Part 5
Long I followed happy guides, I could never reach their sides; Their step is forth, and, ere the day Breaks up their leaguer, and away. Keen my sense, my heart was young, Right good-will my sinews strung, But no speed of mine avails To hunt upon their shining trails. On and away, their hasting feet Make the morning proud and sweet; Flowers they strew,--I catch the scent; Or tone of silver instrument Leaves on the wind melodious trace; Yet I could never see their face. On eastern hills I see their smokes, Mixed with mist by distant lochs. I met many travellers Who the road had surely kept; They saw not my fine revellers,-- These had crossed them while they slept. Some had heard their fair report, In the country or the court. Fleetest couriers alive Never yet could once arrive, As they went or they returned, At the house where these sojourned. Sometimes their strong speed they slacken, Though they are not overtaken; In sleep their jubilant troop is near,-- I tuneful voices overhear; It may be in wood or waste,-- At unawares 't is come and past. Their near camp my spirit knows By signs gracious as rainbows. I thenceforward and long after Listen for their harp-like laughter, And carry in my heart, for days, Peace that hallows rudest ways.
SURSUM CORDA
Seek not the spirit, if it hide Inexorable to thy zeal: Trembler, do not whine and chide: Art thou not also real? Stoop not then to poor excuse; Turn on the accuser roundly; say, 'Here am I, here will I abide Forever to myself soothfast; Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!' Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast, For only it can absolutely deal.
ODE TO BEAUTY
Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,-- Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old? Or what was the service For which I was sold? When first my eyes saw thee, I found me thy thrall, By magical drawings, Sweet tyrant of all! I drank at thy fountain False waters of thirst; Thou intimate stranger, Thou latest and first! Thy dangerous glances Make women of men; New-born, we are melting Into nature again.
Lavish, lavish promiser, Nigh persuading gods to err! Guest of million painted forms, Which in turn thy glory warms! The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc, The swinging spider's silver line, The ruby of the drop of wine, The shining pebble of the pond, Thou inscribest with a bond, In thy momentary play, Would bankrupt nature to repay.
Ah, what avails it To hide or to shun Whom the Infinite One Hath granted his throne? The heaven high over Is the deep's lover; The sun and sea, Informed by thee, Before me run And draw me on, Yet fly me still, As Fate refuses To me the heart Fate for me chooses. Is it that my opulent soul Was mingled from the generous whole; Sea-valleys and the deep of skies Furnished several supplies; And the sands whereof I'm made Draw me to them, self-betrayed?
I turn the proud portfolio Which holds the grand designs Of Salvator, of Guercino, And Piranesi's lines. I hear the lofty paeans Of the masters of the shell, Who heard the starry music And recount the numbers well; Olympian bards who sung Divine Ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so. Oft, in streets or humblest places, I detect far-wandered graces, Which, from Eden wide astray, In lowly homes have lost their way.
Thee gliding through the sea of form, Like the lightning through the storm, Somewhat not to be possessed, Somewhat not to be caressed, No feet so fleet could ever find, No perfect form could ever bind. Thou eternal fugitive, Hovering over all that live, Quick and skilful to inspire Sweet, extravagant desire, Starry space and lily-bell Filling with thy roseate smell, Wilt not give the lips to taste Of the nectar which thou hast.
All that's good and great with thee Works in close conspiracy; Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely To report thy features only, And the cold and purple morning Itself with thoughts of thee adorning; The leafy dell, the city mart, Equal trophies of thine art; E'en the flowing azure air Thou hast touched for my despair; And, if I languish into dreams, Again I meet the ardent beams. Queen of things! I dare not die In Being's deeps past ear and eye; Lest there I find the same deceiver And be the sport of Fate forever. Dread Power, but dear! if God thou be, Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me!
GIVE ALL TO LOVE
Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit and the Muse,-- Nothing refuse.
