Part 8

And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure? Make not youth’s sourest grapes the best wine of our life? Need he reckon his date by the Almanac’s measure Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife? Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, Let me still take Hope’s frail I. O. U.s upon trust, Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, And still climb the dream-tree for--ashes and dust!

AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL.

JANUARY, 1859.

I.

A hundred years! they’re quickly fled, With all their joy and sorrow; Their dead leaves shed upon the dead, Their fresh ones sprung by morrow! And still the patient seasons bring Their change of sun and shadow; New birds still sing with every spring, New violets spot the meadow.

II.

A hundred years! and Nature’s powers No greater grown nor lessened! They saw no flowers more sweet than ours, No fairer new moon’s crescent. Would she but treat us poets so, So from our winter free us, And set our slow old sap aflow To sprout in fresh ideas!

III.

Alas, think I, what worth or parts Have brought me here competing, To speak what starts in myriad hearts With Burns’s memory beating! Himself had loved a theme like this; Must I be its entomber? No pen save his but’s sure to miss Its pathos or its humor.

IV.

As I sat musing what to say, And how my verse to number, Some elf in play passed by that way, And sank my lids in slumber; And on my sleep a vision stole, Which I will put in metre, Of Burns’s soul at the wicket-hole Where sits the good Saint Peter.

V.

The saint, methought, had left his post That day to Holy Willie, Who swore, “Each ghost that comes shall toast In brunstane, will he, nill he; There’s nane need hope with phrases fine Their score to wipe a sin frae; I’ll chalk a sign, to save their tryin',-- A hand (☟) and '_Vide infra!_'”

VI.

Alas! no soil’s too cold or dry For spiritual small potatoes, Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply Of _diaboli advocatus_; Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool Where Mercy plumps a cushion, Who’ve just one rule for knave and fool, It saves so much confusion!

VII.

So when Burns knocked, Will knit his brows, His window gap made scanter, And said, “Go rouse the other house; We lodge no Tam O’Shanter!” “_We_ lodge!” laughed Burns. “Now well I see Death cannot kill old nature; No human flea but thinks that he May speak for his Creator!

VIII.

“But, Willie, friend, don’t turn me forth, Auld Clootie needs no gauger; And if on earth I had small worth, You’ve let in worse, I’se wager!” “Na, nane has knockit at the yett But found me hard as whunstane; There’s chances yet your bread to get Wi Auld Nick, gaugin' brunstane.”

IX.

Meanwhile, the Unco' Guid had ta’en Their place to watch the process, Flattening in vain on many a pane Their disembodied noses. Remember, please, ’tis all a dream; One can’t control the fancies Through sleep that stream with wayward gleam, Like midnight’s boreal dances.

X.

Old Willie’s tone grew sharp’s a knife: “_In primis_, I indite ye, For makin' strife wi' the water o' life, And preferrin' _aqua vitæ_!” Then roared a voice with lusty din, Like a skipper’s when ’tis blowy, “If _that_'s a sin, _I_'d ne’er got in, As sure as my name’s Noah!”

XI.

Baulked, Willie turned another leaf,-- “There’s many here have heard ye, To the pain and grief o' true belief, Say hard things o' the clergy!” Then rang a clear tone over all,-- “One plea for him allow me: I once heard call from o’er me, 'Saul, Why persecutest thou me?'”

XII.

To the next charge vexed Willie turned, And, sighing, wiped his glasses: “I’m much concerned to find ye yearned O’er-warmly tow’rd the lasses!” Here David sighed; poor Willie’s face Lost all its self-possession: “I leave this case to God’s own grace; It baffles _my_ discretion!”

XIII.

Then sudden glory round me broke, And low melodious surges Of wings whose stroke to splendor woke Creation’s farthest verges; A cross stretched, ladder-like, secure From earth to heaven’s own portal, Whereby God’s poor, with footing sure, Climbed up to peace immortal.

XIV.

I heard a voice serene and low (With my heart I seemed to hear it) Fall soft and slow as snow on snow, Like grace of the heavenly spirit; As sweet as over new-born son The croon of new-made mother, The voice begun, “Sore tempted one!” Then, pausing, sighed, “Our brother!

XV.

“If not a sparrow fall, unless The Father sees and knows it, Think! recks he less his form express, The soul his own deposit? If only dear to Him the strong, That never trip nor wander, Where were the throng whose morning song Thrills His blue arches yonder?

XVI.

“Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed, To Him true service render, And they who need His hand to lead, Find they His heart untender? Through all your various ranks and fates He opens doors to duty, And he that waits there at your gates Was servant of His Beauty.”

XVII.

“The Earth must richer sap secrete, (Could ye in time but know it!) Must juice concrete with fiercer heat, Ere she can make her poet; Long generations go and come, At last she bears a singer, For ages dumb, of senses numb The compensation-bringer!”

XVIII.

“Her cheaper broods in palaces She raises under glasses, But souls like these, heav’n’s hostages, Spring shelterless as grasses: They share Earth’s blessing and her bane, The common sun and shower; What makes your pain to them is gain, Your weakness is their power.

XIX.

“These larger hearts must feel the rolls Of stormier-waved temptation; These star-wide souls between their poles Bear zones of tropic passion. He loved much!--that is gospel good, Howe’er the text you handle; From common wood the cross was hewed, By love turned priceless sandal.

XX.

“If scant his service at the kirk, He _paters_ heard and _aves_ From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk, From blackbird and from mavis; The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing, In him found Mercy’s angel; The daisy’s ring brought every spring To him Love’s fresh evangel!

XXI.

“Not he the threatening texts who deals Is highest ’mong the preachers, But he who feels the woes and weals Of all God’s wandering creatures. He doth good work whose heart can find The spirit ’neath the letter; Who makes his kind of happier mind, Leaves wiser men and better.

