Chapter 9

The earth was sown with early flowers, The heavens were blue and bright-- I met a youthful cavalier As lovely as the light. I knew him not--but in my heart His graceful image lies, And well I marked his open brow, His sweet and tender eyes, His ruddy lips that ever smiled, His glittering teeth betwixt, And flowing robe embroidered o'er, With leaves and blossoms mixed. He wore a chaplet of the rose; His palfrey, white and sleek, Was marked with many an ebon spot, And many a purple streak; Of jasper was his saddle-bow, His housings sapphire stone, And brightly in his stirrup glanced The purple calcedon. Fast rode the gallant cavalier, As youthful horsemen ride; "Peyre Vidal! know that I am Love," The blooming stranger cried; "And this is Mercy by my side, A dame of high degree; This maid is Chastity," he said, "This squire is Loyalty."

THE LOVE OF GOD.°

FROM THE PROVENÇAL OF BERNARI RASCAS.

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. The forms of men shall be as they had never been; The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green; The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song, And the nigthingale* shall cease to chant the evening long. The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills, And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills. The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox, The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks, And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie, And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die. And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more, And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore; And the great globe itself, (so the holy writings tell,) With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell, Shall melt with fervent heat--they shall all pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

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FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y AÑAYA.°

Stay, rivulet, nor haste to leave The lovely vale that lies around thee. Why wouldst thou be a sea at eve, When but a fount the morning found thee?

Born when the skies began to glow, Humblest of all the rock's cold daughters, No blossom bowed its stalk to show Where stole thy still and scanty waters.

Now on thy stream the noonbeams look, Usurping, as thou downward driftest, Its crystal from the clearest brook, Its rushing current from the swiftest.

Ah! what wild haste!--and all to be A river and expire in ocean. Each fountain's tribute hurries thee To that vast grave with quicker motion.

Far better 'twere to linger still In this green vale, these flowers to cherish, And die in peace, an aged rill, Than thus, a youthful Danube, perish.

SONNET.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF SEMEDO.

It is a fearful night; a feeble glare Streams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky; The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry, Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare; No bark the madness of the waves will dare; The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high; Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die, Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair? As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried, I turned, and saw my Laura, kind and bright, A messenger of gladness, at my side: To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light, And as we furrowed Tago's heaving tide, I never saw so beautiful a night.

SONG.

FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIAS.

Alexis calls me cruel; The rifted crags that hold The gathered ice of winter, He says, are not more cold.

When even the very blossoms Around the fountain's brim, And forest walks, can witness The love I bear to him.

I would that I could utter My feelings without shame; And tell him how I love him, Nor wrong my virgin fame.

Alas! to seize the moment When heart inclines to heart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part.

If man comes not to gather The roses where they stand, They fade among their foliage; They cannot seek his hand.

THE COUNT OF GREIERS.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

At morn the Count of Greiers before his castle stands; He sees afar the glory that lights the mountain lands; The horned crags are shining, and in the shade between A pleasant Alpine valley lies beautifully green.

"Oh, greenest of the valleys, how shall I come to thee! Thy herdsmen and thy maidens, how happy must they be! I have gazed upon thee coldly, all lovely as thou art, But the wish to walk thy pastures now stirs my inmost heart."

He hears a sound of timbrels, and suddenly appear A troop of ruddy damsels and herdsmen drawing near; They reach the castle greensward, and gayly dance across; The white sleeves flit and glimmer, the wreaths and ribands toss.

The youngest of the maidens, slim as a spray of spring, She takes the young count's fingers, and draws him to the ring, They fling upon his forehead a crown of mountain flowers, "And ho, young Count of Greiers! this morning thou art ours!"

Then hand in hand departing, with dance and roundelay, Through hamlet after hamlet, they lead the Count away. They dance through wood and meadow, they dance across the linn, Till the mighty Alpine summits have shut the music in.

The second morn is risen, and now the third is come; Where stays the Count of Greiers? has he forgot his home? Again the evening closes, in thick and sultry air; There's thunder on the mountains, the storm is gathering there.

The cloud has shed its waters, the brook comes swollen down; You see it by the lightning--a river wide and brown. Around a struggling swimmer the eddies dash and roar, Till, seizing on a willow, he leaps upon the shore.

