99 THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD....102 vi ILLUSTRATIONS. "MI coacliiaiin in the mioonlight there". . Frontispiece. Page , 3 $ "ASwcet Beaver, child of forest still. "lie stood a spell on one foot flist, Thlen stood a spell on t' other". "With eyes that saw not I kissed her ". ~. 49 .~ 67 MY LOVE. s;OT as all other women are Is she that to mny soul is dear Her glorious fancies come from far, 13eneath the silver evening-star, And 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 tone Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. Yet in herself she dwelleth not, Although no homie were half so fair; No simplest duty is forgot, Life hath no dimn and lowly spot That doth not in her sunshine share. She dcloeth little kindnesses, I I 12 FAVORITE POE.MS. Which most leave Lndone, or despise: For nlaug,ht that sets one heart at ease, And giveth happiness or peace, Is low-esteemed in her eyes. She hath no scorn of common things, And, though she seemn of other birth, Round us her heart intwines and clings, And patiently she folds her wings To tread the humble paths of earth. Blessing she is: God made her so, And deeds of week-day holiness Fall from her noiseless as the snow, :Nor hath she ever chanced to know That aught were easier than to bless. She is most fair, and thereunto Her life doth rightly harmonize; Feeling or thought that was not true Ne'er made less beautiful the blue Uncloude.d heaven of her eyes. She is a woman: one in whom The spring-tilne of her childish years Hath never lost its fresh perfume, ABOVE AND BELOW. Though kinowing well that life hath room For mabny blig,hts and many tears. I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, Which, by high tower and lowly miill, Goes wanderilln at its own will, And yet doth ever flow aright. And, oil its full, deep breast serene, Like (tuiet isles my duties lie; It flow-s around them and between, And ]nakes them fiesh and fair and green, Sweet homies wherein to live and die. ABOVE AND BELOW. I. DWELLERS in the valley-land, ! Who in deep twilig,ht grop)e a(nd i i cower, Till thle slovw mnountain's dial-hiand Shortens to nooni's triumphal hour, 13 FAVORITE POEMIS. While ye sit idlle, do ye think The Lord's great work sits idle too? That light dare not o'erleap the brink Of morn, because't is dark with you? Though yet your valleys skulk in night, In God's ripe fields the day is cried, And reapers, with their sickles bright, Troop, singing,, down the moiuntain-side Comlne up, and feel what health there is In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, As, bending with a pitying kiss, The night-shed tears of Earth she dries! The Lord wants reapers: 0, mount uip, Before night comes, and says, "Too late!" Stay not for taking scrip or cup, The Master hungers while ye wait; 'T is from these heights alone your eyes The advancing spears of day can see, That o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, To break your long captivity. II. Lone watcher on the mountain-height, It is right precious to behold 14 ABOVE AND BELOW. The first long surf of climbing light Flood all the thirsty east with gold But we, who in the shadow sit, Know also when the day is nigh, Seeing thy shining forehead lit WVith his inspiring prophecy. Thou hast thine office; we have ours God lacks not early service here, But what are thine eleventh hours He counts with us for morning cheer Our day, for Him, is long enough, And when he giveth work to do, The bruised reed is amply tough To pierce the shield of error through. But not the less do thou aspire Light's earlier messages to preach Keep back no syllable of fire, Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. Yet God deems not thine aeried sight Mlore worthy than our twilight dim For meek Obedience, too, is Light, And following that is finding Him. 15 16 FAVORITE POEMS. THE CHANGELING. HAD a little daughter, And she was given to me To lead me gently backwaid To the Heavenly Father's knee, That 1, by the force of nature, Might in some dimn wise divine The depth of his infinite patience To this waywardcl soul of mine. I know not how others saw her, But to me she was wholly fair, And the light of the heaven she caine from Still lingered and gleamed in her hair For it iwas as wavy and golden, And as many changes took, As the shadows of snn-gilt ripples On the yvellow bed of a brook. To what can I liken her smiling Upon inme, her kneeling lover, How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids, And dimpled her wholly over, THE CHANGELING. Till her outstretched haids smiledi also, And I almnost seemned to see The very heart of her mnother Sending sun through her veins to me! She had been wvith us scarce a twelvemonth, And it hardly seemned a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter aw-ay Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cage-door, My little bird used her wvings. But they left instead a changeling, A little an54el child, That seems like her bud ia full blossonm, And smiles as she never smiled: IWhen I -wakle in the morning, I see it Wvhere she alyays used to lie, And I feel as weak as a violet Alone'neath the awfutl skv. As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see 17 FAVORITE POEMS. All the wonders of faithfiil Nature Still worked for the love of me; Winds wasnder, and dews drip earthward, Rain falls, suiins rise and set, Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. This child is not mine as the first wasy I cannot sing, it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in-mv little one's chair, Andcl the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 'HERE came a youth upon the earth, t Some thousand years ago, Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Whether to plougch, or reap, or sow. 18 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMIETUS. 19 Uponl an empty toitoise-shell He stretched some chords, and drer lMusic that made iiieii's bosolis swell Fearless, or hrimmed(l their eyes with dew. Then Kiing Admietus, one who had Pure taste hy right divine, Decreed his singing not too bad To hear between the cups of wine: And so, well pleased with being, soothed Into a sweet half-sleep, Three 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 was rough In his seemed musical and low. Alen called him but a shiftless youth, In whomn no good they saw; And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law. FAVORITE POEMS. They knew not how he learned at all, For idly, hour by hour, He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, Or niused uponI a coliiiioii flower. It seemed the loveliness of thinugs Did teach him all their use, For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a healing power profuse. MIen granted that his speech was wise, But, when a glance they caught Of his Slim girace and vwomani's eyes, They lauglhed, and called him good-for naught. Yet after he was dead and gone, And e'eni his imemiory dim, Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, MAore full of love, because of him. And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother as a gold. 20 AMBROSE. AMBROSE. EVER, surely, was holier mnan Than Anmi)rose, since the world be gan; WAith diet spare and raiment thin He shielded himself froni the father of sin; WAVith bed of iron and scourging,s oft, His heart to God's hand as wax made soft. Through earnest prayer and watchings long He sought to know'tween right and wrong, MAuch wVrestling, with the blessed Word To make it yield the sense of the Lord, That he might build a storm-proof creed To fold the flock in at their need. At last he builded a perfect faith, Fenced round about with Thle Lor?d thus saith; To himself he fitted the doorway's size, MAeted the light to the need of his eyes, And knew, by a sure and inward sign, That the work of his fingers was divine. 