Chapter 10

With glad remembrance of my debt, I homeward turn; farewell, my pet! When here again thy pilgrim comes, He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. Doubt not, so long as earth has bread, Thou first and foremost shalt be fed; The Providence that is most large Takes hearts like thine in special charge, Helps who for their own need are strong, And the sky doats on cheerful song. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that mass and minster vaunt; For men mis-hear thy call in Spring, As 't would accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, _Phe-be!_ And, in winter, _Chic-a-dee-dee!_ I think old Caesar must have heard In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, And, echoed in some frosty wold, Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. And I will write our annals new, And thank thee for a better clew, I, who dreamed not when I came here To find the antidote of fear, Now hear thee say in Roman key, _Paean! Veni, vidi, vici._

THE HARP

One musician is sure, His wisdom will not fail, He has not tasted wine impure, Nor bent to passion frail. Age cannot cloud his memory, Nor grief untune his voice, Ranging down the ruled scale From tone of joy to inward wail, Tempering the pitch of all In his windy cave. He all the fables knows, And in their causes tells,-- Knows Nature's rarest moods, Ever on her secret broods. The Muse of men is coy, Oft courted will not come; In palaces and market squares Entreated, she is dumb; But my minstrel knows and tells The counsel of the gods, Knows of Holy Book the spells, Knows the law of Night and Day, And the heart of girl and boy, The tragic and the gay, And what is writ on Table Round Of Arthur and his peers; What sea and land discoursing say In sidereal years. He renders all his lore In numbers wild as dreams, Modulating all extremes,-- What the spangled meadow saith To the children who have faith; Only to children children sing, Only to youth will spring be spring.

Who is the Bard thus magnified? When did he sing? and where abide?

Chief of song where poets feast Is the wind-harp which thou seest In the casement at my side.

Aeolian harp, How strangely wise thy strain! Gay for youth, gay for youth, (Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,) In the hall at summer eve Fate and Beauty skilled to weave. From the eager opening strings Rung loud and bold the song. Who but loved the wind-harp's note? How should not the poet doat On its mystic tongue, With its primeval memory, Reporting what old minstrels told Of Merlin locked the harp within,-- Merlin paying the pain of sin, Pent in a dungeon made of air,-- And some attain his voice to hear, Words of pain and cries of fear, But pillowed all on melody, As fits the griefs of bards to be. And what if that all-echoing shell, Which thus the buried Past can tell, Should rive the Future, and reveal What his dread folds would fain conceal? It shares the secret of the earth, And of the kinds that owe her birth. Speaks not of self that mystic tone, But of the Overgods alone: It trembles to the cosmic breath,-- As it heareth, so it saith; Obeying meek the primal Cause, It is the tongue of mundane laws. And this, at least, I dare affirm, Since genius too has bound and term, There is no bard in all the choir, Not Homer's self, the poet sire, Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure, Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure, Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, Scott, the delight of generous boys, Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,-- Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of the kingfisher; Saw bonfires of the harlot flies In the lowland, when day dies; Or marked, benighted and forlorn, The first far signal-fire of morn. These syllables that Nature spoke, And the thoughts that in him woke, Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. Therein I hear the Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls the strain. And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, would thrill and ring.

Not long ago at eventide, It seemed, so listening, at my side A window rose, and, to say sooth, I looked forth on the fields of youth: I saw fair boys bestriding steeds, I knew their forms in fancy weeds, Long, long concealed by sundering fates, Mates of my youth,--yet not my mates, Stronger and bolder far than I, With grace, with genius, well attired, And then as now from far admired, Followed with love They knew not of, With passion cold and shy. O joy, for what recoveries rare! Renewed, I breathe Elysian air, See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom,-- Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb! Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil Of life resurgent from the soil Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil.

SEASHORE

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come? Am I not always here, thy summer home? Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve? My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath? Was ever building like my terraces? Was ever couch magnificent as mine? Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn A little hut suffices like a town. I make your sculptured architecture vain, Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, And carve the coastwise mountain into caves. Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes, Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab Older than all thy race.

Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Washing out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not. Rich are the sea-gods:--who gives gifts but they? They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. For every wave is wealth to Daedalus, Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves! A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, Strewing my bed, and, in another age, Rebuild a continent of better men. Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out The exodus of nations: I disperse Men to all shores that front the hoary main.

I too have arts and sorceries; Illusion dwells forever with the wave. I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal With credulous and imaginative man; For, though he scoop my water in his palm, A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds. Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore, I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, To distant men, who must go there, or die.

SONG OF NATURE

Mine are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gulf of space, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days.

I hide in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies, No tribes my house can fill, I sit by the shining Fount of Life And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers Gathering along the centuries From race on race the rarest flowers, My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers My gardens ripened well, And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters Of rock and fire the scroll, The building in the coral sea, The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew, And out of spent and aged things I formed the world anew;

What time the gods kept carnival, Tricked out in star and flower, And in cramp elf and saurian forms They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors, They laid their courses well, They boiled the sea, and piled the layers Of granite, marl and shell.

But he, the man-child glorious,-- Where tarries he the while? The rainbow shines his harbinger, The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward, Forthright my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run? Will never my winds go sleep in the west? Will never my wheels which whirl the sun And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing, Too slow the rainbow fades, I weary of my robe of snow, My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is played; What without him is summer's pomp, Or winter's frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image, And thrice outstretched my hand, Made one of day and one of night And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judaean manger, And one by Avon stream, One over against the mouths of Nile, And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviors, And bards o'er kings to rule;-- But fell the starry influence short, The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, And mix the bowl again; Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song Blend, ripen race on race, The sunburnt world a man shall breed Of all the zones and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, My oldest force is good as new, And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

TWO RIVERS

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, Repeats the music of the rain; But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: The stream I love unbounded goes Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the stream Through years, through men, through Nature fleet, Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; They lose their grief who hear his song, And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,-- Who drink it shall not thirst again; No darkness stains its equal gleam. And ages drop in it like rain.

WALDEINSAMKEIT

I do not count the hours I spend In wandering by the sea; The forest is my loyal friend, Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make Of skirting hills to lie, Bound in by streams which give and take Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime, Or down the oaken glade, O what have I to do with time? For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone Fantastic care derides, But in the serious landscape lone Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, And merry is only a mask of sad, But, sober on a fund of joy, The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants Of fruitful worlds the grain, And with a million spells enchants The souls that walk in pain.

Still on the seeds of all he made The rose of beauty burns; Through times that wear and forms that fade, Immortal youth returns.

The black ducks mounting from the lake, The pigeon in the pines, The bittern's boom, a desert make Which no false art refines.

Down in yon watery nook, Where bearded mists divide, The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, The sires of Nature, hide.

Aloft, in secret veins of air, Blows the sweet breath of song, O, few to scale those uplands dare, Though they to all belong!

See thou bring not to field or stone The fancies found in books; Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, To brave the landscape's looks.

Oblivion here thy wisdom is, Thy thrift, the sleep of cares; For a proud idleness like this Crowns all thy mean affairs.

TERMINUS

It is time to be old, To take in sail:-- The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: 'No more! No farther shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few. Timely wise accept the terms, Soften the fall with wary foot; A little while Still plan and smile, And,--fault of novel germs,-- Mature the unfallen fruit. Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who, when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew stark as once, The Baresark marrow to thy bones, But left a legacy of ebbing veins, Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,-- Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.'

As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: 'Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed.'