'T is a brave master; Let it have scope: Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope: High and more high It dives into noon, With wing unspent, Untold intent; But it is a god, Knows its own path And the outlets of the sky.
It was never for the mean; It requireth courage stout. Souls above doubt, Valor unbending, It will reward,-- They shall return More than they were, And ever ascending.
Leave all for love; Yet, hear me, yet, One word more thy heart behoved, One pulse more of firm endeavor,-- Keep thee to-day, To-morrow, forever, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid; But when the surprise, First vague shadow of surmise Flits across her bosom young, Of a joy apart from thee, Free be she, fancy-free; Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, Nor the palest rose she flung From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know, When half-gods go. The gods arrive.
TO ELLEN AT THE SOUTH
The green grass is bowing, The morning wind is in it; 'T is a tune worth thy knowing, Though it change every minute.
'T is a tune of the Spring; Every year plays it over To the robin on the wing, And to the pausing lover.
O'er ten thousand, thousand acres, Goes light the nimble zephyr; The Flowers--tiny sect of Shakers-- Worship him ever.
Hark to the winning sound! They summon thee, dearest,-- Saying, 'We have dressed for thee the ground, Nor yet thou appearest.
'O hasten;' 't is our time, Ere yet the red Summer Scorch our delicate prime, Loved of bee,--the tawny hummer.
'O pride of thy race! Sad, in sooth, it were to ours, If our brief tribe miss thy face, We poor New England flowers.
'Fairest, choose the fairest members Of our lithe society; June's glories and September's Show our love and piety.
'Thou shalt command us all,-- April's cowslip, summer's clover, To the gentian in the fall, Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.
'O come, then, quickly come! We are budding, we are blowing; And the wind that we perfume Sings a tune that's worth the knowing.'
TO ELLEN
And Ellen, when the graybeard years Have brought us to life's evening hour, And all the crowded Past appears A tiny scene of sun and shower,
Then, if I read the page aright Where Hope, the soothsayer, reads our lot, Thyself shalt own the page was bright, Well that we loved, woe had we not,
When Mirth is dumb and Flattery's fled, And mute thy music's dearest tone, When all but Love itself is dead And all but deathless Reason gone.
TO EVA
O fair and stately maid, whose eyes Were kindled in the upper skies At the same torch that lighted mine; For so I must interpret still Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, A sympathy divine.
Ah! let me blameless gaze upon Features that seem at heart my own; Nor fear those watchful sentinels, Who charm the more their glance forbids, Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids, With fire that draws while it repels.
LINES
WRITTEN BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER SHORTLY BEFORE HER MARRIAGE TO MR. EMERSON
Love scatters oil On Life's dark sea, Sweetens its toil-- Our helmsman he.
Around him hover Odorous clouds; Under this cover His arrows he shrouds.
The cloud was around me, I knew not why Such sweetness crowned me. While Time shot by.
No pain was within, But calm delight, Like a world without sin, Or a day without night.
The shafts of the god Were tipped with down, For they drew no blood, And they knit no frown.
I knew of them not Until Cupid laughed loud, And saying "You're caught!" Flew off in the cloud.
O then I awoke, And I lived but to sigh, Till a clear voice spoke,-- And my tears are dry.
THE VIOLET
BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER
Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year; Are Autumn's blasts fit music for thee, fragile one, to hear; Will thy clear blue eye, upward bent, still keep its chastened glow, Still tearless lift its slender form above the wintry snow?
Why wilt thou live when none around reflects thy pensive ray? Thou bloomest here a lonely thing in the clear autumn day. The tall green trees, that shelter thee, their last gay dress put on; There will be nought to shelter thee when their sweet leaves are gone.
O Violet, like thee, how blest could I lie down and die, When summer light is fading, and autumn breezes sigh; When Winter reigned I'd close my eye, but wake with bursting Spring, And live with living nature, a pure rejoicing thing.
