Chapter 14

She sang: "The winds from Alfheim Bring never sound of strife; The gifts for Frey the meetest Are not of death, but life.

"He loves the grass-green meadows, The grazing kine's sweet breath; He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, Your gifts that smell of death.

"No wrong by wrong is righted, No pain is cured by pain; The blood that smokes from Doom-rings Falls back in redder rain.

"The gods are what you make them, As earth shall Asgard prove; And hate will come of hating, And love will come of love.

"Make dole of skyr and black bread That old and young may live; And look to Frey for favor When first like Frey you give.

"Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows The summer dawn begins The tun shall have its harvest, The fiord its glancing fins."

Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell "By Gimli and by Hel, O Vala of Thingvalla, Thou singest wise and well!

"Too dear the AEsir's favors Bought with our children's lives; Better die than shame in living Our mothers and our wives.

"The full shall give his portion To him who hath most need; Of curdled skyr and black bread, Be daily dole decreed."

He broke from off his neck-chain Three links of beaten gold; And each man, at his bidding, Brought gifts for young and old.

Then mothers nursed their children, And daughters fed their sires, And Health sat down with Plenty Before the next Yule fires.

The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal; The Doom-ring still remains; But the snows of a thousand winters Have washed away the stains.

Christ ruleth now; the Asir Have found their twilight dim; And, wiser than she dreamed, of old The Vala sang of Him

1868.

THE TWO RABBINS.

THE Rabbi Nathan two-score years and ten Walked blameless through the evil world, and then, Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, Met a temptation all too strong to bear, And miserably sinned. So, adding not Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught No more among the elders, but went out From the great congregation girt about With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, Behold the royal preacher's words: "A friend Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end; And for the evil day thy brother lives." Marvelling, he said: "It is the Lord who gives Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay My sins before him."

And he went his way Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers; But even as one who, followed unawares, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe, Before him still the old temptation came, And mocked him with the motion and the shame Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord To free his soul and cast the demon out, Smote with his staff the blankness round about.

At length, in the low light of a spent day, The towers of Ecbatana far away Rose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faint And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom He greeted kindly: "May the Holy One Answer thy prayers, O stranger!" Whereupon The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore Himself away: "O friend beloved, no more Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine, May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!"

Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. "I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, "In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read, 'Better the eye should see than that desire Should wander?' Burning with a hidden fire That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee For pity and for help, as thou to me. Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried, "Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!"

Side by side In the low sunshine by the turban stone They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own, Forgetting, in the agony and stress Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness; Peace, for his friend besought, his own became; His prayers were answered in another's name; And, when at last they rose up to embrace, Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!

Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read: "_Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead; Forget it in love's service, and the debt Thou, canst not pay the angels shall forget; Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone; Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!_"

1868.

NOREMBEGA.

Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.

THE winding way the serpent takes The mystic water took, From where, to count its beaded lakes, The forest sped its brook.

A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, For sun or stars to fall, While evermore, behind, before, Closed in the forest wall.

The dim wood hiding underneath Wan flowers without a name; Life tangled with decay and death, League after league the same.

Unbroken over swamp and hill The rounding shadow lay, Save where the river cut at will A pathway to the day.

Beside that track of air and light, Weak as a child unweaned, At shut of day a Christian knight Upon his henchman leaned.

The embers of the sunset's fires Along the clouds burned down; "I see," he said, "the domes and spires Of Norembega town."

"Alack! the domes, O master mine, Are golden clouds on high; Yon spire is but the branchless pine That cuts the evening sky."

"Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these But chants and holy hymns?" "Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees Though all their leafy limbs."

"Is it a chapel bell that fills The air with its low tone?" "Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, The insect's vesper drone."

"The Christ be praised!--He sets for me A blessed cross in sight!" "Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree With two gaunt arms outright!"

"Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, It mattereth not, my knave; Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, The cross is for my grave!

"My life is sped; I shall not see My home-set sails again; The sweetest eyes of Normandie Shall watch for me in vain.

"Yet onward still to ear and eye The baffling marvel calls; I fain would look before I die On Norembega's walls.

"So, haply, it shall be thy part At Christian feet to lay The mystery of the desert's heart My dead hand plucked away.

"Leave me an hour of rest; go thou And look from yonder heights; Perchance the valley even now Is starred with city lights."

The henchman climbed the nearest hill, He saw nor tower nor town, But, through the drear woods, lone and still, The river rolling down.

He heard the stealthy feet of things Whose shapes he could not see, A flutter as of evil wings, The fall of a dead tree.

The pines stood black against the moon, A sword of fire beyond; He heard the wolf howl, and the loon Laugh from his reedy pond.

