XII.
Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! 405 Thy God, in these distempered days, Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! Bow down in prayer and praise! No poorest in thy borders but may now 410 Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow, O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, 415 Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The 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? 420 What were our lives without thee? What all our lives to save thee? We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare! 425
ON BOARD THE '76.
WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.
NOVEMBER 3, 1864.
[After the disastrous battle of Bull Run, Congress authorized the creation of an army of 500,000, and the expenditure of $500,000,000. The affair of the Trent had partially indicated the temper of the English government, and the people of the United States were thoroughly roused to a sense of the great task which lay before them. Mr. Bryant, at this time, not only gave strong support to the Union through his paper _The Evening Post_ of New York, but wrote two lyrics which had a profound effect. One of these, entitled _Not Yet_, was addressed to those of the Old World who were secretly or openly desiring the downfall of the republic. The other, _Our Country's Call_, was a thrilling appeal for recruits. It is to this time and these two poems that Mr. Lowell refers in the lines that follow.]
Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side; Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide; Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn, 5 We lay, awaiting morn.
Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair; And she that bare the promise of the world Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, At random o'er the wildering waters hurled; 10 The reek of battle drifting slow alee Not sullener than we.
Morn came at last to peer into our woe, When lo, a sail! Now surely help was nigh; The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge; but no,[10] 15 Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes by And hails us:--"Gains the leak! Ay, so we thought! Sink, then, with curses fraught!"
I leaned against my gun still angry-hot, And my lids tingled with the tears held back; 20 This scorn methought was crueller than shot: The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack, Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly far Than such fear-smothered war.
There our foe wallowed, like a wounded brute 25 The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best? Once more tug bravely at the peril's root, Though death came with it? Or evade the test If right or wrong in this God's world of ours Be leagued with higher powers? 30
Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 35 'Neath the all-seeing sun.
[Footnote 10: The red cross is the British flag.]
But there was one, the Singer of our crew, Upon whose head Age waved his peaceful sign, But whose red heart's-blood no surrender knew; And couchant under brows of massive line, 40 The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, Watched, charged with lightnings yet.
The voices of the hills did his obey; The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song; He brought our native fields from far away, 45 Or set us 'mid the innumerable throng Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm Old homestead's evening psalm.
But now he sang of faith to things unseen, Of freedom's birthright given to us in trust; 50 And words of doughty cheer he spoke between, That made all earthly fortune seem as dust, Matched with that duty, old as Time and new, Of being brave and true.
We, listening, learned what makes the might of words,-- 55 Manhood to back them, constant as a star; His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords, And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and spar Heard him and stiffened; the sails heard, and wooed The winds with loftier mood. 60
In our dark hours he manned our guns again; Remanned ourselves from his own manhood's stores; Pride, honor, country, throbbed through all his strain: And shall we praise? God's praise was his before; And on our futile laurels he looks down, 65 Himself our bravest crown.
AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE.
[When Mr. Lowell wrote this poem he was living at Elmwood in Cambridge, at that time quite remote from town influences,--Cambridge itself being scarcely more than a village,--but now rapidly losing its rustic surroundings. The Charles River flowed near by, then a limpid stream, untroubled by factories or sewage. It is a tidal river and not far from Elmwood winds through broad salt marshes. Mr. Longfellow's old home is a short stroll nearer town, and the two poets exchanged pleasant shots, as may be seen by Lowell's _To H.W.L._, and Longfellow's _The Herons of Elmwood_. In _Under the Willows_ Mr. Lowell has, as it were, indulged in another reverie at a later period of his life, among the same familiar surroundings.]
What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 5 The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!
No more the landscape holds its wealth apart, Making me poorer in my poverty, But mingles with my senses and my heart; 10 My own projected spirit seems to me In her own reverie the world to steep; 'Tis she that waves to sympathetic sleep, Moving, as she is moved, each field and hill and tree.
How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, 15 Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, Each into each, the hazy distances! The softened season all the landscape charms; Those hills, my native village that embay, In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 20 And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.
Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee Close at my side; far distant sound the leaves; The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory Wanders like gleaning Ruth; and as the sheaves 25 Of wheat and barley wavered in the eye Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives.
The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 30 Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne, Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits; Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails; Silently overhead the hen-hawk sails, 34 With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits.
The sobered robin, hunger-silent now, Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn cheer; The squirrel, on the shingly shagbark's bough, Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, Then drops his nut, and, with a chipping bound, 40 Whisks to his winding fastness underground; The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere.
O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar shadows Drowse on the crisp, gray moss; the ploughman's call Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrowed meadows; 45 The single crow a single caw lets fall; And all around me every bush and tree Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all.
The birch, most shy and ladylike of trees, 50 Her poverty, as best she may, retrieves, And hints at her foregone gentilities With some saved relics of her wealth of leaves; The swamp-oak, with his royal purple on, Glares red as blood across the sinking sun, 55 As one who proudlier to a falling fortune cleaves.
He looks a sachem, in red blanket wrapt, Who, 'mid some council of the sad-garbed whites, Erect and stern, in his own memories lapt, With distant eye broods over other sights, 60 Sees the hushed wood the city's flare replace, The wounded turf heal o'er the railway's trace, And roams the savage Past of his undwindled rights.