I had a sister once who seemed just like a violet; Her morning sun shone bright and calmly purely set; When the violets were in their shrouds, and Summer in its pride, She laid her hopes at rest, and in the year's rich beauty died.
THE AMULET
Your picture smiles as first it smiled; The ring you gave is still the same; Your letter tells, O changing child! No tidings _since_ it came.
Give me an amulet That keeps intelligence with you,-- Red when you love, and rosier red, And when you love not, pale and blue.
Alas! that neither bonds nor vows Can certify possession; Torments me still the fear that love Died in its last expression.
THINE EYES STILL SHINED
Thine eyes still shined for me, though far I lonely roved the land or sea: As I behold yon evening star, Which yet beholds not me.
This morn I climbed the misty hill And roamed the pastures through; How danced thy form before my path Amidst the deep-eyed dew!
When the redbird spread his sable wing, And showed his side of flame; When the rosebud ripened to the rose, In both I read thy name.
EROS
The sense of the world is short,-- Long and various the report,-- To love and be beloved; Men and gods have not outlearned it; And, how oft soe'er they've turned it, Not to be improved.
HERMIONE
On a mound an Arab lay, And sung his sweet regrets And told his amulets: The summer bird His sorrow heard, And, when he heaved a sigh profound, The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.
'If it be, as they said, she was not fair, Beauty's not beautiful to me, But sceptred genius, aye inorbed, Culminating in her sphere. This Hermione absorbed The lustre of the land and ocean, Hills and islands, cloud and tree, In her form and motion.
'I ask no bauble miniature, Nor ringlets dead Shorn from her comely head, Now that morning not disdains Mountains and the misty plains Her colossal portraiture; They her heralds be, Steeped in her quality, And singers of her fame Who is their Muse and dame.
'Higher, dear swallows! mind not what I say. Ah! heedless how the weak are strong, Say, was it just, In thee to frame, in me to trust, Thou to the Syrian couldst belong?
'I am of a lineage That each for each doth fast engage; In old Bassora's schools, I seemed Hermit vowed to books and gloom,-- Ill-bestead for gay bridegroom. I was by thy touch redeemed; When thy meteor glances came, We talked at large of worldly fate, And drew truly every trait.
'Once I dwelt apart, Now I live with all; As shepherd's lamp on far hill-side Seems, by the traveller espied, A door into the mountain heart, So didst thou quarry and unlock Highways for me through the rock.
'Now, deceived, thou wanderest In strange lands unblest; And my kindred come to soothe me. Southwind is my next of blood; He is come through fragrant wood, Drugged with spice from climates warm, And in every twinkling glade, And twilight nook, Unveils thy form. Out of the forest way Forth paced it yesterday; And when I sat by the watercourse, Watching the daylight fade, It throbbed up from the brook.
'River and rose and crag and bird, Frost and sun and eldest night, To me their aid preferred, To me their comfort plight;-- "Courage! we are thine allies, And with this hint be wise,-- The chains of kind The distant bind; Deed thou doest she must do, Above her will, be true; And, in her strict resort To winds and waterfalls And autumn's sunlit festivals, To music, and to music's thought, Inextricably bound, She shall find thee, and be found. Follow not her flying feet; Come to us herself to meet."'
INITIAL, DAEMONIC AND CELESTIAL LOVE
I. THE INITIAL LOVE
Venus, when her son was lost, Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces and parks, And told the truant by his marks,-- Golden curls, and quiver and bow. This befell how long ago! Time and tide are strangely changed, Men and manners much deranged: None will now find Cupid latent By this foolish antique patent. He came late along the waste, Shod like a traveller for haste; With malice dared me to proclaim him, That the maids and boys might name him.