He turned him back: "O master dear, We are but men misled; And thou hast sought a city here To find a grave instead."

"As God shall will! what matters where A true man's cross may stand, So Heaven be o'er it here as there In pleasant Norman land?

"These woods, perchance, no secret hide Of lordly tower and hall; Yon river in its wanderings wide Has washed no city wall;

"Yet mirrored in the sullen stream The holy stars are given Is Norembega, then, a dream Whose waking is in Heaven?

"No builded wonder of these lands My weary eyes shall see; A city never made with hands Alone awaiteth me--

"'_Urbs Syon mystica_;' I see Its mansions passing fair, '_Condita caelo_;' let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there!"

Above the dying exile hung The vision of the bard, As faltered on his failing tongue The song of good Bernard.

The henchman dug at dawn a grave Beneath the hemlocks brown, And to the desert's keeping gave The lord of fief and town.

Years after, when the Sieur Champlain Sailed up the unknown stream, And Norembega proved again A shadow and a dream,

He found the Norman's nameless grave Within the hemlock's shade, And, stretching wide its arms to save, The sign that God had made,

The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot And made it holy ground He needs the earthly city not Who hath the heavenly found.

1869.

MIRIAM.

TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD.

THE years are many since, in youth and hope, Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars. Now, with gray beards, and faces seamed with scars From life's hard battle, meeting once again, We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain; Knowing, at last, that it is not in man Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan His permanent house of life. Alike we loved The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved To measures of old song. How since that day Our feet have parted from the path that lay So fair before us! Rich, from lifelong search Of truth, within thy Academic porch Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact, Thy servitors the sciences exact; Still listening with thy hand on Nature's keys, To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies And rhythm of law. I called from dream and song, Thank God! so early to a strife so long, That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime Tread with fond feet the path of morning time. And if perchance too late I linger where The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare, Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame The friend who shields his folly with thy name. AMESBURY, 10th mo., 1870.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One Sabbath day my friend and I After the meeting, quietly Passed from the crowded village lanes, White with dry dust for lack of rains, And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet Slackened and heavy from the heat, Although the day was wellnigh done, And the low angle of the sun Along the naked hillside cast Our shadows as of giants vast. We reached, at length, the topmost swell, Whence, either way, the green turf fell In terraces of nature down To fruit-hung orchards, and the town With white, pretenceless houses, tall Church-steeples, and, o'ershadowing all, Huge mills whose windows had the look Of eager eyes that ill could brook The Sabbath rest. We traced the track Of the sea-seeking river back, Glistening for miles above its mouth, Through the long valley to the south, And, looking eastward, cool to view, Stretched the illimitable blue Of ocean, from its curved coast-line; Sombred and still, the warm sunshine Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach Of slumberous woods from hill to beach,-- Slanted on walls of thronged retreats From city toil and dusty streets, On grassy bluff, and dune of sand, And rocky islands miles from land; Touched the far-glancing sails, and showed White lines of foam where long waves flowed Dumb in the distance. In the north, Dim through their misty hair, looked forth The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea, From mystery to mystery!

So, sitting on that green hill-slope, We talked of human life, its hope And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what It might have been, and yet was not. And, when at last the evening air Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer Ringing in steeples far below, We watched the people churchward go, Each to his place, as if thereon The true shekinah only shone; And my friend queried how it came To pass that they who owned the same Great Master still could not agree To worship Him in company. Then, broadening in his thought, he ran Over the whole vast field of man,-- The varying forms of faith and creed That somehow served the holders' need; In which, unquestioned, undenied, Uncounted millions lived and died; The bibles of the ancient folk, Through which the heart of nations spoke; The old moralities which lent To home its sweetness and content, And rendered possible to bear The life of peoples everywhere And asked if we, who boast of light, Claim not a too exclusive right To truths which must for all be meant, Like rain and sunshine freely sent. In bondage to the letter still, We give it power to cramp and kill,-- To tax God's fulness with a scheme Narrower than Peter's house-top dream, His wisdom and his love with plans Poor and inadequate as man's. It must be that He witnesses Somehow to all men that He is That something of His saving grace Reaches the lowest of the race, Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw The hints of a diviner law. We walk in clearer light;--but then, Is He not God?--are they not men? Are His responsibilities For us alone and not for these?

And I made answer: "Truth is one; And, in all lands beneath the sun, Whoso hath eyes to see may see The tokens of its unity. No scroll of creed its fulness wraps, We trace it not by school-boy maps, Free as the sun and air it is Of latitudes and boundaries. In Vedic verse, in dull Koran, Are messages of good to man; The angels to our Aryan sires Talked by the earliest household fires; The prophets of the elder day, The slant-eyed sages of Cathay, Read not the riddle all amiss Of higher life evolved from this.