The red-oak, softer-grained, yields all for lost, And, with his crumpled foliage stiff and dry, 65 After the first betrayal of the frost, Rebuffs the kiss of the relenting sky; The chestnuts, lavish of their long-hid gold, To the faint Summer, beggared now and old, 69 Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath her favoring eye.
The ash her purple drops forgivingly And sadly, breaking not the general hush; The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea, Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush; All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze 75 Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days, Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush.
O'er yon low wall, which guards one unkempt zone, Where vines and weeds and scrub-oaks intertwine Safe from the plough, whose rough, discordant stone 80 Is massed to one soft gray by lichens fine, The tangled blackberry, crossed and recrossed, weaves A prickly network of ensanguined leaves; Hard by, with coral beads, the prim black-alders shine.
Pillaring with flame this crumbling boundary, 85 Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the ploughboy's foot, Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; 90 In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak stands mute.
Below, the Charles--a stripe of nether sky, Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying by, Now flickering golden through a woodland screen, 95 Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, A silver circle like an inland pond-- Slips seaward silently through marshes purple and green.
Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight Who cannot in their various incomes share, 100 From every season drawn, of shade and light, Who sees in them but levels brown and bare; Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free On them its largess of variety, 104 For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare.
In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, O'er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, There, darker growths o'er hidden ditches meet; And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, 110 As if the silent shadow of a cloud Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet.
All round, upon the river's slippery edge, Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; 115 Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run Of dimpling light, and with the current seem to glide.
In Summer 'tis a blithesome sight to see, 120 As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, Their sharp scythes panting through the thick-set grass; Then, stretched beneath a rick's shade in a ring, Their nooning take, while one begins to sing 125 A stave that droops and dies 'neath the close sky of brass.
Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the bobolink, Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 130 A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a farmer 'mid his crops.
Another change subdues them in the Fall, But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, 135 Though sober russet seems to cover all; When the first sunshine through their dewdrops glints. Look how the yellow clearness, streamed across, Redeems with rarer hues the season's loss, 139 As Dawn's feet there had touched and left their rosy prints.
Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, Glow opposite;--the marshes drink their fill And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade 145 Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill.
Later, and yet ere Winter wholly shuts, Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150 While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime plays with his desire, Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;--
Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright 155 With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, 'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, Giving a pretty emblem of the day When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, 160 And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail.
And now those waterfalls the ebbing river Twice every day creates on either side Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; 165 High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, The silvered flats gleam frostily below, Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide.
But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 170 This glory seems to rest immovably,-- The others were too fleet and vanishing; When the hid tide is at its highest flow, O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow 174 With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything.
The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, 180 White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway.
But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant, From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, 185 And the roused Charles remembers in his veins Old Ocean's blood and snaps his gyves of frost, That tyrannous silence on the shores is tost In dreary wreck, and crumbling desolation reigns.
Edgewise or flat, in Druid-like device, 190 With leaden pools between or gullies bare, The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stonehenge of ice; No life, no sound, to break the grim despair, Save sullen plunge, as through the sedges stiff Down crackles riverward some thaw-sapped cliff, 195 Or when the close-wedged fields of ice crunch here and there.
But let me turn from fancy-pictured scenes To that whose pastoral calm before me lies: Here nothing harsh or rugged intervenes; The early evening with her misty dyes 200 Smooths off the ravelled edges of the nigh, Relieves the distant with her cooler sky, And tones the landscape down, and soothes the wearied eyes.
There gleams my native village, dear to me, Though higher change's waves each day are seen, 205 Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history, Sanding with houses the diminished green; There, in red brick, which softening time defies, Stand square and stiff the Muses' factories;-- 209 How with my life knit up is every well-known scene!
Flow on, dear river! not alone you flow To outward sight, and through your marshes wind; Fed from the mystic springs of long-ago, Your twin flows silent through my world of mind; Grow dim, dear marshes, in the evening's gray! 215 Before my inner sight ye stretch away, And will forever, though these fleshly eyes grow blind.
Beyond the hillock's house-bespotted swell, Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 220 Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and praise, Where dust and mud the equal year divide, There gentle Allston lived, and wrought, and died,[11] Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined gaze.
[Footnote 11: In _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_, which treats in prose of much the same period as this poem reproduces, Mr. Lowell has given more in detail his recollections of Washington Allston, the painter. The whole paper may be read as a prose counterpart to this poem. It is published in _Fireside Travels_.]
_Virgilium vidi tantum_,--I have seen[12] 225 But as a boy, who looks alike on all, That misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien,[13] Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;-- Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame That thither many times the Painter came;-- 230 One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree and tall.
Swiftly the present fades in memory's glow,-- Our only sure possession is the past; The village blacksmith died a month ago,[14] And dim to me the forge's roaring blast; 235 Soon fire-new mediævals we shall see Oust the black smithy from its chestnut-tree, And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee-hive green and vast.