21 22 FAVORITE POEMS. Then Amibrose said, "All those shall die The eternal deatth vho believe not as I"; An(il sonie -Nere ])oiled, some buIirned( ill fire, ,o(lIe sawll ill twvaill, that his heart's desire, For thle g(ood of mien's souls, might be satis I the d l of all t the riteos sie. By- tile dr~awviing of all to the righlteous sidle. Onle da-, as Amlbirose w-as seeking the truth In his lonely wNalk, he saw a youth Restin-g himself in the shade of a tree It had lie-er l)een granted hiiu to see So shining a face, and the good mani thought 'T w-eie pit hle shoulhl not believe as he onught. So he set himiself b)yf the young man's side, And the state of his soul with questions tried; But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, Nor received the stamp of the one true creed; And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find Such face the porch of so narrown a mind. AMBROSE. " As each beholds in cloud and fire The shape that answers his own desire, So each," said the youth, "in the Law shall find The figure and features of his mind; And to each in his mercy hath God allowed His several pillar of fire and cloud." The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal And holy wrath for the young mani's weal "Believest thou then, most wretched youth," Cried he, " a dividual essence in Truth? I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin To take the Lord in his glory in." Now there butbbled beside them where they stood A fountain of waters sweet and good; The youth to the streamilet's brink drew near Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!" Six vases of crystal then he took, And set them along the edge of the brook. "As into these vessels the water I pour, There shall one hold less, another more, 23 24 FAVORITE POEMS. And the water unchang,ed, in every case, Shall put on the fi,gure of the vase; O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife, Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?" When Ambl)rose looked up, he stood alone, The youth and the stream and the vases were gone; B3ut he knew, by a sense of humbled grace, He had talked with an angel face to face, And felt his heart change inwardly, As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. MASACCIO. IN THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL. E came to Florence long ago, And painted here these walls, that - ~i shone For Raphael and for Angelo, With secrets deeper than his own, Then shrank into the dark again, And died, we know not how or when. MASACCIO. The shadows deepened, and I turned Half sadlvy from the fresco grand; And is this," mused I, " all ye earned, High-vaulted brain and cunning hand, That ye to greater men could teach The skill yourselves could never reach?" "And who were they," I mused, "that wro,lught Through pathless wvilds, with labor long, Thle highways of our daily thought? Echo reared those towers of earliest song That lift us from the throng to peace Remote in sunny silences? " Otut clangedl the Ave MIary bells, And( to my heart this message came Each clamorouts throat among them tells What stron-souled( martyrs died in flame To make it possil)le that thou Shouldst here with brother-sinners bow. Tlhoulhts that great hearts once broke for, we Breathe cheaply in the common air; The dust we tramnple heedlessly 25 26 FAVORITE POEhIS. Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare, Who perished, opening for their race New pathways to the comnimonplace. Henceforth, when rings the health to those Who live in story and ill song, 0 nameless dead, that now repose Safe in Oblivion's chambiers strong, One cup of recognition true Shall silently be drained to you! AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. H E tower of old Sainlt Nicholas soared Lik lupward to the skies, sLik e some huge piece of Natutre's make, the growth of centuries; You could not deem its crowding spires a work of hunman art, They seemed to struggle lightward from a sturdy living heart. Not.atutre's self more freely speaks iii crys tal or in oak, INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. 27 Than through the pious builder's hand, in that gray pile she spoke .And as troil acorn springs the oak, so, freely and alone, Sprang, front his heart this hymn to God, sung in obedient stone. It seemed a wondrous 1reak of chance, so per fect, yet so rough, A w-himi of Nature crystallized slowly in granite tough; The thick spires yearned towards the sky in quaint harmonious lines, And in broad sunlight basked and slept, like a grove of blasted pines. Never did rock or streai -r tree lay claim with better right To all the adoriing syminpthies of shadow and of lig,ht And in that forest petrified as forester, there dwelIls Stout Hermian, the old sacristan, sole lord of all its bells FAVORITE POEMS. Surge leaping, after surge, the fire roared on ward red as blood, Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed beneath the eddying flood For miles away the fiery spray poured down its deadly rain, And back and forth the billows sucked, and paused, anid burst again. Froiii square to square with tiger leaps panted the lustful fire, The air to leeward shuddered with the gasps of its desire; And church and palace, which even now stood whelnied but to the knee, Lift their black roofs like breakers lone amid the whirling sea. Up ill his tower old Heriman sat and watched with quiet look; His soul had trusted God too long to be at last forsook; He could not fear, for surely God a pathway would unfold Through this red sea for faithful hearts, as once he did of old. 28 INCIDENT OF THE FIRE AT HAMBURG. 29 But scarcely call he cross hilnself, or on his good saint call, Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped tho churchyard(l wall And,-ere a pater half was said, mnid smoke and crackling glare, His island tower scarce juts its head above the wide despair. Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart stood up sublime; His first thought was for God above, his next was for his chiie; Silng now and make your voices heard in hymnns of praise," cried he, "As did the Israelites of old, safe walking thllrough the sea! " Throug'h this red sea our God hath mnade a pathway safe to shore; Our pronuised land stands full in sight; shout now as nle'er before! And as the tower camie crushing down, the bells, in clear accord, PeaLled( forth the g,rand old Geriuan hymn, All good( souls, praise the Lord! 30 FAVORITE POEMS. TO THE DANDELION. EAR common flower, that grow'st be side the way, Fringinug the dusty road with harm less gold, First pledge of blithesoime Alay, Which children pluck, and, full of pride up hold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, WVhich not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art miore deal to me Than all the prouder suimmier-bloonis nmav be. Gold such as thine ne'er d-rew the Spanish prow ThroLug,h the primeval bush of Inidian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to ifob the lover's heart of ease; 'T is tlle Springt,'s largess, w-hich she scatters I1now TO THE I)ANDELION. To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space ob tinme: Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more sunmmner-like warm ravishment Ill the white lilv's breezy tent, His fragrant Sy)aris, than I, when first Froni the dark greenl thy yellow circles Iburst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,, Of i meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or vwhiten in the wvind, of waters blue That froni the distance sparkle through 31 32) FAVORITE POEMS. Some woo(lan( gap, and( of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhoodl's earliest thoughts are linked with thee The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, AVWho, fronm the (lark old tree Besid(le the door, sang clearly all (lay long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an alg,el sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every d(ay to my untainted ears When birds and( flowers and I were happy peers. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold(l, so coiinuon art! Thou teachest me to deem Mlore sacre(lly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleamn Of heaven, and could somie wondrous secret show, BEAVER BROOK. Did w-e hut pay the love we owe, Anid with a child's itndoubting, wisdon look On all these living pages of God's book. BEAVER BROOK. USHED wvith broad sunli,ght lies the . And, minuting, the lon" day's loss, The cedar's shadow', slow and still, Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. AVarm noon brims fall the valley's cup, The aspen's leaves are scarce astir; Onlv the little mill sends iup It.s busy, never-ceasing buIrr. Climbingl the loose-piled wall that henms The road(l along, the mill-poncld's brink, From'neath the arching lI)arlerry-stemns, 51v footstep scares the shy chewink. BenIeathi a b)IIv )buttonwood( The iall's re'l d(loor lets forth the din; 33 FAVORITE POEMS. Tle whitened miller (l dust-imlibued, Flits past the square of dark within. No mountain torrent's strength is here Sweet Beaver, child of forest still, Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller's will. Swift slips Undine along the race Unlheard, and then, with flashing bound, Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round. The miller dreams not at what cost The quiv7ering millstones hum and whirl, Nor how for everv turn are tost irmfuls of diamond and of pearl. But Summer cleared my happier eyes With drops of some celestial juice, To see how Bealuty underlies, Forevermore each form of use. VUd more; methought I sawi that flood, 'hN'ich now so dull and darkling steals, Fhick, here and there, with human blood, To turn the world's laborious wheels. 