"Nor doth it lessen what He taught, Or make the gospel Jesus brought Less precious, that His lips retold Some portion of that truth of old; Denying not the proven seers, The tested wisdom of the years; Confirming with his own impress The common law of righteousness. We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From graven stone and written scroll, From all old flower-fields of the soul; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read, And all our treasure of old thought In His harmonious fulness wrought Who gathers in one sheaf complete The scattered blades of God's sown wheat, The common growth that maketh good His all-embracing Fatherhood.

"Wherever through the ages rise The altars of self-sacrifice, Where love its arms has opened wide, Or man for man has calmly died, I see the same white wings outspread That hovered o'er the Master's head! Up from undated time they come, The martyr souls of heathendom, And to His cross and passion bring Their fellowship of suffering. I trace His presence in the blind Pathetic gropings of my kind,-- In prayers from sin and sorrow wrung, In cradle-hymns of life they sung, Each, in its measure, but a part Of the unmeasured Over-Heart; And with a stronger faith confess The greater that it owns the less. Good cause it is for thankfulness That the world-blessing of His life With the long past is not at strife; That the great marvel of His death To the one order witnesseth, No doubt of changeless goodness wakes, No link of cause and sequence breaks, But, one with nature, rooted is In the eternal verities; Whereby, while differing in degree As finite from infinity, The pain and loss for others borne, Love's crown of suffering meekly worn, The life man giveth for his friend Become vicarious in the end; Their healing place in nature take, And make life sweeter for their sake.

"So welcome I from every source The tokens of that primal Force, Older than heaven itself, yet new As the young heart it reaches to, Beneath whose steady impulse rolls The tidal wave of human souls; Guide, comforter, and inward word, The eternal spirit of the Lord Nor fear I aught that science brings From searching through material things; Content to let its glasses prove, Not by the letter's oldness move, The myriad worlds on worlds that course The spaces of the universe; Since everywhere the Spirit walks The garden of the heart, and talks With man, as under Eden's trees, In all his varied languages. Why mourn above some hopeless flaw In the stone tables of the law, When scripture every day afresh Is traced on tablets of the flesh? By inward sense, by outward signs, God's presence still the heart divines; Through deepest joy of Him we learn, In sorest grief to Him we turn, And reason stoops its pride to share The child-like instinct of a prayer."

And then, as is my wont, I told A story of the days of old, Not found in printed books,--in sooth, A fancy, with slight hint of truth, Showing how differing faiths agree In one sweet law of charity. Meanwhile the sky had golden grown, Our faces in its glory shone; But shadows down the valley swept, And gray below the ocean slept, As time and space I wandered o'er To tread the Mogul's marble floor, And see a fairer sunset fall On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall.

The good Shah Akbar (peace be his alway!) Came forth from the Divan at close of day Bowed with the burden of his many cares, Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers,-- Wild cries for justice, the importunate Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate, And all the strife of sect and creed and rite, Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight For the wise monarch, claiming not to be Allah's avenger, left his people free, With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified, That all the paths of faith, though severed wide, O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence passed, Met at the gate of Paradise at last.

He sought an alcove of his cool hareem, Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's stream Lapse soft and low along his palace wall, And all about the cool sound of the fall Of fountains, and of water circling free Through marble ducts along the balcony; The voice of women in the distance sweet, And, sweeter still, of one who, at his feet, Soothed his tired ear with songs of a far land Where Tagus shatters on the salt sea-sand The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbor-mouth.

The date-palms rustled not; the peepul laid Its topmost boughs against the balustrade, Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines That, light and graceful as the shawl-designs Of Delhi or Umritsir, twined in stone; And the tired monarch, who aside had thrown The day's hard burden, sat from care apart, And let the quiet steal into his heart From the still hour. Below him Agra slept, By the long light of sunset overswept The river flowing through a level land, By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand, Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks, Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques, Fair pleasure-gardens, with their flowering trees Relieved against the mournful cypresses; And, air-poised lightly as the blown sea-foam, The marble wonder of some holy dome Hung a white moonrise over the still wood, Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood.

Silent the monarch gazed, until the night Swift-falling hid the city from his sight; Then to the woman at his feet he said "Tell me, O Miriam, something thou hast read In childhood of the Master of thy faith, Whom Islam also owns. Our Prophet saith 'He was a true apostle, yea, a Word And Spirit sent before me from the Lord.' Thus the Book witnesseth; and well I know By what thou art, O dearest, it is so. As the lute's tone the maker's hand betrays, The sweet disciple speaks her Master's praise."