How many times, prouder than king on throne, Loosed from the village school-dame's A's and B's, 240 Panting have I the creaky bellows blown, And watched the pent volcano's red increase, Then paused to see the ponderous sledge, brought down By that hard arm voluminous and brown, 224 From the white iron swarm its golden vanishing bees.
[Footnote 12: _Virgilium vidi tantum_, I barely saw Virgil, a Latin phrase applied to one who has merely had a glimpse of a great man.]
[Footnote 13: Undine is the heroine of a romantic tale by Baron De la Motte Fouqué. She is represented as a water-nymph who wins a human soul only by a union with mortality which brings pain and sorrow.]
[Footnote 14: The village blacksmith of Longfellow's well-known poem. The prophecy came true as regards the hewing-down of the chestnut-tree which was cut down in 1876.]
Dear native town! whose choking elms each year With eddying dust before their time turn gray, Pining for rain,--to me thy dust is dear; It glorifies the eve of summer day, And when the westering sun half sunken burns, 250 The mote-thick air to deepest orange turns, The westward horseman rides through clouds of gold away,
So palpable, I've seen those unshorn few, The six old willows at the causey's end (Such trees Paul Potter never dreamed nor drew), 255 Through this dry mist their checkering shadows send, Striped, here and there, with many a long-drawn thread, Where streamed through leafy chinks the trembling red, Past which, in one bright trail, the hangbird's flashes blend.
Yes, dearer for thy dust than all that e'er, 260 Beneath the awarded crown of victory, Gilded the blown Olympic charioteer; Though lightly prized the ribboned parchments three, Yet _collegisse juvat_, I am glad[15] That here what colleging was mine I had,-- 265 It linked another tie, dear native town, with thee!
[Footnote 15: _Collegisse juvat._ Horace in his first ode says, _Curriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse juvat_; that is: _It's a pleasure to have collected_ the dust of Olympus on your carriage-wheels. Mr. Lowell, helping himself to the words, says, "It's a pleasure to have been at college;" for college in its first meaning is a _collection_ of men, as in the phrase "The college of cardinals."]
Nearer art thou than simply native earth, My dust with thine concedes a deeper tie; A closer claim thy soil may well put forth, Something of kindred more than sympathy; 270 For in thy bounds I reverently laid away That blinding anguish of forsaken clay, That title I seemed to have in earth and sea and sky,
That portion of my life more choice to me (Though brief, yet in itself so round and whole)[16] 275 Than all the imperfect residue can be;-- The Artist saw his statue of the soul Was perfect; so, with one regretful stroke, The earthen model into fragments broke, 279 And without her the impoverished seasons roll.
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.
The 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 5 Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch-deep with pearl.
[Footnote 16: The volume containing this poem was reverently dedicated "To the ever fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche."]
From sheds new-roofed with Carrara[17] Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 10 The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, And still fluttered down the snow.
I stood and watched by the window The noiseless work of the sky, And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, 15 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. 20
Up 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, 25 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, 30 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, Darling, the merciful Father 35 Alone can make it fall!"
[Footnote 17: The marble of Carrara, Italy, is noted for its purity.]
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. 40
THE OAK.
What gnarlèd stretch, what depth of shade, is his! There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss! Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring, Which he with such benignant royalty 5 Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; All nature seems his vassal proud to be, And cunning only for his ornament.
How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows, An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, 10 Whose plain, uncinctured front more kingly shows, Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. His boughs make music of the winter air, Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair 15 The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt.
How doth his patient strength the rude March wind Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, And win the soil that fain would be unkind, To swell his revenues with proud increase! 20 He is the gem; and all the landscape wide (So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, An empty socket, were he fallen thence.
So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales, 25 Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots? So every year that falls with noiseless flake Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, 30 And make hoar age revered for age's sake, Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride.
So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, So between earth and heaven stand simply great, 35 That these shall seem but their attendants both; For nature's forces with obedient zeal Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel, And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still.[18] 40
Lord! all Thy works are lessons; each contains Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains, Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole? Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,[19] 45 Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word to me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing.
[Footnote 18: See Shakspeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.]
[Footnote 19: A grove of oaks at Dodona, in ancient Greece, was the seat of a famous oracle.]
PROMETHEUS.
[The classic legend of Prometheus underwent various changes in successive periods of Greek thought. In its main outline the story is the same: that Prometheus, whose name signifies Forethought, stole fire from Zeus, or Jupiter, or Jove, and gave it as a gift to man. For this, the angry god bound him upon Mount Caucasus, and decreed that a vulture should prey upon his liver, destroying every day what was renewed in the night. The struggle of man's thought to free itself from the tyranny of fear and superstition and all monsters of the imagination is illustrated in the myth. The myth is one which has been a favorite with modern poets, as witness Goethe, Shelley, Mrs. Browning, and Longfellow.]
