Part 5

Methinks the mound which marks thy bed Might bless our land and save, As rose, of old, to life the dead Who touched the prophet's grave

1854.

TO CHARLES SUMNER.

If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer Borne upon all our Northern winds along; If I have failed to join the fickle throng In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong In victory, surprised in thee to find Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined; That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang, From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang, Barbing the arrows of his native tongue With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung, To smite the Python of our land and time, Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime, Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings, And on the shrine of England's freedom laid The gifts of Cumve and of Delphi's' shade,-- Small need hast thou of words of praise from me. Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess That, even though silent, I have not the less Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree With the large future which I shaped for thee, When, years ago, beside the summer sea, White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall Baffled and broken from the rocky wall, That, to the menace of the brawling flood, Opposed alone its massive quietude, Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine, Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think That night-scene by the sea prophetical, (For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs, And through her pictures human fate divines), That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall In the white light of heaven, the type of one Who, momently by Error's host assailed, Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed; And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done!

1854.

BURNS, ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM.

No more these simple flowers belong To Scottish maid and lover; Sown in the common soil of song, They bloom the wide world over.

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, The minstrel and the heather, The deathless singer and the flowers He sang of live together.

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns The moorland flower and peasant! How, at their mention, memory turns Her pages old and pleasant!

The gray sky wears again its gold And purple of adorning, And manhood's noonday shadows hold The dews of boyhood's morning.

The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure, The sky, that flecked the ground of toil With golden threads of leisure.

I call to mind the summer day, The early harvest mowing, The sky with sun and clouds at play, And flowers with breezes blowing.

I hear the blackbird in the corn, The locust in the haying; And, like the fabled hunter's horn, Old tunes my heart is playing.

How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, And sang with Burns the hours away, Forgetful of the meadow.

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping, The good dog listened while I read, And wagged his tail in keeping.

I watched him while in sportive mood I read "_The Twa Dogs_" story, And half believed he understood The poet's allegory.

Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing.

New light on home-seen Nature beamed, New glory over Woman; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common.

I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor,

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, The themes of sweet discoursing; The tender idyls of the heart In every tongue rehearsing.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, Of loving knight and lady, When farmer boy and barefoot girl Were wandering there already?

I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying; The joys and griefs that plume the wings Of Fancy skyward flying.

I saw the same blithe day return, The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon.

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweetbrier and the clover; With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, Their wood-hymns chanting over.

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising; No longer common or unclean, The child of God's baptizing!

With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy.

And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling,

It died upon the eye and ear, No inward answer gaining; No heart had I to see or hear The discord and the staining.

Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings!

Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ones of beauty;

But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and Heaven, That he who loved like Magdalen, Like her may be forgiven.

Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render; The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor!

But who his human heart has laid To Nature's bosom nearer? Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer?

Through all his tuneful art, how strong The human feeling gushes The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes!

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, But spare his Highland Mary!

1854.

TO GEORGE B. CHEEVER

So spake Esaias: so, in words of flame, Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with blame The traffickers in men, and put to shame, All earth and heaven before, The sacerdotal robbers of the poor.

All the dread Scripture lives for thee again, To smite like lightning on the hands profane Lifted to bless the slave-whip and the chain. Once more the old Hebrew tongue Bends with the shafts of God a bow new-strung!

Take up the mantle which the prophets wore; Warn with their warnings, show the Christ once more Bound, scourged, and crucified in His blameless poor; And shake above our land The unquenched bolts that blazed in Hosea's hand!

Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our years The solemn burdens of the Orient seers, And smite with truth a guilty nation's ears. Mightier was Luther's word Than Seckingen's mailed arm or Hutton's sword!

1858.

TO JAMES T. FIELDS

ON A BLANK LEAF OF "POEMS PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED."

Well thought! who would not rather hear The songs to Love and Friendship sung Than those which move the stranger's tongue, And feed his unselected ear?

