Chapter 13
Many things the garden shows, And pleased I stray From tree to tree Watching the white pear-bloom, Bee-infested quince or plum. I could walk days, years, away Till the slow ripening, secular tree Had reached its fruiting-time, Nor think it long.
Solar insect on the wing In the garden murmuring, Soothing with thy summer horn Swains by winter pinched and worn.
BIRDS
Darlings of children and of bard, Perfect kinds by vice unmarred, All of worth and beauty set Gems in Nature's cabinet; These the fables she esteems Reality most like to dreams. Welcome back, you little nations, Far-travelled in the south plantations; Bring your music and rhythmic flight, Your colors for our eyes' delight: Freely nestle in our roof, Weave your chamber weatherproof; And your enchanting manners bring And your autumnal gathering. Exchange in conclave general Greetings kind to each and all, Conscious each of duty done And unstainèd as the sun.
WATER
The water understands Civilization well; It wets my foot, but prettily It chills my life, but wittily, It is not disconcerted, It is not broken-hearted: Well used, it decketh joy, Adorneth, doubleth joy: Ill used, it will destroy, In perfect time and measure With a face of golden pleasure Elegantly destroy.
NAHANT
All day the waves assailed the rock, I heard no church-bell chime, The sea-beat scorns the minster clock And breaks the glass of Time.
SUNRISE
Would you know what joy is hid In our green Musketaquid, And for travelled eyes what charms Draw us to these meadow farms, Come and I will show you all Makes each day a festival. Stand upon this pasture hill, Face the eastern star until The slow eye of heaven shall show The world above, the world below.
Behold the miracle! Thou saw'st but now the twilight sad And stood beneath the firmament, A watchman in a dark gray tent, Waiting till God create the earth,-- Behold the new majestic birth! The mottled clouds, like scraps of wool, Steeped in the light are beautiful. What majestic stillness broods Over these colored solitudes. Sleeps the vast East in pleasèd peace, Up the far mountain walls the streams increase Inundating the heaven With spouting streams and waves of light Which round the floating isles unite:-- See the world below Baptized with the pure element, A clear and glorious firmament Touched with life by every beam. I share the good with every flower, I drink the nectar of the hour:-- This is not the ancient earth Whereof old chronicles relate The tragic tales of crime and fate; But rather, like its beads of dew And dew-bent violets, fresh and new, An exhalation of the time.
* * *
NIGHT IN JUNE
I left my dreary page and sallied forth, Received the fair inscriptions of the night; The moon was making amber of the world, Glittered with silver every cottage pane, The trees were rich, yet ominous with gloom. The meadows broad From ferns and grapes and from the folded flowers Sent a nocturnal fragrance; harlot flies Flashed their small fires in air, or held their court In fairy groves of herds-grass.
He lives not who can refuse me; All my force saith, Come and use me: A gleam of sun, a summer rain, And all the zone is green again.
Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants, Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell, As if on such stern forms and haunts A wintry storm more fitly fell.
Put in, drive home the sightless wedges And split to flakes the crystal ledges.
MAIA
Illusion works impenetrable, Weaving webs innumerable, Her gay pictures never fail, Crowds each on other, veil on veil, Charmer who will be believed By man who thirsts to be deceived.
Illusions like the tints of pearl, Or changing colors of the sky, Or ribbons of a dancing girl That mend her beauty to the eye.
The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth And the poor spinners weave their webs thereon To share the sunshine that so spicy is.
Samson stark, at Dagon's knee, Gropes for columns strong as he; When his ringlets grew and curled, Groped for axle of the world.
But Nature whistled with all her winds, Did as she pleased and went her way.
LIFE
A train of gay and clouded days Dappled with joy and grief and praise, Beauty to fire us, saints to save, Escort us to a little grave.
No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low, For God hath writ all dooms magnificent, So guilt not traverses his tender will.
Around the man who seeks a noble end, Not angels but divinities attend.
From high to higher forces The scale of power uprears, The heroes on their horses, The gods upon their spheres.
This shining moment is an edifice Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.
Roomy Eternity Casts her schemes rarely, And an aeon allows For each quality and part Of the multitudinous And many-chambered heart.
The beggar begs by God's command, And gifts awake when givers sleep, Swords cannot cut the giving hand Nor stab the love that orphans keep.
In the chamber, on the stairs, Lurking dumb, Go and come Lemurs and Lars.
Such another peerless queen Only could her mirror show.
Easy to match what others do, Perform the feat as well as they; Hard to out-do the brave, the true, And find a loftier way: The school decays, the learning spoils Because of the sons of wine; How snatch the stripling from their toils?-- Yet can one ray of truth divine The blaze of revellers' feasts outshine.
Of all wit's uses the main one Is to live well with who has none.