One after one the stars have risen and set, Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain: The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold Of the North-Star, hath shrunk into his den, Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn, 5 Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient; And now bright Lucifer grows less and less, Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-withdrawn. Sunless and starless all, the desert sky Arches above me, empty as this heart 10 For ages hath been empty of all joy, Except to brood upon its silent hope, As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now. All night have I heard voices: deeper yet The deep low breathing of the silence grew. 15 While all about, muffled in awe, there stood Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart, But, when I turned to front them, far along Only a shudder through the midnight ran, And the dense stillness walled me closer round. 20 But still I heard them wander up and down That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings Did mingle with them, whether of those hags Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, Or of yet direr torments, if such be, 25 I could but guess; and then toward me came A shape as of a woman: very pale It was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move, And mine moved not, but only stared on them. Their fixéd awe went through my brain like ice; 30 A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart, And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt: And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh, A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips 35 Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought Some doom was close upon me, and I looked And saw the red moon through the heavy mist, Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling, Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead 40 And palsy-struck it looked. Then all sounds merged Into the rising surges of the pines, Which, leagues below me, clothing the gaunt loins Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength, Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, 45 Sad as the wail that from the populous earth All day and night to high Olympus soars, Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove!
Thy hated name is tossed once more in scorn From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 50 And are these tears? Nay, do not triumph, Jove! They are wrung from me but by the agonies Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall From clouds in travail of the lightning, when The great wave of the storm high-curled and black 55 Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force? True Power was never born of brutish strength, Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs 60 Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder-bolts, That quell the darkness for a space, so strong As the prevailing patience of meek Light, Who, with the invincible tenderness of peace, Wins it to be a portion of herself? 65 Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile? Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold 70 What kind of doom it is whose omen flits Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves The fearful shadow of the kite. What need To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save? Evil its errand hath, as well as Good; 75 When thine is finished, thou art known no more: There is a higher purity than thou, And higher purity is greater strength; Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. 80 Let man but hope, and thou art straightway chilled With thought of that drear silence and deep night Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine: Let man but will, and thou art god no more, More capable of ruin than the gold 85 And ivory that image thee on earth. He who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood[20] Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned, Is weaker than a simple human thought. My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, 90 That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole; For I am still Prometheus, and foreknow In my wise heart the end and doom of all.
Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown 95 By years of solitude,--that holds apart The past and future, giving the soul room To search into itself,--and long commune With this eternal silence;--more a god, In my long-suffering and strength to meet 100 With equal front the direst shafts of fate, Than thou in thy faint-hearted despotism, Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, 105 Hadst to thyself usurped,--his by sole right, For Man hath right to all save Tyranny,-- And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on, 110 Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, And see that Tyranny is always weakness, Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, Would laugh away in scorn the sand-wove chain Which their own blindness feigned for adamant. 115 Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right To the firm centre lays its moveless base. The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, 120 With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale, Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, Rushes, and bends them to its own strong will. So shall some thought of mine yet circle earth, And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove! 125
[Footnote 20: That is, Jove himself.]
And, wouldst thou know of my supreme revenge, Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are, Listen! and tell me if this bitter peak, This never-glutted vulture, and these chains 130 Shrink not before it; for it shall befit A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan-heart. Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand On a precipitous crag that overhangs The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see, 135 As in a glass, the features dim and vast Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems, Of what had been. Death ever fronts the wise; Not fearfully, but with clear promises Of larger life, on whose broad vans upborne, 140 Their outlook widens, and they see beyond The horizon of the present and the past, Even to the very source and end of things. Such am I now: immortal woe hath made My heart a seer, and my soul a judge 145 Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure Of such as I am, this is my revenge, Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal arch, 150 Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills, Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee,-- The songs of maidens pressing with white feet The vintage on thine altars poured no more,-- 155 The murmurous bliss of lovers, underneath Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy bunches press Not half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled By thoughts of thy brute lust,--the hive-like hum Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil 160 Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea,-- Even the spirit of free love and peace, 165 Duty's sure recompense through life and death,-- These are such harvests as all master-spirits Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs; These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal 170 They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge: For their best part of life on earth is when, Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become Part of the necessary air men breathe: 175 When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud, They shed down light before us on life's sea, That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er Their holy sepulchres; the chainless sea, 180 In tempest or wide calm, repeats their thoughts; The lightning and the thunder, all free things, Have legends of them for the ears of men. All other glories are as falling stars, But universal Nature watches theirs: 185 Such strength is won by love of human-kind.
Not that I feel that hunger after fame, Which souls of a half-greatness are beset with; But that the memory of noble deeds Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, 190 And keeps the heart of Man forever up To the heroic level of old time. To be forgot at first is little pain To a heart conscious of such high intent As must be deathless on the lips of men; 195 But, having been a name, to sink and be A something which the world can do without, Which, having been or not, would never change The lightest pulse of fate,--this is indeed A cup of bitterness the worst to taste, 200 And this thy heart shall empty to the dregs. Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, And memory thy vulture; thou wilt find Oblivion far lonelier than this peak,-- Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it much 205 That I should brave thee, miserable god! But I have braved a mightier than thou. Even the tempting of this soaring heart, Which might have made me, scarcely less than thou, A god among my brethren weak and blind,-- 210 Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing To be down-trodden into darkness soon. But now I am above thee, for thou art The bungling workmanship of fear, the block That awes the swart Barbarian; but I 215 Am what myself have made,--a nature wise With finding in itself the types of all,-- With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past,-- 220 Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and with sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.