Our social joys are more than fame; Life withers in the public look. Why mount the pillory of a book, Or barter comfort for a name?

Who in a house of glass would dwell, With curious eyes at every pane? To ring him in and out again, Who wants the public crier's bell?

To see the angel in one's way, Who wants to play the ass's part,-- Bear on his back the wizard Art, And in his service speak or bray?

And who his manly locks would shave, And quench the eyes of common sense, To share the noisy recompense That mocked the shorn and blinded slave?

The heart has needs beyond the head, And, starving in the plenitude Of strange gifts, craves its common food,-- Our human nature's daily bread.

We are but men: no gods are we, To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak, Each separate, on his painful peak, Thin-cloaked in self-complacency.

Better his lot whose axe is swung In Wartburg woods, or that poor girl's Who by the him her spindle whirls And sings the songs that Luther sung,

Than his who, old, and cold, and vain, At Weimar sat, a demigod, And bowed with Jove's imperial nod His votaries in and out again!

Ply, Vanity, thy winged feet! Ambition, hew thy rocky stair! Who envies him who feeds on air The icy splendor of his seat?

I see your Alps, above me, cut The dark, cold sky; and dim and lone I see ye sitting,--stone on stone,-- With human senses dulled and shut.

I could not reach you, if I would, Nor sit among your cloudy shapes; And (spare the fable of the grapes And fox) I would not if I could.

Keep to your lofty pedestals! The safer plain below I choose Who never wins can rarely lose, Who never climbs as rarely falls.

Let such as love the eagle's scream Divide with him his home of ice For me shall gentler notes suffice,-- The valley-song of bird and stream;

The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees, The flail-beat chiming far away, The cattle-low, at shut of day, The voice of God in leaf and breeze;

Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend, And help me to the vales below, (In truth, I have not far to go,) Where sweet with flowers the fields extend.

1858.

THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

Read at the Boston celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, 25th 1st mo., 1859. In my absence these lines were read by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How sweetly come the holy psalms From saints and martyrs down, The waving of triumphal palms Above the thorny crown The choral praise, the chanted prayers From harps by angels strung, The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, The hymns that Luther sung!

Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, The sounds of earth are heard, As through the open minster floats The song of breeze and bird Not less the wonder of the sky That daisies bloom below; The brook sings on, though loud and high The cloudy organs blow!

And, if the tender ear be jarred That, haply, hears by turns The saintly harp of Olney's bard, The pastoral pipe of Burns, No discord mars His perfect plan Who gave them both a tongue; For he who sings the love of man The love of God hath sung!

To-day be every fault forgiven Of him in whom we joy We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven And leave the earth's alloy. Be ours his music as of spring, His sweetness as of flowers, The songs the bard himself might sing In holier ears than ours.

Sweet airs of love and home, the hum Of household melodies, Come singing, as the robins come To sing in door-yard trees. And, heart to heart, two nations lean, No rival wreaths to twine, But blending in eternal green The holly and the pine!

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE.

In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains, Across the charmed bay Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains Perpetual holiday,

A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten, His gold-bought masses given; And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to sweeten Her foulest gift to Heaven.

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving, The court of England's queen For the dead monster so abhorred while living In mourning garb is seen.

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning; By lone Edgbaston's side Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining, Bareheaded and wet-eyed!

Silent for once the restless hive of labor, Save the low funeral tread, Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor The good deeds of the dead.

For him no minster's chant of the immortals Rose from the lips of sin; No mitred priest swung back the heavenly portals To let the white soul in.

But Age and Sickness framed their tearful faces In the low hovel's door, And prayers went up from all the dark by-places And Ghettos of the poor.

The pallid toiler and the negro chattel, The vagrant of the street, The human dice wherewith in games of battle The lords of earth compete,

Touched with a grief that needs no outward draping, All swelled the long lament, Of grateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping His viewless monument!