"Here am I cast by tempests far from your mountain dell. Amid our evening dances the bursting deluge fell. Ye all, in cots and caverns, have 'scaped the water-spout, While me alone the tempest o'erwhelmed and hurried out.

"Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vale among the rocks! Farewell the swift sweet moments, in which I watched thy flocks! Why rocked they not my cradle in that delicious spot, That garden of the happy, where Heaven endures me not?

"Rose of the Alpine valley! I feel, in every vein, Thy soft touch on my fingers; oh, press them not again! Bewitch me not, ye garlands, to tread that upward track, And thou, my cheerless mansion, receive thy master back."

THE SERENADE.

FROM THE SPANISH.

If slumber, sweet Lisena! Have stolen o'er thine eyes, As night steals o'er the glory Of spring's transparent skies;

Wake, in thy scorn and beauty, And listen to the strain That murmurs my devotion, That mourns for thy disdain.

Here by thy door at midnight, I pass the dreary hour, With plaintive sounds profaning The silence of thy bower;

A tale of sorrow cherished Too fondly to depart, Of wrong from love the flatterer, And my own wayward heart.

Twice, o'er this vale, the seasons Have brought and borne away The January tempest, The genial wind of May;

Yet still my plaint is uttered, My tears and sighs are given To earth's unconscious waters, And wandering winds of heaven.

I saw from this fair region, The smile of summer pass, And myriad frost-stars glitter Among the russet grass.

While winter seized the streamlets That fled along the ground, And fast in chains of crystal The truant murmurers bound.

I saw that to the forest The nightingales had flown, And every sweet-voiced fountain Had hushed its silver tone.

The maniac winds, divorcing The turtle from his mate, Raved through the leafy beeches, And left them desolate.

Now May, with life and music, The blooming valley fills, And rears her flowery arches For all the little rills.

The minstrel bird of evening Comes back on joyous wings, And, like the harp's soft murmur, Is heard the gush of springs.

And deep within the forest Are wedded turtles seen, Their nuptial chambers seeking, Their chambers close and green.

The rugged trees are mingling Their flowery sprays in love; The ivy climbs the laurel, To clasp the boughs above.

They change--but thou, Lisena, Art cold while I complain: Why to thy lover only Should spring return in vain?

A NORTHERN LEGEND.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

There sits a lovely maiden, The ocean murmuring nigh; She throws the hook, and watches; The fishes pass it by.

A ring, with a red jewel, Is sparkling on her hand; Upon the hook she binds it, And flings it from the land.

Uprises from the water A hand like ivory fair. What gleams upon its finger? The golden ring is there.

Uprises from the bottom A young and handsome knight; In golden scales he rises, That glitter in the light.

The maid is pale with terror-- "Nay, Knight of Ocean, nay, It was not thee I wanted; Let go the ring, I pray."

"Ah, maiden, not to fishes The bait of gold is thrown; The ring shall never leave me, And thou must be my own."

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LATER POEMS.

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LATER POEMS

TO THE APENNINES.

Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! In the soft light of these serenest skies; From the broad highland region, black with pines, Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold In rosy flushes on the virgin gold.

There, rooted to the aërial shelves that wear The glory of a brighter world, might spring Sweet flowers of heaven to scent the unbreathed air, And heaven's fleet messengers might rest the wing, To view the fair earth in its summer sleep, Silent, and cradled by the glimmering deep.

Below you lie men's sepulchres, the old Etrurian tombs, the graves of yesterday; The herd's white bones lie mixed with human mould-- Yet up the radiant steeps that I survey Death never climbed, nor life's soft breath, with pain, Was yielded to the elements again.

Ages of war have filled these plains with fear; How oft the hind has started at the clash Of spears, and yell of meeting, armies here, Or seen the lightning of the battle flash From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound, Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground!

Ah me! what armed nations--Asian horde, And Libyan host--the Scythian and the Gaul, Have swept your base and through your passes poured, Like ocean-tides uprising at the call Of tyrant winds--against your rocky side The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died.

How crashed the towers before beleaguering foes, Sacked cities smoked and realms were rent in twain; And commonwealths against their rivals rose, Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain! While in the noiseless air and light that flowed Round your far brows, eternal Peace abode.

Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng, Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names; While, as the unheeding ages passed along, Ye, from your station in the middle skies, Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise.

In you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks Her image; there the winds no barrier know, Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks; While even the immaterial Mind, below, And thought, her winged offspring, chained by power, Pine silently for the redeeming hour.

EARTH.

A midnight black with clouds is in the sky; I seem to feel, upon my limbs, the weight Of its vast brooding shadow. All in vain Turns the tired eye in search of form; no star Pierces the pitchy veil; no ruddy blaze, From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth, Tinges the flowering summits of the grass. No sound of life is heard, no village hum, Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path, Nor rush of wing, while, on the breast of Earth, I lie and listen to her mighty voice: A voice of many tones--sent up from streams That wander through the gloom, from woods unseen, Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air, From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day, And hollows of the great invisible hills, And sands that edge the ocean, stretching far Into the night--a melancholy sound!

O Earth! dost thou too sorrow for the past Like man thy offspring? Do I hear thee mourn Thy childhood's unreturning hours, thy springs Gone with their genial airs and melodies, The gentle generations of thy flowers, And thy majestic groves of olden time, Perished with all their dwellers? Dost thou wail For that fair age of which the poets tell, Ere the rude winds grew keen with frost, or fire Fell with the rains, or spouted from the hills, To blast thy greenness, while the virgin night Was guiltless and salubrious as the day? Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die-- For living things that trod thy paths awhile, The love of thee and heaven--and now they sleep Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herds Trample and graze? I too must grieve with thee, O'er loved ones lost. Their graves are far away Upon thy mountains; yet, while I recline Alone, in darkness, on thy naked soil, The mighty nourisher and burial-place Of man, I feel that I embrace their dust.

Ha! how the murmur deepens! I perceive And tremble at its dreadful import. Earth Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong, And heaven is listening. The forgotten graves Of the heart-broken utter forth their plaint. The dust of her who loved and was betrayed, And him who died neglected in his age; The sepulchres of those who for mankind Laboured, and earned the recompense of scorn; Ashes of martyrs for the truth, and bones Of those who, in the strife for liberty, Were beaten down, their corses given to dogs, Their names to infamy, all find a voice. The nook in which the captive, overtoiled, Lay down to rest at last, and that which holds Childhood's sweet blossoms, crushed by cruel hands, Send up a plaintive sound. From battle-fields, Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hosts Against each other, rises up a noise, As if the armed multitudes of dead Stirred in their heavy slumber. Mournful tones Come from the green abysses of the sea-- story of the crimes the guilty sought To hide beneath its waves. The glens, the groves, Paths in the thicket, pools of running brook, And banks and depths of lake, and streets and lanes Of cities, now that living sounds are hushed, Murmur of guilty force and treachery.

Here, where I rest, the vales of Italy Are round me, populous from early time, And field of the tremendous warfare waged 'Twixt good and evil. Who, alas, shall dare Interpret to man's ear the mingled voice That comes from her old dungeons yawning now To the black air, her amphitheatres, Where the dew gathers on the mouldering stones, And fanes of banished gods, and open tombs, And roofless palaces, and streets and hearths Of cities dug from their volcanic graves? I hear a sound of many languages, The utterance of nations now no more, Driven out by mightier, as the days of heaven Chase one another from the sky. The blood Of freemen shed by freemen, till strange lords Came in the hour of weakness, and made fast The yoke that yet is worn, cries out to Heaven.

What then shall cleanse thy bosom, gentle Earth From all its painful memories of guilt? The whelming flood, or the renewing fire, Or the slow change of time? that so, at last, The horrid tale of perjury and strife, Murder and spoil, which men call history, May seem a fable, like the inventions told By poets of the gods of Greece. O thou, Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, Among the sources of thy glorious streams, My native Land of Groves! a newer page In the great record of the world is thine; Shall it be fairer? Fear, and friendly hope, And envy, watch the issue, while the lines, By which thou shalt be judged, are written down.

THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH.