34 .4 1 J, t MILES STANDISH. No more than doth the niller there, Shut ill our several cells, do we Knovw w-ith what waste of beauty rare MAoves every day's machinery. Surelv the wiiser time shall conie WNhen this file overplus of m{iglt, No longer sullen, slow, and duilo, Shall leap to music and to light. In that new childhood of the Earth Life of itself shall dance and play, Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight half-way. AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH. SAT one evening in my room, ~;c^4.o! In that sweet hour of twilight W\hen blended thoughts, half light, half gloom, Thlrong through the spirit's skylight; 37 ~38 FFAVORITE POEMS. The flames by fits curled round( the bars, Or up the chimniey crinkled, \Whlile emlbers dropped like falling stars, Aidl in the ashes tinkled. I sat aind imused; the fire burned low, Ain(, o-eIr my senses stealing, Crept somiietlling of the rcluddcly glow That bloomed on wall and ceiling; MNy pictures (they are very few, The heads of ancient wise men) Smnoothed down their knotted fronts, and grew As rosy as excisemen. Mly antique high-backed Spanish chair Felt thrills through wood and leather, That had been strangers since wihilere, MAid Andalusian heather, The oak that miade its sturdy frame His happy arms stretched over The ox whose fortunate hide became The )ottoim's polished cover. It catiiie out in that famious bark, That brought our sires intrepid, MILES STANDISH. Capacious as another ark }'or furniture decrepit; For, as that saved of bird and beast A pail for propagationi, So has the seed of these increased And furnished half the nation. Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats But those slant precipices Of ice the northern voyager meets Less slippery are than this is; To (ling therein would pass the wit Of royal man or woman, And whatsoe'er can stay in it Is more or less than human. I offer to all bores this perch, Dear well-intentioned people With heads as void as week-day church, Ton,gues longer than the steeple To folks with missions, whose gaunt eyes See golden ages rising, Salt of the earth! in what queer GuyE Thou'rt fondcl of crystallizing! 39 40 FAVORITE POEN S. My wonder, then, was not uinmixed With merciful suggestion, When, as miy roving eyes grew fixed Uponi the chair in question, I saw its trembling arms enclose A figure grim t and rusty, Whose doublet plain anid plainer hose Were something worn and dusty. Now even such mnien as Nature forms Merely to fill the street with, Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms, Are serious things to meet with Your penitent spirits are no jokes,' And, thoug,h I'mi not averse to A quiet shade, even they are folks One cares not to speak first to. Who knows, thought I, but he has come, By Charon kindly ferried, To tell me of a mighty sum Behind my wainscot buried There is a buccaneerish air About that garb outlandish Just then the ghost drew up his chair And said, " AMy name is Standish. MIILES STANDISH. I coine from Plymouth, dea(lly bored W~ith roasts, and sonts, and speeches, As lol,g and flat as my old sword, As tlireatllare as my breeches J!i und(erstand us Pilgrinms! they, Smooth men with rosy faces, Strength's knots and gnarls all pared away, And varnish in their places "We hadl soime totughness in our grain, the tye to rig,htly see us is Not just the one that lights the brain Of drirawin,-roomi Tyrtaelises T,-y talk about their PilTgrim blood,, Their birthright high and holy! A iiiountain-strean that ends in mud MAethinks is mnielancholy. "He had(l stiff Iknees, the Puritan, That were iiot good at bending; The homespun dignity of man He thought was worth defending; He dlid not, with his pinchbeck ore, His country's shame forgotten, Gild Freedlom's coffin o'er and o'er, When all within Nwas rotten. 41 42 FAVORITE POEMS. "These loud ancestral boasts of yours, How can they else than vex us? Where were your dinner orators When slavery grasped at Texas? Dumb on his knees was every one That now is bold as Cesar; Miere peg,s to hang an office on Such stalwart men as these are." "Good sir," I said, "you seem much stirred The sacred compromises -" "Now God confound the dastard word! My gall thereat arises: Northward it hath this sense alone, That you, your conscience blinding, Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, When slavery feels like grinding. "'T is shame to see such painted sticks In Vane's and Winthrop's places, To see your spirit of Seventy-six Drag humbly in the traces, With slavery's lash upon her back, And herds of office-holders To shout applause, as, with a crack, It peels her patient shoulders. M.IILES STANDISH. " Fe forefathers to such a rout! - No, by my faith in God's word!" Half rose the ghost, and half drew out The ghost of his old broadsword, Then thrust it slowly back again, And said, with reverent gesture, "No, Freedoni, no! blood should not stain The hem of thy white vesture. "I feel the soul in me draw near The mount of prophesying; In this bleak wilderness I hear A John the Baptist crying; Far in the east I see upleap The streaks of first forewarning, And they who sowed the light shall reap The golden sheaves of mnorning. "Child of our travail and our woe, Light in our day of sorrow, Through nmy rapt spirit I foreknow The glory of thy morrow; I hear great steps, that through the shade Draw nigher still and ni,gher, And voices call like that which bade Thle prol)het conime up higher." 43 FAVORITE POEMS. I looked, no form mine eyes could find, I heard the red cock crowing, Alld throug,h lily window-chinks the wind A dismail tiune was blowing; Thot,ht I, Mly nei,ghbor Buckingham Hath sonmewhat in him gritty, Sonie Piltring-sttff that hates all sham, Andl he will print my ditty. TItE COURTIN'. !OD makes sech nights, all white an i~ still - Fur'z you can look or listen, 'Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten. Zekle crep' up quite ilhbeknown An' peeked in thrn' the winder, An' there sot Huldy all alone, 'ith no one nigh to hender. A fireplace filled the room's one side W,ith half a cord o' wood in 44 THE COURTIN'. There warii't o10 stoves (tell comfort died) To bake ye to a puddin'. The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out TowNards the pootiest, bless her, An' leetle flames danced all about The chiny on the dresser. Agin the chimnbley crook-necks hung, An' in aniongst'em rusted The ole queen's-armi thet gran'ther Youtng Fetched back from Concord busted. The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez the apples she was peelin'. 'T was kin' o' kingdom-corie to look On sech a blessed cretur, A dogrose blushin' to a brook Ain't modester nor sweeter. Hle was six foot o' luan, A 1, Clear grit ani' human natur'; 45 46 FAVORITE POEMS. None could n't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired'emn, danced'em, druv'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells All is, he could n't love'eiu. But long o' her his veins'ould run All crinkly like curled maple, The side she breshed felt full o' sun Ez a south slope in Ap'il. She thought no v'ice hedl sech a swing Ez hisn in the choir; My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, She kitowed the Lord was nigher. Anl' she'd blush scarlet, right in prayer, When her new meetin'-bunnet Felt somiehow thru' its crown a pair O' blue eyes sot uponi it. Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! She seeined to've gut a new soul, THE COURTIN'. For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, Down to her very shoe-sole. She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, A-raspin' on the scraper,All ways to once her feelins flew Like sparks in burnt-up paper. He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, Some dcloubtfle o' the sekle, His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hemrn went pity Zekle. An' 3yit she gill her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him ftirder, An' on her apples kep' to work, Parin' away like murder. "You want to see nmy Pa, I s'pose?" "W al... no... I come dasignin' ""To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." To say why gals acts so or so, Or don't,'ould be presumin'; 47 48 FAVORITE POEMS. AMebby to nmean yes an' say lo Comies nateral to women. He stood a spell on one foot fust, Then stood a spell on t' other, An' oni which one he felt the wust He could n't ha' told ye nuther. Says he, "I'dcl better call agin"; Says she, "Think likely, Mister": Thet last word pricked him like a pili An'... Wal, he up an' kist her. When Ma bimeby upon'em slips, Hulldly sot pale ez ashes, All kin' o' smnily rouii' the lips An' teary roun' the lashes. For she was jes' the quiet kind WAVhose naturs never vary, Like streams that keep a sutmmnier mindl Snowhid in Jenooary. The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued Too tight for all explressini', IK l lhiI !