For never yet, with ritual pomp and splendor, In the long heretofore, A heart more loyal, warm, and true, and tender, Has England's turf closed o'er.

And if there fell from out her grand old steeples No crash of brazen wail, The murmurous woe of kindreds, tongues, and peoples Swept in on every gale.

It came from Holstein's birchen-belted meadows, And from the tropic calms Of Indian islands in the sunlit shadows Of Occidental palms;

From the locked roadsteads of the Bothniaii peasants, And harbors of the Finn, Where war's worn victims saw his gentle presence Come sailing, Christ-like, in,

To seek the lost, to build the old waste places, To link the hostile shores Of severing seas, and sow with England's daisies The moss of Finland's moors.

Thanks for the good man's beautiful example, Who in the vilest saw Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple Still vocal with God's law;

And heard with tender ear the spirit sighing As from its prison cell, Praying for pity, like the mournful crying Of Jonah out of hell.

Not his the golden pen's or lip's persuasion, But a fine sense of right, And Truth's directness, meeting each occasion Straight as a line of light.

His faith and works, like streams that intermingle, In the same channel ran The crystal clearness of an eye kept single Shamed all the frauds of man.

The very gentlest of all human natures He joined to courage strong, And love outreaching unto all God's creatures With sturdy hate of wrong.

Tender as woman, manliness and meekness In him were so allied That they who judged him by his strength or weakness Saw but a single side.

Men failed, betrayed him, but his zeal seemed nourished By failure and by fall; Still a large faith in human-kind he cherished, And in God's love for all.

And now he rests: his greatness and his sweetness No more shall seem at strife, And death has moulded into calm completeness The statue of his life.

Where the dews glisten and the songbirds warble, His dust to dust is laid, In Nature's keeping, with no pomp of marble To shame his modest shade.

The forges glow, the hammers all are ringing; Beneath its smoky vale, Hard by, the city of his love is swinging Its clamorous iron flail.

But round his grave are quietude and beauty, And the sweet heaven above,-- The fitting symbols of a life of duty Transfigured into love!

1859.

BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE

John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day: "I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free, With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!"

John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die; And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh. Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild, As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child.

The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart; And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart. That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent, And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent!

Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good Long live the generous purpose unstained with human blood! Not the raid of midnight terror, but the thought which underlies; Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the Christian's sacrifice.

Nevermore may yon Blue Ridges the Northern rifle hear, Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on the negro's spear. But let the free-winged angel Truth their guarded passes scale, To teach that right is more than might, and justice more than mail!

So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in array; In vain her trampling squadrons knead the winter snow with clay. She may strike the pouncing eagle, but she dares not harm the dove; And every gate she bars to Hate shall open wide to Love!

1859.

NAPLES

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT C. WATERSTON, OF BOSTON.

Helen Waterston died at Naples in her eighteenth year, and lies buried in the Protestant cemetery there. The stone over her grave bears the lines,

Fold her, O Father, in Thine arms, And let her henceforth be A messenger of love between Our human hearts and Thee.

I give thee joy!--I know to thee The dearest spot on earth must be Where sleeps thy loved one by the summer sea;

Where, near her sweetest poet's tomb, The land of Virgil gave thee room To lay thy flower with her perpetual bloom.

I know that when the sky shut down Behind thee on the gleaming town, On Baiae's baths and Posilippo's crown;

And, through thy tears, the mocking day Burned Ischia's mountain lines away, And Capri melted in its sunny bay;

Through thy great farewell sorrow shot The sharp pang of a bitter thought That slaves must tread around that holy spot.

Thou knewest not the land was blest In giving thy beloved rest, Holding the fond hope closer to her breast,

That every sweet and saintly grave Was freedom's prophecy, and gave The pledge of Heaven to sanctify and save.

That pledge is answered. To thy ear The unchained city sends its cheer, And, tuned to joy, the muffled bells of fear

Ring Victor in. The land sits free And happy by the summer sea, And Bourbon Naples now is Italy!