THE NUN'S ASPIRATION

The yesterday doth never smile, The day goes drudging through the while, Yet, in the name of Godhead, I The morrow front, and can defy; Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid. Ah me! it was my childhood's thought, If He should make my web a blot On life's fair picture of delight, My heart's content would find it right. But O, these waves and leaves,-- When happy stoic Nature grieves, No human speech so beautiful As their murmurs mine to lull. On this altar God hath built I lay my vanity and guilt; Nor me can Hope or Passion urge Hearing as now the lofty dirge Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn, Nature's funeral high and dim,-- Sable pageantry of clouds, Mourning summer laid in shrouds. Many a day shall dawn and die, Many an angel wander by, And passing, light my sunken turf Moist perhaps by ocean surf, Forgotten amid splendid tombs, Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms. On earth I dream;--I die to be: Time, shake not thy bald head at me. I challenge thee to hurry past Or for my turn to fly too fast. Think me not numbed or halt with age, Or cares that earth to earth engage, Caught with love's cord of twisted beams, Or mired by climate's gross extremes. I tire of shams, I rush to be: I pass with yonder comet free,-- Pass with the comet into space Which mocks thy aeons to embrace; Aeons which tardily unfold Realm beyond realm,--extent untold; No early morn, no evening late,-- Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate, Whose shining sons, too great for fame, Never heard thy weary name; Nor lives the tragic bard to say How drear the part I held in one, How lame the other limped away.

APRIL

The April winds are magical And thrill our tuneful frames; The garden walks are passional To bachelors and dames. The hedge is gemmed with diamonds, The air with Cupids full, The cobweb clues of Rosamond Guide lovers to the pool. Each dimple in the water, Each leaf that shades the rock Can cozen, pique and flatter, Can parley and provoke. Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, Know more than any book. Down with your doleful problems, And court the sunny brook. The south-winds are quick-witted, The schools are sad and slow, The masters quite omitted The lore we care to know.

MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE AEOLIAN HARP

Soft and softlier hold me, friends! Thanks if your genial care Unbind and give me to the air. Keep your lips or finger-tips For flute or spinet's dancing chips; I await a tenderer touch, I ask more or not so much: Give me to the atmosphere,-- Where is the wind, my brother,--where? Lift the sash, lay me within, Lend me your ears, and I begin. For gentle harp to gentle hearts The secret of the world imparts; And not to-day and not to-morrow Can drain its wealth of hope and sorrow; But day by day, to loving ear Unlocks new sense and loftier cheer. I've come to live with you, sweet friends, This home my minstrel-journeyings ends. Many and subtle are my lays, The latest better than the first, For I can mend the happiest days And charm the anguish of the worst.

CUPIDO

The solid, solid universe Is pervious to Love; With bandaged eyes he never errs, Around, below, above. His blinding light He flingeth white On God's and Satan's brood, And reconciles By mystic wiles The evil and the good.

THE PAST

The debt is paid, The verdict said, The Furies laid, The plague is stayed. All fortunes made; Turn the key and bolt the door, Sweet is death forevermore. Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. None can reënter there,-- No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked, Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, Alter or mend eternal Fact.

THE LAST FAREWELL

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832

Farewell, ye lofty spires That cheered the holy light! Farewell, domestic fires That broke the gloom of night! Too soon those spires are lost, Too fast we leave the bay, Too soon by ocean tost From hearth and home away, Far away, far away.

Farewell the busy town, The wealthy and the wise, Kind smile and honest frown From bright, familiar eyes. All these are fading now; Our brig hastes on her way, Her unremembering prow Is leaping o'er the sea, Far away, far away.

Farewell, my mother fond, Too kind, too good to me; Nor pearl nor diamond Would pay my debt to thee. But even thy kiss denies Upon my cheek to stay; The winged vessel flies, And billows round her play, Far away, far away.

Farewell, my brothers true, My betters, yet my peers; How desert without you My few and evil years! But though aye one in heart, Together sad or gay, Rude ocean doth us part; We separate to-day, Far away, far away.

Farewell, thou fairest one, Unplighted yet to me, Uncertain of thine own I gave my heart to thee. That untold early love I leave untold to-day, My lips in whisper move Farewell to ...! Far away, far away.

Farewell I breathe again To dim New England's shore, My heart shall beat not when I pant for thee no more. In yon green palmy isle, Beneath the tropic ray, I murmur never while For thee and thine I pray; Far away, far away.