~I~,!!i< ,_'_2__' '; He st-od a spell on one foot first, Tl.'t,stoo(d a si)ell oI t' oth." WHAT MIR. ROBINSON THINKS. 51 Tell m-other see how metters stood, An' gin'eri both her blessin'. Then her red come )acki like the tide Dowvn to the Bay o' Funcly, An' all I know is thev was cried In meetin' come nex' Sunday. WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. UVENER B. is a sensible mran; He stays to his home anl' looks arter his folks; He draws his fuLrrer ez straight ez he can, An' into nobocdy's tater-patch pokes But John P. Robinsotn he Sez he w-nunt vote fer Guvener B. Iv! aint it terrible? AWut shall we du? We can't never choose himn o' course, - thet's fiat; Guess we shallhev to come round, (don't you?) An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; 52 FAVORITE POEMS. Fer Jolhn P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. Gineral C. is a dclreffle smart man: He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, He's ben true to one party,- an' thet is himself; So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. Gineral C. he goes in fer the war; He don't vally principle more'n an old cutd; Wut did God make us raytional creetors fer, But glory an'gunpowder, plunder an' blood? So John P. Robinson he Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. We Tere gittin' on nicely up here to our vil lage, With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint, WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. 53 We kind o' thought Christ went agili war an' pillage, An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; But John P. Robinson he Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idlee. The sidle of our country must oilers be took, An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our countr,y. An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per con try; An' John P. Robinson he Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. Parson WNilbur he calls all these argimt nts lies; Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, ftu', fum: An' thet all this big talk of our destinies Is half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half rum; But John P. Robinson he 54 FAVORITE POEMS. Sez it aint no sech thing,; an', of course, so must we. Parson WVilbulr sez he never heerdcl in his life Thet th' Apostles rigged out ill their swal ler-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drium an' a fife, To git some on'eli office, an' some on'em votes; But John P. Robinson he Sez they did n't know ever-ythlin' down in Judee. Wal, it's a marcy we're guit folks to tell us The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vowV, God sends country laiwyers, an' other wise fellers, To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; Fer John P. Robinson he Sez the world'11 go right, ef he hollers out Gee MR. BIGLOW TO ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 55 MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. EA R SIR, - Your lettelr come to han' Re(Luestin' me to please be fuirmy; But I ain't made upon a plan Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey Ther''s times the world doos look so queer, Odd fancies come afore I call'em; An' then agin, for half a year, No preacher'thout a call's more solenmr. You're'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, An' wish, pervidin' it'ould suit, I'd take an' citify my English. I ken write long-tailed(l, ef I please, But when I'm jokiu', no, I thankee Then,'fore I know it, my idees Run helter-skelter into Yankee. Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin'; The parson's books, life, death, an' time Hev took some trouble with my schoolil'; 5 6 FAVORITE POEMS. Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, Thet love her'z though she wuz a womnian; WVhv, th' ain't a b)ird upon the tree But half forg,ives lmy beiii' hiuman. A.&ni' yit I love th' unhighschooled way 01' farminers hlied when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, anl''ould stay, W'hile book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin' in a downvrig,ht lick 'twixt Huniibug,'s eyes, ther''s few can metch it, An' then it helves my thouglhts ez slick Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet. But when I can't, I can't, thet's all, For Natur' won't put uLip) with gullin' Idees you hev to shove an' haul Like a druv pig, ain't wuth a mullein Live thouhlits ain't sent for; thru all rifts O' sense they lpour an' resh ye onwards, Like rivers whenii south-lyin' drifts Feel thet th' old airth's a-wheelia' sun wards. 3IR. BIGLOW TO ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 5 7 Time wuz, the rhvmes come crowdin' thick Ez office-seekers arter'lection, An' into ary place'ould stick Without no bother nor objection; But sence the war my thoughts hang back Ez though I wanted to enlist'enm, An' subs'tutes,- they don't never lack, But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em. Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz; I can't see wut there is to hender, An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, Like bumblebees agin a winder; 'Fore these times come, in all airth's row, Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, Where I could hide an' think, but now It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, An', creakin''cross the snow-crus' white, Walk the col' starlight into summer; 58 FAVORITE POEMS. Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer Than the last smile thet strives to tell O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer I hev ben gladder o' sech things Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, They filled my heart with livin' springs, But now they seem to freeze'em over; Sights innercent ez babes on knee, Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, Jes' coz they be so, seem to me To rile mie more with thoughts o' battle. In-doors an' out by spells I try; Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goii' But leaves my natur' stiff and dry Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; An' her jes' keepin' on the same, Calmner'n a clock, an' never carin', An' findin' nary thing to blame, Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasan,t, MR. BIGLOW TO ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 59 But I can't hark to wuit they're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, Thet lulls, then su(l(ddin takes to flappin' Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale To me ez so much sperit-rappili'. Under the yaller-pines I house, When sunshine makes'em all sweet-scented, An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented, While'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', The wedgedl wil' geese their bugles blow, Further an' further South retreatin'. Or up the slippery knob I strain An' see a hundred hills like islan's Lift their blue woods in broken chain Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; The farml-smokes, sweetes' sight on airtb, Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth Of empty places set mre thinkin'. 60 FAVORITE POEMS. Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, An' into psalms or satires ran it; But he, nor all the rest thet once Started my blood to country-dances, Can't set me goin' more'n a dunce Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet Thet follered once an' now are quiet, — White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never kno-wed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ther''s ears thet won't, No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. Why, hain't I held'em on my knee? Did n't I love to see'em growin', Three likely lads ez wal could be, Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? I set an' look into the blaze Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climb in', MR. BIGLOW TO ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 61 Ez loing'z it lives, in shinin' ways, An' half despise myself for rhymin'. Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth On War's red techstone rang true metal, Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? T'o him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? 'T ain't right to hev the young go fust, All throbbl)in' full o' gifts an' graces, Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust To try an' make b'lieve fill their places Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, Ther''s gaps our lives can't never fay in, An' thet world seems so fuir from this Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in! My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; I pity mothers, tu, dclown South, For all they sot among the scorners: 62 FAVORITE POEMS. I'd(1 sooner take my chance to stan' At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, Than at Got's bar hol' up a han' Ez drippin' fed ez yourn, Jeff Davis! Come, Peace! Sot like a mourner bowed For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, But proud, to neet a people proud, With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! Come, with har' grippin' on the hilt, An' step thet pioves ye Victory's daughter! Longin' for you, oar sperits wilt Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. Come, while our country feels the lift Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when They kissed their cross with lips thet qui v ered, An' bring fair wages for brave men, A nation saved, a race delivered! TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. AGRO DOLCE. i HE wind is roistering out of doors, Mly windows shake and my chimney roars; My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me, As of old, in their moody, minor key, And out of the past the hoarse wind blows, As I sit in my arm-chair, and toast my toes. "Ho! ho! nine-and-forty," they seem to sing, "We saw you a little toddling thin,g. We knew you child and youth and man, A wonderful fellow to dream and plan, With a great thing always to come, - who knows? Well, well!'t is some comfort to toast one's toes. "How many times have you sat at gaze Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze, Shapinl among the whimsical coals 63 64 FAVORITE POEMS. Fancies and figures andcl shining goals! What matters the ashes that cover those? While hickory lasts you can toast your toes. "0O dream-ship-builder! where are they all, Your grand three-deckels, deep-chested and tall, That should crush the waves under canvas piles, And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles? There's gray in your beard, the years turn foes, While you muse in your arm-chair, and toast your toes." I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore, My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated roar; If much be gone, there is much remains; By the embers of loss I count my gains, You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes. Instead of a fleet of broad-browedcl ships, To send a child's armada of chips! THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. Instead of the great guns, tier on tier, A freight of pebbles and grass-blades sere! "Well, maybe more love with the less gift goes," I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes. THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. HE snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl. From sheds new-roofed with Carrara Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, The stiff rails were softened to swan's-dowll, And still fluttered down the snow. I stood and watched by the window The noiseless work of the sky, 65 FAVORITE POEMIS. And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, Like brown leaves whirling by. I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood. Jp spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?" And I told of the good All-father Who cares for us here below. Again I looked at the snow-fall, And thought of the leaden sky That arched o'er our first great sorrow, When that mound was heaped so high. I remembered the gradual patience That fell from that cloud like snow, Flake by flake, healing and hiding The scar of our deep-plunged woe. And again to the child I whispered, "The snow that husheth all, 66 ",.ttsw ii, le. I WITHOUT AND WITHIN. Darling, the merciful Father Alone can make it fall!" Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her; And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister, Folded close under deepening snow. WITHOUT AND WITHIN. Y coachman, in the moonlight there, Looks through the side-light of the door; I hear him with his brethren swear, As I could do,- but only more. Flattening his nose against the pane, He envies me my brilliant lot, Breathes on his aching fists in vain, And dooms me to a place more hot. He sees me in to supper go, A silken wonder by my side, Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row Of flounces, for the door too wide. 69 FAVORITE POEMS. He thinks how happy is my arm 'Neath its white-glovedcl and jewelled load; And wishes me some dreadful harm, Hearing the merry corks explode. Meanwhile I inly curse the bore Of hLunting still the same old coon, And envy him, outside the door, In golden quiets of the moon. The winter wind is not so cold As the bright smile he sees me win, Nor the host's oldest wine so old As our poor gabble sour and thin. I envy him the uLngyved prance By which his freezing feet he warmns, And dracg my lady's-chains and dance The galley-slave of dreary forms. 0, could he have my share of din, And I his quiet! past a doubt 'T would still be one man bored within, And just another bored without. 70 GODMINSTFER CHIMES. GODMINSTER CHIMES. WRITTEN IN AID OF A CHIME OF BELLS FOR CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE. ODM INSTER? Is it Fancy's play 7 ! I kIlow not, but the word i Sings in my heart, nor can I say Whether't was d(reanled or heard Yet fragrant in my mind it clings As blossoms after rain, And builds of half-remembered things This vision in my brain. Through aisles of long-drawn centuries My spirit walks in thought, And to that symbol lifts its eves Which God's own pity wrought From Calvary shines the altar's gleam, The Church's East is there, The Ages one great minster seem, That throbs with praise and prayer. And all the way from Calvary down The carven pavement shows 71 72 FAVORITE POEMS. Their graves who won the martyr's crown And safe in God repose; The saints of many a warring creed Who now in heaven have learned That all paths to the Father lead Where Self the feet have spurned. And, as the mystic aisles I pace, By aureoled workmen built, Lives ending at the Cross I trace Alike through grace and guilt; One Mary bathes the blessed feet With ointment from her eyes, WVith spikenard one, and both are sweet, For both are sacrifice. MAloravian hymn and Roman chant In one devotion blend, To speak the soul's eternal want Of Him, the inmost friend; One prayer soars cleansed with martyr fire, One choked with sinner's tears, In heaven both meet in one desire, And God one music hears. AUF WIEDERSEHEN! Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out Upon the Sabbath air, Each seems a hostile faith to shout, A selfish form of prayer; My dream is shattered, yet who knows But in that heaven so near These discords find harmonious close In God's atoning ear? 0 chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be, And in all hearts new-born! That Pentecost when utterance clear To all men shall be given, When all shall say My Brother here, And hear My Son in heaven! AUF WIEDERSEHEN! SUM33ER. Th-IE little gate was reached at last, X- l Half hid in lilacs down the lane; She pushed it wide, and, as she past, A wistful look she backward cast, And said, - "A tf IFiedersehen!" 73 74 FAVORITE POEMS. With hand on latch, a vision white Lingered reluctant, and again Half doubting if she did aright, Soft as the dews that fell that night, She said,- " Auf [Fiedersehen!" The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair; I linger in delicious pain; Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air To breathe in thought I scarcely dare, Thinks she, -" Auf Wiedersehen!" 