She smiles above her broken chain The languid smile that follows pain, Stretching her cramped limbs to the sun again.

Oh, joy for all, who hear her call From gray Camaldoli's convent-wall And Elmo's towers to freedom's carnival!

A new life breathes among her vines And olives, like the breath of pines Blown downward from the breezy Apennines.

Lean, O my friend, to meet that breath, Rejoice as one who witnesseth Beauty from ashes rise, and life from death!

Thy sorrow shall no more be pain, Its tears shall fall in sunlit rain, Writing the grave with flowers: "Arisen again!"

1860.

A MEMORIAL

Moses Austin Cartland, a dear friend and relation, who led a faithful life as a teacher and died in the summer of 1863.

Oh, thicker, deeper, darker growing, The solemn vista to the tomb Must know henceforth another shadow, And give another cypress room.

In love surpassing that of brothers, We walked, O friend, from childhood's day; And, looking back o'er fifty summers, Our footprints track a common way.

One in our faith, and one our longing To make the world within our reach Somewhat the better for our living, And gladder for our human speech.

Thou heard'st with me the far-off voices, The old beguiling song of fame, But life to thee was warm and present, And love was better than a name.

To homely joys and loves and friendships Thy genial nature fondly clung; And so the shadow on the dial Ran back and left thee always young.

And who could blame the generous weakness Which, only to thyself unjust, So overprized the worth of others, And dwarfed thy own with self-distrust?

All hearts grew warmer in the presence Of one who, seeking not his own, Gave freely for the love of giving, Nor reaped for self the harvest sown.

Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude Of generous deeds and kindly words; In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, Open to sunrise and the birds;

The task was thine to mould and fashion Life's plastic newness into grace To make the boyish heart heroic, And light with thought the maiden's face.

O'er all the land, in town and prairie, With bended heads of mourning, stand The living forms that owe their beauty And fitness to thy shaping hand.

Thy call has come in ripened manhood, The noonday calm of heart and mind, While I, who dreamed of thy remaining To mourn me, linger still behind,

Live on, to own, with self-upbraiding, A debt of love still due from me,-- The vain remembrance of occasions, Forever lost, of serving thee.

It was not mine among thy kindred To join the silent funeral prayers, But all that long sad day of summer My tears of mourning dropped with theirs.

All day the sea-waves sobbed with sorrow, The birds forgot their merry trills All day I heard the pines lamenting With thine upon thy homestead hills.

Green be those hillside pines forever, And green the meadowy lowlands be, And green the old memorial beeches, Name-carven in the woods of Lee.

Still let them greet thy life companions Who thither turn their pilgrim feet, In every mossy line recalling A tender memory sadly sweet.

O friend! if thought and sense avail not To know thee henceforth as thou art, That all is well with thee forever I trust the instincts of my heart.

Thine be the quiet habitations, Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown, And smiles of saintly recognition, As sweet and tender as thy own.

Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow To meet us, but to thee we come, With thee we never can be strangers, And where thou art must still be home.

1863.

BRYANT ON HIS BIRTHDAY

Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday, November 3, 1864, was celebrated by a festival to which these verses were sent.

We praise not now the poet's art, The rounded beauty of his song; Who weighs him from his life apart Must do his nobler nature wrong.

Not for the eye, familiar grown With charms to common sight denied, The marvellous gift he shares alone With him who walked on Rydal-side;

Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay, Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears; We speak his praise who wears to-day The glory of his seventy years.

When Peace brings Freedom in her train, Let happy lips his songs rehearse; His life is now his noblest strain, His manhood better than his verse!

Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys Its cunning keeps at life's full span; But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these, The poet seems beside the man!

So be it! let the garlands die, The singer's wreath, the painter's meed, Let our names perish, if thereby Our country may be saved and freed!

1864.

THOMAS STARR KING

Published originally as a prelude to the posthumous volume of selections edited by Richard Frothingham.