This is the church which Pisa, great and free, Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear To shiver in the deep and voluble tones Rolled from the organ! Underneath my feet There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault. The image of an armed knight is graven Upon it, clad in perfect panoply-- Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm, Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield. Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim By feet of worshippers, are traced his name, And birth, and death, and words of eulogy. Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb, This effigy, the strange disused form Of this inscription, eloquently show His history. Let me clothe in fitting words The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph.

"He whose forgotten dust for centuries Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom Adventure, and endurance, and emprise Exalted the mind's faculties and strung The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, And quick to draw the sword in private feud. He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed The saints as fervently on bended knees As ever shaven cenobite. He loved As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks On his pursuers. He aspired to see His native Pisa queen and arbitress Of cities: earnestly for her he raised His voice in council, and affronted death In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck, And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen. He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke, But would have joined the exiles that withdrew For ever, when the Florentine broke in The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts For trophies--but he died before that day.

"He lived, the impersonation of an age That never shall return. His soul of fire Was kindled by the breath of the rude time He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds, Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier, Turning his eyes from the reproachful past, And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, And love, and music, his inglorious life."

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies Were never stained with village smoke: The fragrant wind, that through them flies, Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. Here, with my rifle and my steed, And her who left the world for me, I plant me, where the red deer feed In the green desert--and am free.

For here the fair savannas know No barriers in the bloomy grass; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. In pastures, measureless as air, The bison is my noble game; The bounding elk, whose antlers tear The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear that marks my weapon's gleam, Hides vainly in the forest's edge; In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; The brinded catamount, that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey, Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and cumbered with a train Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the lucid streams, and find No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere The heavy herbage of the ground, Gathers his annual harvest here, With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: I meet the flames with flames again, And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past Speaks solemnly; and I behold The boundless future in the vast And lonely river, seaward rolled. Who feeds its founts with rain and dew; Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass, And trains the bordering vines, whose blue Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams--my steed obeys, Plunges, and bears me through the tide. Wide are these woods--I thread the maze Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. I hunt till day's last glimmer dies O'er woody vale and grassy height; And kind the voice and glad the eyes That welcome my return at night.

SEVENTY-SIX.

What heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh awakened land, The thrilling cry of freedom rung, And to the work of warfare strung The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around, And ocean-mart replied to mart, And streams whose springs were yet unfound, Pealed far away the startling sound Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep, From mountain river swift and cold; The borders of the stormy deep, The vales where gathered waters sleep, Sent up the strong and bold,--

As if the very earth again Grew quick with God's creating breath, And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men To battle to the death.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day, The fair fond bride of yestereve, And aged sire and matron gray, Saw the loved warriors haste away, And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun; Already blood on Concord's plain Along the springing grass had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward Hallowed to freedom all the shore; In fragments fell the yoke abhorred-- The footstep of a foreign lord Profaned the soil no more.

THE LIVING LOST.

Matron! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth hath passed, And now the mould is heaped above The dearest and the last! Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil Before the wedding flowers are pale! Ye deem the human heart endures No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo, Of which the sufferers never speak, Nor to the world's cold pity show The tears that scald the cheek, Wrung from their eyelids by the shame And guilt of those they shrink to name, Whom once they loved with cheerful will, And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead, Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; And reverenced are the tears ye shed, And honoured ye who grieve. The praise of those who sleep in earth, The pleasant memory of their worth, The hope to meet when life is past, Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

But ye, who for the living lost That agony in secret bear, Who shall with soothing words accost The strength of your despair? Grief for your sake is scorn for them Whom ye lament and all condemn; And o'er the world of spirits lies A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

CATTERSKILL FALLS.

Midst greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, From cliffs where the wood-flower clings; All summer he moistens his verdant steeps With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs; And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.

But when, in the forest bare and old, The blast of December calls, He builds, in the starlight clear and cold, A palace of ice where his torrent falls, With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair, And pillars blue as the summer air.

For whom are those glorious chambers wrought, In the cold and cloudless night? Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought In forms so lovely, and hues so bright? Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell Of this wild stream and its rocky dell.

'Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood, A hundred winters ago, Had wandered over the mighty wood, When the panther's track was fresh on the snow, And keen were the winds that came to stir The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir.

Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair, For a child of those rugged steeps; His home lay low in the valley where The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps; But he wore the hunter's frock that day, And a slender gun on his shoulder lay.