The tongue is prone to lose the way, Not so the pen, for in a letter We have not better things to say, But surely say them better.
She walked in flowers around my field As June herself around the sphere.
Friends to me are frozen wine; I wait the sun on them should shine.
You shall not love me for what daily spends; You shall not know me in the noisy street, Where I, as others, follow petty ends; Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet; Nor when I'm jaded, sick, anxious or mean. But love me then and only, when you know Me for the channel of the rivers of God From deep ideal fontal heavens that flow.
To and fro the Genius flies, A light which plays and hovers Over the maiden's head And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. Of her faults I take no note, Fault and folly are not mine; Comes the Genius,--all's forgot, Replunged again into that upper sphere He scatters wide and wild its lustres here.
Love Asks nought his brother cannot give; Asks nothing, but does all receive. Love calls not to his aid events; He to his wants can well suffice: Asks not of others soft consents, Nor kind occasion without eyes; Nor plots to ope or bolt a gate, Nor heeds Condition's iron walls,-- Where he goes, goes before him Fate; Whom he uniteth, God installs; Instant and perfect his access To the dear object of his thought, Though foes and land and seas between Himself and his love intervene.
The brave Empedocles, defying fools, Pronounced the word that mortals hate to hear-- "I am divine, I am not mortal made; I am superior to my human weeds." Not Sense but Reason is the Judge of truth; Reason's twofold, part human, part divine; That human part may be described and taught, The other portion language cannot speak.
Tell men what they knew before; Paint the prospect from their door.
Him strong Genius urged to roam, Stronger Custom brought him home.
That each should in his house abide. Therefore was the world so wide.
Thou shalt make thy house The temple of a nation's vows. Spirits of a higher strain Who sought thee once shall seek again. I detected many a god Forth already on the road, Ancestors of beauty come In thy breast to make a home.
The archangel Hope Looks to the azure cope, Waits through dark ages for the morn, Defeated day by day, but unto victory born.
As the drop feeds its fated flower, As finds its Alp the snowy shower, Child of the omnific Need, Hurled into life to do a deed, Man drinks the water, drinks the light.
Ever the Rock of Ages melts Into the mineral air, To be the quarry whence to build Thought and its mansions fair.
Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower, Go match thee with thy seeming peers; I will wait Heaven's perfect hour Through the innumerable years.
Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken Shall his own sorrow seem impertinent, A thing that takes no more root in the world Than doth the traveller's shadow on the rock.
But if thou do thy best, Without remission, without rest, And invite the sunbeam, And abhor to feign or seem Even to those who thee should love And thy behavior approve; If thou go in thine own likeness, Be it health, or be it sickness; If thou go as thy father's son, If thou wear no mask or lie, Dealing purely and nakedly,--
* * *
Ascending thorough just degrees To a consummate holiness, As angel blind to trespass done, And bleaching all souls like the sun.
From the stores of eldest matter, The deep-eyed flame, obedient water, Transparent air, all-feeding earth, He took the flower of all their worth, And, best with best in sweet consent, Combined a new temperament.
REX
The bard and mystic held me for their own, I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids, I took the friendly noble by the hand, I was the trustee of the hand-cart man, The brother of the fisher, porter, swain, And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld The service done to me as done to them.
With the key of the secret he marches faster, From strength to strength, and for night brings day; While classes or tribes, too weak to master The flowing conditions of life, give way.
SUUM CUIQUE
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.
If curses be the wage of love, Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove, Not to be named: It is clear Why the gods will not appear; They are ashamed.
When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port, And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short.
Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift, Sit still and Truth is near: Suddenly it will uplift Your eyelids to the sphere: Wait a little, you shall see The portraiture of things to be.
The rules to men made evident By Him who built the day, The columns of the firmament Not firmer based than they.
On bravely through the sunshine and the showers! Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
THE BOHEMIAN HYMN
In many forms we try To utter God's infinity, But the boundless hath no form, And the Universal Friend Doth as far transcend An angel as a worm.
The great Idea baffles wit, Language falters under it, It leaves the learned in the lurch; Nor art, nor power, nor toil can find The measure of the eternal Mind, Nor hymn, nor prayer, nor church.
GRACE
How much, preventing God, how much I owe To the defences thou hast round me set; Example, custom, fear, occasion slow,-- These scorned bondmen were my parapet. I dare not peep over this parapet To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below, The depths of sin to which I had descended, Had not these me against myself defended.
INSIGHT
Power that by obedience grows, Knowledge which its source not knows, Wave which severs whom it bears From the things which he compares, Adding wings through things to range, To his own blood harsh and strange.