Boy no more, he wears all coats, Frocks and blouses, capes, capotes; He bears no bow, or quiver, or wand, Nor chaplet on his head or hand. Leave his weeds and heed his eyes,-- All the rest he can disguise. In the pit of his eye's a spark Would bring back day if it were dark; And, if I tell you all my thought, Though I comprehend it not, In those unfathomable orbs Every function he absorbs; Doth eat, and drink, and fish, and shoot, And write, and reason, and compute, And ride, and run, and have, and hold, And whine, and flatter, and regret, And kiss, and couple, and beget, By those roving eyeballs bold.
Undaunted are their courages, Right Cossacks in their forages; Fleeter they than any creature,-- They are his steeds, and not his feature; Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting, Restless, predatory, hasting; And they pounce on other eyes As lions on their prey; And round their circles is writ, Plainer than the day, Underneath, within, above,-- Love--love--love--love. He lives in his eyes; There doth digest, and work, and spin, And buy, and sell, and lose, and win; He rolls them with delighted motion, Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean. Yet holds he them with tautest rein, That they may seize and entertain The glance that to their glance opposes, Like fiery honey sucked from roses. He palmistry can understand, Imbibing virtue by his hand As if it were a living root; The pulse of hands will make him mute; With all his force he gathers balms Into those wise, thrilling palms.
Cupid is a casuist, A mystic and a cabalist,-- Can your lurking thought surprise, And interpret your device. He is versed in occult science, In magic and in clairvoyance, Oft he keeps his fine ear strained, And Reason on her tiptoe pained For aëry intelligence, And for strange coincidence. But it touches his quick heart When Fate by omens takes his part, And chance-dropped hints from Nature's sphere Deeply soothe his anxious ear.
Heralds high before him run; He has ushers many a one; He spreads his welcome where he goes, And touches all things with his rose. All things wait for and divine him,-- How shall I dare to malign him, Or accuse the god of sport? I must end my true report, Painting him from head to foot, In as far as I took note, Trusting well the matchless power Of this young-eyed emperor Will clear his fame from every cloud With the bards and with the crowd.
He is wilful, mutable, Shy, untamed, inscrutable, Swifter-fashioned than the fairies. Substance mixed of pure contraries; His vice some elder virtue's token, And his good is evil-spoken. Failing sometimes of his own, He is headstrong and alone; He affects the wood and wild, Like a flower-hunting child; Buries himself in summer waves, In trees, with beasts, in mines and caves, Loves nature like a hornèd cow, Bird, or deer, or caribou.
Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses! He has a total world of wit; O how wise are his discourses! But he is the arch-hypocrite, And, through all science and all art, Seeks alone his counterpart. He is a Pundit of the East, He is an augur and a priest, And his soul will melt in prayer, But word and wisdom is a snare; Corrupted by the present toy He follows joy, and only joy. There is no mask but he will wear; He invented oaths to swear; He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays, And holds all stars in his embrace. He takes a sovran privilege Not allowed to any liege; For Cupid goes behind all law, And right into himself does draw; For he is sovereignly allied,-- Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side,-- And interchangeably at one With every king on every throne, That no god dare say him nay, Or see the fault, or seen betray; He has the Muses by the heart, And the stern Parcae on his part.
His many signs cannot be told; He has not one mode, but manifold, Many fashions and addresses, Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses. He will preach like a friar, And jump like Harlequin; He will read like a crier, And fight like a Paladin. Boundless is his memory; Plans immense his term prolong; He is not of counted age, Meaning always to be young. And his wish is intimacy, Intimater intimacy, And a stricter privacy; The impossible shall yet be done, And, being two, shall still be one. As the wave breaks to foam on shelves, Then runs into a wave again, So lovers melt their sundered selves, Yet melted would be twain.
II. THE DAEMONIC LOVE
Man was made of social earth, Child and brother from his birth, Tethered by a liquid cord Of blood through veins of kindred poured. Next his heart the fireside band Of mother, father, sister, stand; Names from awful childhood heard Throbs of a wild religion stirred;-- Virtue, to love, to hate them, vice; Till dangerous Beauty came, at last, Till Beauty came to snap all ties; The maid, abolishing the past, With lotus wine obliterates Dear memory's stone-incarved traits, And, by herself, supplants alone Friends year by year more inly known. When her calm eyes opened bright, All else grew foreign in their light. It was ever the self-same tale, The first experience will not fail; Only two in the garden walked, And with snake and seraph talked.