XXII.

“They make Religion be abhorred Who round with darkness gulf her, And think no word can please the Lord Unless it smell of sulphur. Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed The Father’s loving kindness, Come now to rest! Thou didst His hest, If haply ’twas in blindness!”

XXIII.

Then leapt heaven’s portals wide apart, And at their golden thunder With sudden start I woke, my heart Still throbbing-full of wonder. “Father,” I said, “'tis known to Thee How Thou thy Saints preparest; But this I see,--Saint Charity Is still the first and fairest!”

XXIV.

Dear Bard and Brother! let who may Against thy faults be railing, (Though far, I pray, from us be they That never had a failing!) One toast I’ll give, and that not long, Which thou wouldst pledge if present,-- To him whose song, in nature strong, Makes man of prince and peasant!

IN AN ALBUM.

The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall By some Pompeian idler traced, In ashes packed (ironic fact!) Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced, While many a page of bard and sage, Deemed once mankind’s immortal gain, Lost from Time’s ark, leaves no more mark Than a keel’s furrow through the main.

O Chance and Change! our buzz’s range Is scarcely wider than a fly’s; Then let us play at fame to-day, To-morrow be unknown and wise; And while the fair beg locks of hair, And autographs, and Lord knows what, Quick! let us scratch our moment’s match, Make our brief blaze, and be forgot!

Too pressed to wait, upon her slate Fame writes a name or two in doubt; Scarce written, these no longer please, And her own finger rubs them out: It may ensue, fair girl, that you Years hence this yellowing leaf may see, And put to task, your memory ask In vain, “This Lowell, who was he?”

AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866, IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR.

I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago, Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane, To do what I vowed I’d do never again; And I feel like your good honest dough when possest By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast. “You must rise,” says the leaven. “I can’t,” says the dough; “Just examine my bumps, and you’ll see it’s no go.” “But you must,” the tormentor insists, “'tis all right; You must rise when I bid you, and, what’s more, be light.”

’Tis a dreadful oppression, this making men speak What they ’re sure to be sorry for all the next week; This asking some poor stick, like Aaron’s, to bud Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood, As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton.

They say it is wholesome to rise with the sun, And I dare say it may be if not overdone; (I think it was Thomson who made the remark ’Twas an excellent thing in its way--for a lark;) But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating, With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo, Under contract to raise anerithmon gelasma With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma, And jokes not much younger than Jethro’s phylacteries, Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize.

I’ve a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech, Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim’s foam on ’t, And leaving on memory’s rim just a sense Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense; Not poetry,--no, not quite that, but as good, A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would. ’Tis a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh-poured champagne, Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed For manœuvering the heavy dragoons of the mind. When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop, Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop, With a vague apprehension from popular rumor There used to be something by mortals called humor, Beginning again when you thought they were done, Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton, And as near to the present occasions of men As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten, I--well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother, For am I not also a bore and a brother?

And a toast,--what should that be? Light, airy, and free, The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus’s sea, A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow-stain, That floats for an instant ’twixt goblet and brain; A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught, And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought. Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple; Ask Apelles to paint you the ravishing dimple Whose shifting enchantment lights Venus’s cheek, And the artist will tell you his skill is too weak; Once fix it, ’tis naught, for the charm of it rises From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises.

I’ve tried to define it, but what mother’s son Could ever yet do what he knows should be done? My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air Its fast-fading heart’s-blood drop back in despair; Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick, I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick.

Now since I’ve succeeded--I pray do not frown-- To Ticknor’s and Longfellow’s classical gown, And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf, I speak like a native (of Cambridge) myself, Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose A sentiment treading on nobody’s toes, And give, in such ale as with pump-handles _we_ brew, Their memory who saved us from all talking Hebrew,-- A toast that to deluge with water is good, For in Scripture they come in just after the flood: I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir, Modern languages ne’er could have had a professor, The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues; And a name all-embracing I couple therewith, Which is that of my founder--the late Mr. Smith.

A PARABLE.

An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale From passion’s fountain flooded all the vale. “Hee-haw!” cried he, “I hearken,” as who knew For such ear-largess humble thanks were due. “Friend,” said the wingèd pain, “in vain you bray, Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay; None but his peers the poet rightly hear, Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear.”

COLONNA, ITALY, 1852.

V.

EPIGRAMS.

SAYINGS.

1.

In life’s small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know’st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee, “I find thee worthy; do this deed for me”?

2.

A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind Thus spake a dervish: “Friend, the Eternal Judge Dooms not His work, but ours, the crooked mind.”

3.

Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern; Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars.

4.

“Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?” “Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged.”

INSCRIPTIONS.

FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

I call as fly the irrevocable hours, Futile as air or strong as fate to make Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers, Even as men choose, they either give or take.

FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS.

The New World’s sons, from England’s breasts we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came; Proud of her Past wherefrom our Present grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh’s name.

PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON.

To those who died for her on land and sea, That she might have a country great and free, Boston builds this: build ye her monument In lives like theirs, at duty’s summons spent.

A MISCONCEPTION.

B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, ’Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling, In office placed to serve the Commonwealth, Does himself all the good he can by stealing.

THE BOSS.

Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature’s hope, Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.

SUN-WORSHIP.

If I were the rose at your window, Happiest rose of its crew, Every blossom I bore would bend inward, _They’d_ know where the sunshine grew.

CHANGED PERSPECTIVE.

Full oft the pathway to her door I’ve measured by the selfsame track, Yet doubt the distance more and more, ’Tis so much longer coming back!

WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER.

We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, And I should hint sharp practice if I dared; For was not she beforehand sure to gain Who made the sunshine we together shared?

SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY.

As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, ’Neath every one a friend.