Thou and all strength shall crumble, except Love, By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall cease: 225 And, when thou art but a dim moaning heard From out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I Shall be a power and a memory, A name to fright all tyrants with, a light Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 230 Heard in the breathless pauses of the fight By truth and freedom ever waged with wrong, Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake Huge echoes that from age to age live on In kindred spirits, giving them a sense 235 Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung: And many a glazing eye shall smile to see The memory of my triumph (for to meet Wrong with endurance, and to overcome The present with a heart that looks beyond, 240 Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch Upon the sacred banner of the Right. Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, Leaving it richer for the growth of truth; 245 But Good, once put in action or in thought, Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, Shalt fade and be forgotten! but this soul, Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, 250 In every heaving shall partake, that grows From heart to heart among the sons of men,-- As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs Far through the Ægean from roused isle to isle,-- Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines, 255 And mighty rents in many a cavernous error That darkens the free light to man:--This heart, Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the truth Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, shall 260 In all the throbbing exultations share That wait on freedom's triumphs, and in all The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits,-- Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds That veil the future, showing them the end,-- 265 Pain's thorny crown for constancy and truth, Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel, Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow 270 On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus: But, O thought far more blissful, they can rend This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star!
Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove! Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long, 275 Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still, In its invincible manhood, overtops Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth The pines that moss its roots. Oh, even now, While from my peak of suffering I look down, 280 Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face, Shone all around with love, no man shall look But straightway like a god he is uplift Unto the throne long empty for his sake, 285 And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreams By his free inward nature, which nor thou, Nor any anarch after thee, can bind From working its great doom,--now, now set free This essence, not to die, but to become 290 Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off, With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings And hideous sense of utter loneliness, All hope of safety, all desire of peace, 295 All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,-- Part of that spirit which doth ever brood In patient calm on the unpilfered nest Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, 300 Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust In the unfailing energy of Good, Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make Of some o'erbloated wrong,--that spirit which Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, 305 Like acorns among grain, to grow and be A roof for freedom in all coming time! But no, this cannot be; for ages yet, In solitude unbroken, shall I hear The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 310 And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, On either side storming the giant walls Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam (Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow), That draw back baffled but to hurl again, 315 Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil, Mountain on mountain, as the Titans erst, My brethren, scaling the high seat of Jove, Heaved Pelion upon Ossa's shoulders broad In vain emprise. The moon will come and go 320 With her monotonous vicissitude; Once beautiful, when I was free to walk Among my fellows, and to interchange The influence benign of loving eyes, But now by aged use grown wearisome;-- 325 False thought! most false! for how could I endure These crawling centuries of lonely woe Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee, Loneliest, save me, of all created things, Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter,[21] 330 With thy pale smile of sad benignity?
[Footnote 21: Daughter of Heaven and Earth, and symbol of Nature.]
Year after year will pass away and seem To me, in mine eternal agony, But as the shadows of dumb summer clouds, Which I have watched so often darkening o'er 335 The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide at first, But, with still swiftness, lessening on and on Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle where The gray horizon fades into the sky, Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet 340 Must I lie here upon my altar huge, A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be, As it hath been, his portion; endless doom, While the immortal with the mortal linked Dreams of its wings and pines for what it dreams, 345 With upward yearn unceasing. Better so: For wisdom is meek sorrow's patient child, And empire over self, and all the deep Strong charities that make men seem like gods; And love, that makes them be gods, from her breasts 350 Sucks in the milk that makes mankind one blood. Good never comes unmixed, or so it seems, Having two faces, as some images Are carved, of foolish gods; one face is ill; But one heart lies beneath, and that is good, 355 As are all hearts, when we explore their depths. Therefore, great heart, bear up! thou art but type Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain Would win men back to strength and peace through love: Each hath his lonely peak, and on each heart 360 Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong With vulture beak; yet the high soul is left; And faith, which is but hope grown wise; and love And patience, which at last shall overcome.
TO W.L. GARRISON.
"Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."--_Letter of H.G. Otis._
In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man; The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean;-- Yet there the freedom of a race began.
Help came but slowly; surely no man yet 5 Put lever to the heavy world with less:[22] What need of help? He knew how types were set, He had a dauntless spirit, and a press.
Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, round which systems grow! 10 Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the central glow,
O Truth! O Freedom! how are ye still born In the rude stable, in the manger nursed! What humble hands unbar those gates of morn 15 Through which the splendors of the New Day burst.
What! shall one monk, scarce known beyond his cell, Front Rome's far-reaching bolts, and scorn her frown? Brave Luther answered YES; that thunder's swell Rocked Europe, and discharmed the triple crown. 20
[Footnote 22: Archimedes, a great philosopher of antiquity, used to say, "Only give me a place to stand on, and I will move the world with my lever."]
Whatever can be known of earth we know, Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled; No! said one man in Genoa, and that No Out of the dark created this New World.
Who is it will not dare himself to trust? 25 Who is it hath not strength to stand alone? Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward MUST? He and his works, like sand, from earth are blown?
Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here! See one straightforward conscience put in pawn 30 To win a world; see the obedient sphere By bravery's simple gravitation drawn!
Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, And by the Present's lips repeated still, In our own single manhood to be bold, 35 Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will?