PAN
O what are heroes, prophets, men, But pipes through which the breath of Pan doth blow A momentary music. Being's tide Swells hitherward, and myriads of forms Live, robed with beauty, painted by the sun; Their dust, pervaded by the nerves of God, Throbs with an overmastering energy Knowing and doing. Ebbs the tide, they lie White hollow shells upon the desert shore, But not the less the eternal wave rolls on To animate new millions, and exhale Races and planets, its enchanted foam.
MONADNOC FROM AFAR
Dark flower of Cheshire garden, Red evening duly dyes Thy sombre head with rosy hues To fix far-gazing eyes. Well the Planter knew how strongly Works thy form on human thought; I muse what secret purpose had he To draw all fancies to this spot.
SEPTEMBER
In the turbulent beauty Of a gusty Autumn day, Poet on a sunny headland Sighed his soul away.
Farms the sunny landscape dappled, Swandown clouds dappled the farms, Cattle lowed in mellow distance Where far oaks outstretched their arms.
Sudden gusts came full of meaning, All too much to him they said, Oh, south winds have long memories, Of that be none afraid.
I cannot tell rude listeners Half the tell-tale South-wind said,-- 'T would bring the blushes of yon maples To a man and to a maid.
EROS
They put their finger on their lip, The Powers above: The seas their islands clip, The moons in ocean dip, They love, but name not love.
OCTOBER
October woods wherein The boy's dream comes to pass, And Nature squanders on the boy her pomp, And crowns him with a more than royal crown, And unimagined splendor waits his steps. The gazing urchin walks through tents of gold, Through crimson chambers, porphyry and pearl, Pavilion on pavilion, garlanded, Incensed and starred with lights and airs and shapes, Color and sound, music to eye and ear, Beyond the best conceit of pomp or power.
PETER'S FIELD
[Knows he who tills this lonely field To reap its scanty corn, What mystic fruit his acres yield At midnight and at morn?]
That field by spirits bad and good, By Hell and Heaven is haunted, And every rood in the hemlock wood I know is ground enchanted.
[In the long sunny afternoon The plain was full of ghosts: I wandered up, I wandered down, Beset by pensive hosts.]
For in those lonely grounds the sun Shines not as on the town, In nearer arcs his journeys run, And nearer stoops the moon.
There in a moment I have seen The buried Past arise; The fields of Thessaly grew green, Old gods forsook the skies.
I cannot publish in my rhyme What pranks the greenwood played; It was the Carnival of time, And Ages went or stayed.
To me that spectral nook appeared The mustering Day of Doom, And round me swarmed in shadowy troop Things past and things to come.
The darkness haunteth me elsewhere; There I am full of light; In every whispering leaf I hear More sense than sages write.
Underwoods were full of pleasance, All to each in kindness bend, And every flower made obeisance As a man unto his friend.
Far seen, the river glides below, Tossing one sparkle to the eyes: I catch thy meaning, wizard wave; The River of my Life replies.
MUSIC
Let me go where'er I will, I hear a sky-born music still: It sounds from all things old, It sounds from all things young, From all that's fair, from all that's foul, Peals out a cheerful song.
It is not only in the rose, It is not only in the bird, Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard, But in the darkest, meanest things There alway, alway something sings.
'T is not in the high stars alone, Nor in the cup of budding flowers, Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings.
THE WALK
A Queen rejoices in her peers, And wary Nature knows her own By court and city, dale and down, And like a lover volunteers, And to her son will treasures more And more to purpose freely pour In one wood walk, than learned men Can find with glass in ten times ten.
COSMOS
Who saw the hid beginnings When Chaos and Order strove, Or who can date the morning. The purple flaming of love?
I saw the hid beginnings When Chaos and Order strove, And I can date the morning prime And purple flame of love.
Song breathed from all the forest, The total air was fame; It seemed the world was all torches That suddenly caught the flame.
* * *
Is there never a retroscope mirror In the realms and corners of space That can give us a glimpse of the battle And the soldiers face to face?
Sit here on the basalt courses Where twisted hills betray The seat of the world-old Forces Who wrestled here on a day.
* * *
When the purple flame shoots up, And Love ascends his throne, I cannot hear your songs, O birds, For the witchery of my own.
And every human heart Still keeps that golden day And rings the bells of jubilee On its own First of May.