Close, close to men, Like undulating layer of air, Right above their heads, The potent plain of Daemons spreads. Stands to each human soul its own, For watch and ward and furtherance, In the snares of Nature's dance; And the lustre and the grace To fascinate each youthful heart, Beaming from its counterpart, Translucent through the mortal covers, Is the Daemon's form and face. To and fro the Genius hies,-- A gleam which plays and hovers Over the maiden's head, And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. Unknown, albeit lying near, To men, the path to the Daemon sphere; And they that swiftly come and go Leave no track on the heavenly snow. Sometimes the airy synod bends, And the mighty choir descends, And the brains of men thenceforth, In crowded and in still resorts, Teem with unwonted thoughts: As, when a shower of meteors Cross the orbit of the earth, And, lit by fringent air, Blaze near and far, Mortals deem the planets bright Have slipped their sacred bars, And the lone seaman all the night Sails, astonished, amid stars.
Beauty of a richer vein, Graces of a subtler strain, Unto men these moonmen lend, And our shrinking sky extend. So is man's narrow path By strength and terror skirted; Also (from the song the wrath Of the Genii be averted! The Muse the truth uncolored speaking) The Daemons are self-seeking: Their fierce and limitary will Draws men to their likeness still. The erring painter made Love blind,-- Highest Love who shines on all; Him, radiant, sharpest-sighted god, None can bewilder; Whose eyes pierce The universe, Path-finder, road-builder, Mediator, royal giver; Rightly seeing, rightly seen, Of joyful and transparent mien. 'T is a sparkle passing From each to each, from thee to me, To and fro perpetually; Sharing all, daring all, Levelling, displacing Each obstruction, it unites Equals remote, and seeming opposites. And ever and forever Love Delights to build a road: Unheeded Danger near him strides, Love laughs, and on a lion rides. But Cupid wears another face, Born into Daemons less divine: His roses bleach apace, His nectar smacks of wine. The Daemon ever builds a wall, Himself encloses and includes, Solitude in solitudes: In like sort his love doth fall. He doth elect The beautiful and fortunate, And the sons of intellect, And the souls of ample fate, Who the Future's gates unbar,-- Minions of the Morning Star. In his prowess he exults, And the multitude insults. His impatient looks devour Oft the humble and the poor; And, seeing his eye glare, They drop their few pale flowers, Gathered with hope to please, Along the mountain towers,-- Lose courage, and despair. He will never be gainsaid,-- Pitiless, will not be stayed; His hot tyranny Burns up every other tie. Therefore comes an hour from Jove Which his ruthless will defies, And the dogs of Fate unties. Shiver the palaces of glass; Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls, Where in bright Art each god and sibyl dwelt Secure as in the zodiac's belt; And the galleries and halls, Wherein every siren sung, Like a meteor pass. For this fortune wanted root In the core of God's abysm,-- Was a weed of self and schism; And ever the Daemonic Love Is the ancestor of wars And the parent of remorse.
III. THE CELESTIAL LOVE
But God said, 'I will have a purer gift; There is smoke in the flame; New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift, And love without a name. Fond children, ye desire To please each other well; Another round, a higher, Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair, And selfish preference forbear; And in right deserving, And without a swerving Each from your proper state, Weave roses for your mate.
'Deep, deep are loving eyes, Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet; And the point is paradise, Where their glances meet: Their reach shall yet be more profound, And a vision without bound: The axis of those eyes sun-clear Be the axis of the sphere: So shall the lights ye pour amain Go, without check or intervals, Through from the empyrean walls Unto the same again.'