We stride the river daily at its spring, Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, foresee, What myriad vassal streams shall tribute bring, How like an equal it shall greet the sea. 40
O small beginnings, ye are great and strong, Based on a faithful heart and weariless brain! Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong, Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide The din of battle and of slaughter rose; He saw God stand upon the weaker side, That sank in seeming loss before its foes: Many there were who made great haste and sold 5 Unto the cunning enemy their swords, He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, And, underneath their soft and flowery words, Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went And humbly joined him to the weaker part, 10 Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content So he could be the nearer to God's heart, And feel its solemn pulses sending blood Through all the widespread veins of endless good.
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
[When the Mexican war was under discussion, Mr. Lowell began the publication in a Boston newspaper of satirical poems, written in the Yankee dialect, and purporting to come for the most part from one Hosea Biglow. The poems were the sharpest political darts that were fired at the time, and when the verses were collected and set forth, with a paraphernalia of introductions and notes professedly prepared by an old-fashioned, scholarly parson, Rev. Homer Wilbur, the book gave Mr. Lowell a distinct place as a wit and satirist, and was read with delight in England and America after the circumstance which called it out had become a matter of history and no longer of politics.
When the war for the Union broke out, Mr. Lowell took up the same strain and contributed to the _Atlantic Monthly_ a second series of _Biglow Papers_, and just before the close of the war, published the poem that follows.]
DEAR SIR,--Your letter come to han' Requestin' me to please be funny; But I ain't made upon a plan Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey: Ther' 's times the world does look so queer, 5 Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; An' then agin, for half a year, No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn.
You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 10 An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, I'd take an' citify my English. I _ken_ write long-tailed, ef I please,-- But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; Then, 'fore I know it, my idees 15 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 schoolin'; 20 Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman; Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree But half forgives my bein' human.
An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way 25 Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin' in a downright lick 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it. 30 An' then it helves my thoughts 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 up with gullin'; Idees you hev to shove an' haul 35 Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein: Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts Feel thet th' old airth's a-wheelin' sunwards. 40
Time wuz, the rhymes 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 45 Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, 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, 50 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 55 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; 60 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, 65 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, 70 Jes' coz they be so, seem to me To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.
In-doors an' out by spells I try; Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', But leaves my natur' stiff and dry 75 Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; An' her jes' keepin' on the same, Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin', An' findin' nary thing to blame, Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 80
Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane, The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, But I can't hark to wut they're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 85 Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale To me ez so much sperit rappin'.
Under the yaller-pines I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 90 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 wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, 95 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; 100 The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth Of empty places set me thinkin'.
Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows,[23] 105 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, 110 Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies.
[Footnote 23: Beaver Brook, a tributary of the Charles.]
Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 115 Thet follered once an' now are quiet,-- White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. 120
Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? Didn'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 125 Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', Ez long '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, 130 Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 135 Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?
'T ain't right to hev the young go fust, All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: 140 Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, An' _thet_ world seems so fur from this Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!
My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth 145 Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; I pity mothers, tu, down South, For all they sot among the scorners: I'd sooner take my chance to stan' At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 150 Than at God's bar hol' up a han' Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis!
Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, But proud, to meet a people proud, 155 With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! Longin' for you, our sperits wilt Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 160
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 165 They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, An' bring fair wages for brave men, A nation saved, a race delivered!
VILLA FRANCA.
[The battles of Magenta and Solferino, in the early summer of 1859, had given promise of a complete emancipation of Italy from the Austrian supremacy, when Napoleon III., who was acting in alliance with Victor Emmanuel, king of Sardinia, held a meeting with the emperor Francis Joseph of Austria at Villa Franca, and agreed to terms which were very far from including the unification of Italy. There was a general distrust of Napoleon, and the war continued with the final result of a united Italy. In the poem which follows Mr. Lowell gives expression to his want of faith in the French emperor.]
Wait a little: do _we_ not wait? Louis Napoleon is not Fate, Francis Joseph is not Time; There's One hath swifter feet than Crime; Cannon-parliaments settle naught; 5 Venice is Austria's,--whose is Thought? Minié is good, but, spite of change, Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin![24] Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! 10 In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever.
[Footnote 24: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were the three Fates of the ancient mythology; Clotho spun the thread of human destiny, Lachesis twisted it, and Atropos with shears severed it.]
Wait, we say; our years are long; Men are weak, but Man is strong; Since the stars first curved their rings, 15 We have looked on many things; Great wars come and great wars go, Wolf-tracks light on polar snow; We shall see him come and gone, This second-hand Napoleon. 20 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever.
We saw the elder Corsican, 25 And Clotho muttered as she span, While crownèd lackeys bore the train, Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne: "Sister, stint not length of thread! Sister, stay the scissors dread! 30 On Saint Helen's granite bleak, Hark, the vulture whets his beak!" Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, 35 The silent headsman waits forever.
The Bonapartes, we know their bees That wade in honey red to the knees: Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound In dreamless garners underground: 40 We know false glory's spendthrift race Pawning nations for feathers and lace; It may be short, it may be long, "'Tis reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid Wrong. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 45 Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever.