'T is thirteen years; once more I press The turf that silences the lane; I hear the rustle of her dress, I smell the lilacs, and- ah, yes, I hear " Atf Wiedersehen!" Sweet piece of bashful maiden art! The English words had seenmed too fain, But these -- they drew us heart to heart, Yet held us tenderly apart; She said, "Autf Wiedersehent! " PALINODE. PALINODE. WINTER. TILL thirteen years:'t is autumn now On field and hill, in heart and brain; The naked trees at evening, sough; The leaf to the forsaken bough Sighs not, " We meet again!" Two watched yon oriole's pendent dome, That now is void, and dank with rain, And one,- 0, hope more frail than foam! The bird to his deserted home Sings not, -" We meet again!" The loath gate swings with rusty creak; Once, parting there, we played at pain; There came a parting, when the weak And fading lips essayed to speak Vainly, - " We meet again!" Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, Though thou in outer dark remain; 75 76 FAVORITE POEMS. One sweet sad voice ennobles death, And still, for eighteen centuries saith Softly,-" Ye meet again! " If earth another grave must bear, Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain, And something whispers my despair, That, from an orient chamber there, Floats do.wn, "We meet again!" AFTER THE BURIAL. ES, faith is a goodly anchor; When skies are sweet as a psalm, At the bows it lolls so stalwart, In bluff, broad-shouldered calm. And when over breakers to leeward. The tattered surges are hurled, It may keep our head to the tempest, With its grip on the base of the world. But, after the shipwreck, tell me What help in its iron thews, AFTER THE BURIAL. Still true to the broken hawser, Deep down among sea-weed and ooze? In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, When the helpless feet stretch out Andl find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt, Then better one spar of Memory, One broken plank of the Past, That our human heart mnay cling to, Though hopeless of shore at last! To the spirit its splendid conjectures, To the flesh its sweet despair, Its tears o'er the thin-worn locket WAVith its anguish of deathless hair! Immortal? I feel it and know it, Who doubts it of suLch as she? But that is the pang's very secret, - Iimortal away from me. There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard Would scarce stay a child in his race, 77 78 FAVORITE POEMS. But to me and my thought it is wider Than the star-sown vague of Space. Your logic, my friend, is perfect, Your morals most drearily true; But, since the earth clashed on her coffin, I keep hearing that, and not you. Console if youL w ill, I can bear it; 'T is a well-meant alms of breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other than Death. It is pagan; but wait till you feel it, - That jar of our earth, that dull shock When the ploughshare of deeper passion Tears dclown to our primitive rock. Communion in spirit! Forgive me, But I, who am earthy and wreak, Would give all my incomes from dreamlaii(d For a touch of her hand on my cheek. That little shoe in the corner, So worn and wrinkled and brown, With its emptiness confutes you, And argues your wisdom down. THE DEAD HOUSE. THE DEAD HOUSE. lERE once my step was quickened, Here beckoned the opening door, L-'And welcome thrilled from the threshold To the foot it had known before. A glow came forth to meet me From the flame that laubghed in the grate, And shadows adance on the ceiling, Danced blither with mine for a mate. "I claim you, old friend," yawned the arm chair, " This corner, you know, is your seat"; "Rest your slippers on me," beamed the fender, "I brighten at touch of your feet." "W Ae know the practised finger," Said the books, "that seems like brain"; And the shy page rustled the secret It had kept till I came again. 79 FAVORITE POEMS. Sang the pillow, "My down once (luivered On nightingale's throats that flew Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz To gather quaint dreams for you." Ah me, where the Past sowed heart's-ease, The Present plucks rue for us men! I come back: that scar unhealing Was not in the churchyard then. But, I think, the house is unaltered, I will go and beg to look At the rooms that were once familiar To my life as its bed to a brook. Unaltered! Alas for the sameness That makes the change but more! 'T is a dead man I see in the mirrors, 'T is his tread that chills the floor! To learn such a simple lesson, Need I go to Paris and Rome, That the many make the household, But only one the home? 'T was just a womanly presence, An influence unexprest, 80 YUSSOUF. But a rose she had worn, on my grave-sod Were more than long life with the rest! 'T was a smile,'t was a garment's rustle, 'T was nothing that I can phrase, But the whole dumb dwelling grew con scious, And put on her looks and ways. Were it mine I would close the shutters, Like lids when the life is fled, And the funeral fire should wind it, This corpse of a home that is dead. For it died that autumn morning When she, its soul, was borne To lie all dlark on the hillside That looks over woodland and corn. YUSSOUF. souf's tent, Saying, "Beholdcl one outcast and in dread, 81 8 FAVORITE POEMS. Against whose life. the bow of power is bent, WVho flies, and hath not where to lay his head; I come to thee for shelter and for food, To Yussouf,; called throtugh all our tribes ' The Good."' " This tent is mine," said Yussottf, "but no more Than it is God's; come in, and be at peace; Freely shalt thou partake of all my store As I of His who buildeth over these Our tents his glorious roof of night and day, Anid at whose door none ever yet heard Nay." So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, And, waking him ere day, said: "Here is gold; iMl swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight; Depart before the prying day grow bold." As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, So nobleness enkincdleth nobleness. That inward light the stranger's face made grand, WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. 83 Which shines froim all self-c6nquest; kneel ing low, He bowed his forehead uLpon Yussouf's hand, Sobbingi: "0 Sheik, I cannot leave thee so; I wNill repay thee; all this thou hast done Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!" "Take thrice the gold," said YLssouf, "for with thee Into the desert, never to return, Myv one black thought shall ride away fromnt me First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn, Balanced and just are all of God's decrees Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace!" WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. - ABBI JEHOSHA used to say That God made angels every day, Perfect as Miichael and the rest First brooded in creation's nest, 84.FAVORITE POEMS. Whose only office was to cry Hosaaiia! once, and then to die; Or rather, with Life's essence blent, To be led home from banishment. Rabbi Jehosha had the skill To know that Heaven is in God's will; And doing that, though for a space One heart-beat long,, may win a grace As full of grandeur and of glow As Princes of the Chariot know. 'T were glorious, no doubt, to be One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, To burn with Seraphs, or to shine With Cherubs, deathlessly divine; Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod, Could I forget myself in God, Could I but find my nature's clew Simply as birds and blossoms do, And but for one rapt moment know 'T is Heaven must come, not we must go, Should win my place as near the throne As the pearl-angol of its zone, And GCod would listen mid the throng ALL-SAINTS. For my one breath of perfect song, That, in its simple human way, Said all the Host of Heaven could say. ALL-SAINTS. NE feast, of holy days the crest, I, though no Churchman, love to keep, All-Saints,- the unknown good that rest In God's still memory folded deep; The bravely dumb that did their deed, And scorned to blot it with a name, Men of the plain heroic breed, That loved Hieaven's silence more than fame. Such lived not in the past alone, But thread to-day the unheeding street, And stairs to Sin and Famine known Sing, with the welcome of their feet; The den they enter grows a shrine, The grimy sash an oriel burns, Their cup of water warms like wine, Their speech is filled from heavenly urns. 85 8 6 FAVORITE POEMS. About their brows to me appears An aureole traced in tenderest light, The rainbow-gleami of smiles through tears In dying eyes, by them mad(e bri,ght, Of souls that shivered on the edge Of that chill ford repassed no miore, And in their mercy felt the pledge And sweetness of the farther shore. THE DARKENED MIND. IHE fire is burning clear and blithely, Pleasantly whistles the winter wind - I We are about thee, thy friie(nds and kindred, On us all flickers the firelight kind There thou sitt'st in thy wonted corner Lone and awful in thy darkened mind. There thou sitt'st; now and then thou moan est; Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, Lookest at us with an eye so doubtfuil, It (doth put us very far from thee; THE DARKENED MIND. There thou sittest; we would fain be nigh thee, But we know that it can never be. We can touch thee, still we are no nearer; Gather round thee, still thou art alone; The wide chasm of reason is between us; Thou confutest kindness with a moan; We can speak to thee, and thou canst answer, Like two prisoners through a wall of stone. Hardest heart would call it very awful When thou look'st at us and seest - 0, what? If we move away, thou sittest gazing With those vague eyes at the selfsame spot, And thou mutterest, thy hands thou wringest Seeing something,- us thou seest not. Strange it is that, in this open brightness, Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell Strange it is that thou shouldst be so lone some Where those are who love thee all so well Not so much of thee is left among us As the hum outliving the hushed b]ell. 87 88 FAVORITE POEMS. AN EMBER PICTURE. OW strange are the freaks of memnory! The lessons of life we forget, While a trifle, a trick of color, In the wonderfill web is set, Set by some mordant of fancy, And, spite of the wear and tear Of time or distance or trouble, Insists on its right to be there. A chance had brought us together; Our talk was of matters-of-course; We were nothing, one to the other, But a short half-hour's resource. WTe spoke of French acting and actors, And their easy, natural way: Of the weather, for it was raining As we drove home from the play. We debated the social nothings We bore ourselves so to discuss; 0 AN EMBER PICTURE. Thle thud(lerous rumors of battle Were silent the while for us. Arrived at her door, we left her With a drippingly hurried adieu, And our wheels went crunching the gravel Of the oak-darkened avenue. As we drove away through the shadow, The candle she held in the door From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree-trunk Flashed fainter, and flashed no more; Flashed fainter, then wholly faded Before we had passed the wood; But the light of the face behind it Went with me and stayed for good. The vision of scarce a moment, And hardly marked at the time, It comes unbidden to haunt me, Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. Had she beauty? Well, not what they call so; You may find a thousand as fair; 89 90 FAVORITE POEMS. And yet there's her face in my memory With no special claim to be there. As I sit sometimnes in the twilight, And call back to life in the coals Oldcl faces and hopes and fancies Long buried, (good rest to their souls!) Her face shines out in the embers; I see her holding the light, And hear the crunch of the gravel And the sweep of the rain that night. 'T is a face that can never grow older, That never can part with its gleam, 'T is a gracious possession forever, For is it not all a dream? TO H. W. L. ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 1867. NEED not praise the sweetness of his song, Where limpid verse to limnpid verse succeeds TO II. W. L. Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along, Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds. With loving breath of all the winds his naine Is blown about the world, but to his friends A sweeter secret hides behind his fame, And Love steals shyly through the loudl acclaim To murminur a God bless you! and there ends As I muse backward up the checkered years Wherein so much was given, so m,uch was lost, Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen tears, - But hush! this is not for profaner ears; Let them drink molten pearls nor dream the cost. Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core, As naught but nightshade grew upon earth'; ground; 91 FAVORITE POEMS. Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and the more Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a door Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound. Even as a wind-waved foutntain's swaying shade Seems of mnixed race, a gray wraith shot with sun, So through his trial faith translucent rayed Till darkness, half disnatured so, betrayed A heart of sunshine that would fahill o'errun. Surely if skill in song the shears may stay And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss, It' our poor life be lengthened by a lay, He shall not go, although his presence may, And the next age in praise shall double this. Long days be his, and each as lutsty-sweet As gracious natures find his song to be; May Age steal on with softly-cadclenced feet Falling in music, as for him were meet Whose choicest verse is harsher-ioncdl thani he! 92 THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 93 THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. O ME forth!" my catbird calls to me, i "And hear me sing a cavatina I That, in this old familiar tree, Shall hang a garden of Alcina. "These buttercups shall brim with wine Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic; May not New England be divine? My ode to ripening summer classic? "Or, if to me you will not hark, By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing Till all the alder-coverts dark Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing. "Come out beneath the unmastered sky, With its emancipating spaces, And learn to sing as well as I, Without premeditated graces. "What boot your many-volumed gains, Those withered leaves forever turnilng, 94 FAVORITE POEMS. To win, at best, for all your pains, A nature mummy-wrapt in learning? "The leaves wherein true wisdom lies On living trees the sun are drinking; Those white clouds, drowsing through the skies, Grew not so beautiful by thinking. "Come out! with me the oriole cries, Escape the demon that pursues you! And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise, Still hiding, farther onward wooes you." "Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, Has poured from that syringa thicket The quaintly discontinuous lays To which I hold a seasonl-ticket, ' A season-ticket cheaply bought With a dessert of pilfered berries, And who so oft my soul hast caught With morn and evening voluntaries, " Deem me not faithless, if all day Among mny dusty books I linger, THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. 95 No pipe, like thee, for June to play With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. "A bird is singing in my brain And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies, Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain Fed with the sap of old romances. "I ask no ampler skies than those His magic music rears above mne, No falser friends, no truer foes, And does not Dona Clara love me? "Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, A rush of feet. and rapiers clashing, Then silence deep with breathless stars, And overhead a white hand flashing. " O music of all moods and climes, Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, Where still, between the Christian chimes, The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly! " O life borne lightly in the hand, For friend or foe with grace Castilian! O valley safe in Fancy's land, Not tramped to mud yet by the mnillion! FAVORITE POEMS. "Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale To his, my singer of all weathers, My Calderon, my nightingale, My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. " Ah, friend, these singers dead so long. And still, God knows, in purgatory, Give its best sweetness to all song, To Nature's self her better glory." IN THE TWILIGHT. j EN say the sullen instrument, That, from the Master's bow, With pangs of joy or woe, Feels inusids soul through every fibre sent, Whispers the ravished strings More than he knew or meant; Old summers in its memory glow; The secrets of the wind it sings; It hears the April-loosened springs; And mixes with its mood All it dreamed when it stood In the murmurous pine-wood Long ago! 96 IN THE TWILIGHT. The magical moonlight then Steeped every bough and cone; The roar of the brook in the glen Came dim from the distance blown; The wind through its glooms sang low, And it swayed to and fro With delight as it stood, In the wonderful wood, Long ago! O my life, have we not had seasons That only said, Live and rejoice? That asked not for causes and reasons, But made us all feeling and voice? When we went with the winds in their blow ing, When Nature and we were peers, And we seemed to share in the flowing Of the inexhaustible years? Have we not from the earth drawn juices Too fine for earth's sordid uses? Have I heard, have I seen All I feel and I know? Doth my heart overween? Or could it have been Long ago? 97 98 FAVORITE POEMS. Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music heard once by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it, A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago! And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again, Could I but speak and show it, This pleasure more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, THE FOOT-PATH. The world should not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad, Long ago! THE FOOT-PATH. T mounts athwart the windy hill Through sallow slopes of upland bare, And Fanicy climbs with foot-fall still Its narrowing curves that end in air. By day, a warmer-hearted blue Stoops softly to that topmost swell; Its thread-like windings seem a clew To gracious climes where all is well. By night, far yonder, I surmise An ampler world than clips my ken, Where the great stars of happier skies Commingle nobler fates of men. I look and long, then haste me home, Still master of my secret rare; Once tried, the path would end in Ronie, But now it leads me everywhere. *.. **. . 99 FAVORITE POEMS. Forever to the new it guides, From former good, old overmuch; What Nature for her poets hides, 'T is wiser to divine than clutch. The bird I list hath never come Within the scope of mortal ear; AIy prying step would make him dunmb, And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. Behind the hill, behind the sky, Behind my inmost thought, he sings; No feet avail; to hear it nigh, The song itself must lend the willngs. Sing on, sweet bird close hid, and raise Those angel stairways in my brain, That climb from these low-vaulted days To spacious sunshines far from paiin. Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat To make a twice-told tale of God. They said the fairies tript no more, And long ago that Pan was dead; . I... 100 THE FOOT-PATH. 'T was but that fools preferred to bore Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead. Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, The fairies dance each full-mooned night, Would we but doff our lenses strong, And trust our wiser eyes' delight. City of Elf-land, just without Our seeing, marvel ever new, Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue. I build thee in yon sunset cloud, Whose edge allures to climb the height; I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loutd, From still pools dusk with dreams of night. Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, Thy countersign of long-lost speech,Those fountained courts, those chanmbers still, Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach? I know not, and will never pry, But trust our humnian heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an open sense niay fall. 101 FAVORITE POEMS. Hide in thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thouL canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper it themselves. THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. OCTOBER, 1861. I walked one night in mystery of dream; A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair, To think what chanced me ty the pallid gleamn Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air. Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist Their halos, wavering thistledowas of light The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in af fright, Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night. 102 THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. 103 Then all was silent, till there smote my ear A movement in the stream that checked my breath: Was it the slow plash of a wading deer? But something said, "This water is of Death! The Sisters wash a shroud, -ill thing to hear!" I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three Known to the Greek's and to the North man's creed, That sit in shadow of the myistic Tree, Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede, One song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be." No wrinkled cronies were they, as I had deemed, But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed; Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow, rhrilled in their tones, and fromn their faces gleamed. 104 FAVORITE POEMS. "Still men and nations reap as they have strawn," So sang they, working at their task the while; ~'The fatal rainlent must be cleansed ere dawn: For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queec's isle? O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn? "Or is it for a younger, fairer corse, That gathered States like children round his knees, That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse, Feller of forests, linker of the seas, Bri(dge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's? " What make we, murmnr'st thou? and what are we? When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, The time-old web of the implacable Three: Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud? Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,- why not he? THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. 105 "Is there no hope?" I moaned, "so strong, so fair! Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile No rival's swoop in all our western air! Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair? "Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames! I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands? Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names?" "When grass-blades stiffen with red battle dew, Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain; Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain? Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew. Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will, FAVORITE POEMS. These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third, - Obedience, -'tis the great tap-root tha still, Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, Thoug,h Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill. "Is the doom sealed for Hesper?'T is not w. Denounce it, but the Law before all time: The brave makes danger opportunity; The waverer, paltering with the chance sub. lime, Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be? " Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw? Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet Than Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law? Then let him hearken for the doomster's feet! "Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock, States climb to power by; slippery those with gold 106 THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. 107 Down which they stumble to eternal mnock: No chafferer's hand shall longthe sceptre hold, Who, given a Fate to shape, wouldl sell the block. "We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe, Mystic because too cheaply understood; Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know, See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good, Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow. "Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is, That offers choice of glory or of gloonim; The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his. But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tonmb Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss." "But not for him," I cried, "not yet for hin, Whose large horizon, westering, star by star Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim The sunset shuts the world with golden bar, Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim! " His shall be larger manhood, saved for those That walk unblenching through the trial-fires; Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes, FAVORITE POEMS. And he no base-born son of craven sires, Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes. "Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win Death's royal purple in the foeman's lines Peace, too, brings tears; and nid the battle din, The wiser ear some text of God divines, For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin. "God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep, But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit! And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep, Her ports all up, her b)attle-lanterns lit, And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap!" So cried I with clenched hands and passion ate pain, Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side; Again the loon laughed mocking, and again The echoes bayed far down the night and died, While waking I recalled my wandering brain. 108