IN MEMORIAM E.B.E.

I mourn upon this battle-field, But not for those who perished here. Behold the river-bank Whither the angry farmers came, In sloven dress and broken rank, Nor thought of fame. Their deed of blood All mankind praise; Even the serene Reason says, It was well done. The wise and simple have one glance To greet yon stern head-stone, Which more of pride than pity gave To mark the Briton's friendless grave. Yet it is a stately tomb; The grand return Of eve and morn, The year's fresh bloom, The silver cloud, Might grace the dust that is most proud.

Yet not of these I muse In this ancestral place, But of a kindred face That never joy or hope shall here diffuse.

Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star! What hast thou to do with these Haunting this bank's historic trees? Thou born for noblest life, For action's field, for victor's car, Thou living champion of the right? To these their penalty belonged: I grudge not these their bed of death, But thine to thee, who never wronged The poorest that drew breath.

All inborn power that could Consist with homage to the good Flamed from his martial eye; He who seemed a soldier born, He should have the helmet worn, All friends to fend, all foes defy, Fronting foes of God and man, Frowning down the evil-doer, Battling for the weak and poor. His from youth the leader's look Gave the law which others took, And never poor beseeching glance Shamed that sculptured countenance.

There is no record left on earth, Save in tablets of the heart, Of the rich inherent worth, Of the grace that on him shone, Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit: He could not frame a word unfit, An act unworthy to be done; Honor prompted every glance, Honor came and sat beside him, In lowly cot or painful road, And evermore the cruel god Cried "Onward!" and the palm-crown showed, Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes, With budding power in college-halls, As pledged in coming days to forge Weapons to guard the State, or scourge Tyrants despite their guards or walls. On his young promise Beauty smiled, Drew his free homage unbeguiled, And prosperous Age held out his hand, And richly his large future planned, And troops of friends enjoyed the tide,-- All, all was given, and only health denied.

I see him with superior smile Hunted by Sorrow's grisly train In lands remote, in toil and pain, With angel patience labor on, With the high port he wore erewhile, When, foremost of the youthful band, The prizes in all lists he won; Nor bate one jot of heart or hope, And, least of all, the loyal tie Which holds to home 'neath every sky, The joy and pride the pilgrim feels In hearts which round the hearth at home Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam.

What generous beliefs console The brave whom Fate denies the goal! If others reach it, is content; To Heaven's high will his will is bent. Firm on his heart relied, What lot soe'er betide, Work of his hand He nor repents nor grieves, Pleads for itself the fact, As unrepenting Nature leaves Her every act.

Fell the bolt on the branching oak; The rainbow of his hope was broke; No craven cry, no secret tear,-- He told no pang, he knew no fear; Its peace sublime his aspect kept, His purpose woke, his features slept; And yet between the spasms of pain His genius beamed with joy again.

O'er thy rich dust the endless smile Of Nature in thy Spanish isle Hints never loss or cruel break And sacrifice for love's dear sake, Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays. What matters how, or from what ground, The freed soul its Creator found? Alike thy memory embalms That orange-grove, that isle of palms, And these loved banks, whose oak-bough bold Root in the blood of heroes old.

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III

ELEMENTS AND MOTTOES

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EXPERIENCE

The lords of life, the lords of life,-- I saw them pass In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim,-- Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without name;-- Some to see, some to be guessed, They marched from east to west: Little man, least of all, Among the legs of his guardians tall, Walked about with puzzled look. Him by the hand dear Nature took, Dearest Nature, strong and kind, Whispered, 'Darling, never mind! To-morrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!'

COMPENSATION

The wings of Time are black and white, Pied with morning and with night. Mountain tall and ocean deep Trembling balance duly keep. In changing moon and tidal wave Glows the feud of Want and Have. Gauge of more and less through space, Electric star or pencil plays, The lonely Earth amid the balls That hurry through the eternal halls, A makeweight flying to the void, Supplemental asteroid, Or compensatory spark, Shoots across the neutral Dark.