The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin Can promise what he ne'er could win; 50 Slavery reaped for fine words sown, System for all, and rights for none, Despots atop, a wild clan below, Such is the Gaul from long ago; Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, 55 Wash the past out of man or race! Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. 60
'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings,[25] And snares the people for the kings; "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake's black scars are healed with grass;" So dreamers prate; did man e'er live 65 Saw priest or woman yet forgive; But Luther's broom is left, and eyes Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! 70 In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever.
[Footnote 25: There was more than one Pope Gregory, but Gregory VII in the eleventh century brought the papacy to its supreme power, when kings humbled themselves before the Pope.]
Smooth sails the ship of either realm, Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm; We look down the depths, and mark 75 Silent workers in the dark Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs, Old instincts hardening to new beliefs; Patience a little; learn to wait; Hours are long on the clock of Fate. 80 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, But only God endures forever!
THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY.
"Come forth!" my catbird calls to me, "And hear me sing a cavatina That, in this old familiar tree, Shall hang a garden of Alcina.
"These buttercups shall brim with wine 5 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 10 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, 15 Without premeditated graces.
"What boot your many-volumed gains, Those withered leaves forever turning, To win, at best, for all your pains, A nature mummy-wrapt in learning? 20
"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, 25 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 thy syringa thicket 30 The quaintly discontinuous lays To which I hold a season-ticket,--
"A season-ticket cheaply bought With a dessert of pilfered berries, And who so oft my soul has caught 35 With morn and evening voluntaries,--
"Deem me not faithless, if all day Among my dusty books I linger, No pipe, like thee, for June to play With fancy-led, half-conscious finger. 40
"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 45 His magic music rears above me, No falser friends, no truer foes,-- And does not Doña Clara love me?
"Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, 50 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, 55 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 million! 60
"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, 65 And still, God knows, in purgatory, Give its best sweetness to all song, To Nature's self her better glory."
ALADDIN.
When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp; When I could not sleep for cold, 5 I had fire enough in my brain, And builded with roofs of gold My beautiful castles in Spain!
Since then I have toiled day and night, I have money and power good store, 10 But, I'd give all my lamps of silver bright For the one that is mine no more; Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, You gave, and may snatch again; I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, 15 For I own no more castles in Spain!
BEAVER BROOK.
Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill, And, minuting the long day's loss, The cedar's shadow, slow and still, Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss.
Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, 5 The aspen's leaves are scarce astir; Only the little mill sends up Its busy, never-ceasing burr.
Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems The road along the mill-pond's brink, 10 From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, My footstep scares the shy chewink.
Beneath a bony buttonwood The mill's red door lets forth the din; The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 15 Flits past the square of dark within.
No mountain torrent's strength is here; Sweet Beaver, child of forest still,[26] Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller's will. 20
Swift slips Undine along the race Unheard, 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 25 The quivering millstones hum and whirl, Nor how for every turn are tost Armfuls of diamond and of pearl.
But Summer cleared my happier eyes With drops of some celestial juice, 30 To see how Beauty underlies, Forevermore each form of use.
And more; methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood, 35 To turn the world's laborious wheels.
[Footnote 26: Beaver Brook was within walking distance of the poet's home. See _The Nightingale in the Study_.]
No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare Moves every day's machinery. 40
Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, No longer sullen, slow, and dumb, Shall leap to music and to light.
In that new childhood of the Earth 45 Life of itself shall dance and play, Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And labor meet delight half way.
THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS.
There came a youth upon the earth, Some thousand years ago, Whose slender hands were nothing worth, Whether to plough, or reap, or sow.
Upon an empty tortoise-shell 5 He stretched some chords, and drew Music that made men's bosoms swell Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.
Then King Admetus, one who had Pure taste by right divine, 10 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, 15 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. 20
Men called him but a shiftless youth, In whom no good they saw; And yet, unwittingly, in truth, They made his careless words their law.
They knew not how he learned at all, 25 For idly, hour by hour, He sat and watched the dead leaves fall, Or mused upon a common flower.
It seemed the loveliness of things Did teach him all their use, 30 For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs, He found a healing power profuse.
Men granted that his speech was wise, But, when a glance they caught Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, 35 They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.
Yet after he was dead and gone, And e'en his memory dim, Earth seemed more sweet to live upon, More full of love, because of him. 40
And day by day more holy grew Each spot where he had trod, Till after-poets only knew Their first-born brother as a god.
THE PRESENT CRISIS.
[In the year 1844, which is the date of the following poem, the question of the annexation of Texas was pending, and it was made an issue of the presidential campaign then taking place. The anti-slavery party feared and opposed annexation, on account of the added strength which it would give to slavery, and the South desired it for the same reason.]
When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. 5
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart. 10
So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. 15
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;[27] Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;-- In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. 20
[Footnote 27: This figure has special force from the fact that Morse's telegraph was first put in operation a few months before the writing of this poem.]
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 25
Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shall stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng[28] Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 30
Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea; Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. 35
[Footnote 28: Compare:-- "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, The eternal years of God are hers." BRYANT.]
Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;[29] Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-- Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 40
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din, List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,-- "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin." 45
[Footnote 29: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."]
Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood, Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;-- Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play?[30] 50
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. 55
Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,--they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design. 60
[Footnote 30: For the full story of Cyclops, which runs in suggestive phrase through these five lines, see the ninth book of the Odyssey. The translation by G.H. Palmer will be found especially satisfactory.]
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand _Credo_ which in prophet-hearts hath burned[31] Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. 65
For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 70
'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;-- Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime? 75
[Footnote 31: The creed is so named from the first word in the Latin form, _credo_, I believe.]
They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free, Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. 80
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires; Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? 85
New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be. Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. 90
AL FRESCO.
The dandelions and buttercups Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee Stumbles among the clover-tops, And summer sweetens all but me: Away, unfruitful lore of books, 5 For whose vain idiom we reject The soul's more native dialect, Aliens among the birds and brooks, Dull to interpret or conceive What gospels lost the woods retrieve! 10 Away, ye critics, city-bred, Who springes set of thus and so, And in the first man's footsteps tread, Like those who toil through drifted snow! Away, my poets, whose sweet spell[32] 15 Can make a garden of a cell! I need ye not, for I to-day Will make one long sweet verse of play.
[Footnote 32: There is a delightful pair of poems by Wordsworth, _Expostulation and Reply_, and _The Tables Turned_, which show how another poet treats books and nature.]
Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain! To-day I will be a boy again; 20 The mind's pursuing element, Like a bow slackened and unbent, In some dark corner shall be leant. The robin sings, as of old, from the limb! The catbird croons in the lilac bush! 25 Through the dim arbor, himself more dim, Silently hops the hermit-thrush, The withered leaves keep dumb for him; The irreverent buccaneering bee Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 30 Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor With haste-dropt gold from shrine to door; There, as of yore, The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup Its tiny polished urn holds up, 35 Filled with ripe summer to the edge, The sun in his own wine to pledge; And our tall elm, this hundredth year Doge of our leafy Venice here, Who, with an annual ring, doth wed 40 The blue Adriatic overhead, Shadows with his palatial mass The deep canals of flowing grass.
O unestrangëd birds and bees! O face of Nature always true! 45 O never-unsympathizing trees! O never-rejecting roof of blue, Whose rash disherison never falls On us unthinking prodigals, Yet who convictest all our ill, 50 So grand and unappeasable! Methinks my heart from each of these Plucks part of childhood back again, Long there imprisoned, as the breeze Doth every hidden odor seize 55 Of wood and water, hill and plain; Once more am I admitted peer In the upper house of Nature here, And feel through all my pulses run The royal blood of breeze and sun. 60
Upon these elm-arched solitudes No hum of neighbor toil intrudes; The only hammer that I hear Is wielded by the woodpecker, The single noisy calling his 65 In all our leaf-hid Sybaris; The good old time, close-hidden here, Persists, a loyal cavalier, While Roundheads prim, with point of fox, Probe wainscot-chink and empty box; 70 Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast Insults thy statues, royal Past; Myself too prone the axe to wield, I touch the silver side of the shield With lance reversed, and challenge peace, 75 A willing convert of the trees.
How chanced it that so long I tost A cable's length from this rich coast, With foolish anchors hugging close The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze, 80 Nor had the wit to wreck before On this enchanted island's shore, Whither the current of the sea, With wiser drift, persuaded me?
O, might we but of such rare days 85 Build up the spirit's dwelling-place! A temple of so Parian stone Would brook a marble god alone, The statue of a perfect life, Far-shrined from earth's bestaining strife. 90 Alas! though such felicity In our vext world here may not be, Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut Shows stones which old religion cut With text inspired, or mystic sign 95 Of the Eternal and Divine, Torn from the consecration deep Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep, So, from the ruins of this day Crumbling in golden dust away, 100 The soul one gracious block may draw, Carved with some fragment of the law, Which, set in life's prosaic wall, Old benedictions may recall, And lure some nunlike thoughts to take 105 Their dwelling here for memory's sake.
THE FOOT-PATH.
It mounts athwart the windy hill Through sallow slopes of upland bare, And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still Its narrowing curves that end in air.
By day, a warmer-hearted blue 5 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, 10 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 Rome, 15 But now it leads me everywhere.
Forever to the new it guides, From former good, old overmuch; What Nature for her poets hides, 'Tis wiser to divine than clutch. 20
The bird I list hath never come Within the scope of mortal ear; My prying step would make him dumb, And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.
Behind the hill, behind the sky, 25 Behind my inmost thought, he sings; No feet avail; to hear it nigh, The song itself must lend the wings.
Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise Those angel stairways in my brain, 30 That climb from these low-vaulted days To spacious sunshines far from pain.
Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat 35 To make a twice-told tale of God.
They said the fairies tript no more, And long ago that Pan was dead; 'Twas but that fools preferred to bore Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead. 40
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 45 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; 50 I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, 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 chambers still, 55 Fronting Time's far East, who shall reach?
I know not, and will never pry, But trust our human heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an open sense may fall. 60
Hide in thine own soul, and surprise The password of the unwary elves; Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies; Unsought, they whisper it themselves.
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End of Project Gutenberg's The Vision of Sir Launfal, by James Russell Lowell