THE MIRACLE
I have trod this path a hundred times With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes. I know each nest and web-worm's tent, The fox-hole which the woodchucks rent, Maple and oak, the old Divan Self-planted twice, like the banian. I know not why I came again Unless to learn it ten times ten. To read the sense the woods impart You must bring the throbbing heart. Love is aye the counterforce,-- Terror and Hope and wild Remorse, Newest knowledge, fiery thought, Or Duty to grand purpose wrought. Wandering yester morn the brake, I reached this heath beside the lake, And oh, the wonder of the power, The deeper secret of the hour! Nature, the supplement of man, His hidden sense interpret can;-- What friend to friend cannot convey Shall the dumb bird instructed say. Passing yonder oak, I heard Sharp accents of my woodland bird; I watched the singer with delight,-- But mark what changed my joy to fright,-- When that bird sang, I gave the theme; That wood-bird sang my last night's dream, A brown wren was the Daniel That pierced my trance its drift to tell, Knew my quarrel, how and why, Published it to lake and sky, Told every word and syllable In his flippant chirping babble, All my wrath and all my shames, Nay, God is witness, gave the names.
THE WATERFALL
A patch of meadow upland Reached by a mile of road, Soothed by the voice of waters, With birds and flowers bestowed.
Hither I come for strength Which well it can supply, For Love draws might from terrene force And potencies of sky.
The tremulous battery Earth Responds to the touch of man; It thrills to the antipodes, From Boston to Japan.
The planets' child the planet knows And to his joy replies; To the lark's trill unfolds the rose, Clouds flush their gayest dyes.
When Ali prayed and loved Where Syrian waters roll, Upward the ninth heaven thrilled and moved; At the tread of the jubilant soul.
WALDEN
In my garden three ways meet, Thrice the spot is blest; Hermit-thrush comes there to build, Carrier-doves to nest.
There broad-armed oaks, the copses' maze, The cold sea-wind detain; Here sultry Summer overstays When Autumn chills the plain.
Self-sown my stately garden grows; The winds and wind-blown seed, Cold April rain and colder snows My hedges plant and feed.
From mountains far and valleys near The harvests sown to-day Thrive in all weathers without fear,-- Wild planters, plant away!
In cities high the careful crowds Of woe-worn mortals darkling go, But in these sunny solitudes My quiet roses blow.
Methought the sky looked scornful down On all was base in man, And airy tongues did taunt the town, 'Achieve our peace who can!'
What need I holier dew Than Walden's haunted wave, Distilled from heaven's alembic blue, Steeped in each forest cave?
[If Thought unlock her mysteries, If Friendship on me smile, I walk in marble galleries, I talk with kings the while.]
How drearily in College hall The Doctor stretched the hours, But in each pause we heard the call Of robins out of doors.
The air is wise, the wind thinks well, And all through which it blows, If plants or brain, if egg or shell, Or bird or biped knows;
And oft at home 'mid tasks I heed, I heed how wears the day; We must not halt while fiercely speed The spans of life away.
What boots it here of Thebes or Rome Or lands of Eastern day? In forests I am still at home And there I cannot stray.
THE ENCHANTER
In the deep heart of man a poet dwells Who all the day of life his summer story tells; Scatters on every eye dust of his spells, Scent, form and color; to the flowers and shells Wins the believing child with wondrous tales; Touches a cheek with colors of romance, And crowds a history into a glance; Gives beauty to the lake and fountain, Spies oversea the fires of the mountain; When thrushes ope their throat, 't is he that sings, And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings. The little Shakspeare in the maiden's heart Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart; Opens the eye to Virtue's starlike meed And gives persuasion to a gentle deed.
WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF GOETHE
Six thankful weeks,--and let it be A meter of prosperity,-- In my coat I bore this book, And seldom therein could I look, For I had too much to think, Heaven and earth to eat and drink. Is he hapless who can spare In his plenty things so rare?
RICHES
Have ye seen the caterpillar Foully warking in his nest? 'T is the poor man getting siller, Without cleanness, without rest.
Have ye seen the butterfly In braw claithing drest? 'T is the poor man gotten rich, In rings and painted vest.
The poor man crawls in web of rags And sore bested with woes. But when he flees on riches' wings, He laugheth at his foes.
PHILOSOPHER
Philosophers are lined with eyes within, And, being so, the sage unmakes the man. In love, he cannot therefore cease his trade; Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek, He feels it, introverts his learned eye To catch the unconscious heart in the very act.
His mother died,--the only friend he had,-- Some tears escaped, but his philosophy Couched like a cat sat watching close behind And throttled all his passion. Is't not like That devil-spider that devours her mate Scarce freed from her embraces?
INTELLECT
Gravely it broods apart on joy, And, truth to tell, amused by pain.
LIMITS
Who knows this or that? Hark in the wall to the rat: Since the world was, he has gnawed; Of his wisdom, of his fraud What dost thou know? In the wretched little beast Is life and heart, Child and parent, Not without relation To fruitful field and sun and moon. What art thou? His wicked eye Is cruel to thy cruelty.
INSCRIPTION FOR A WELL IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS OF THE WAR
Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless; return as well; So did our sons; Heaven met them as they fell.
THE EXILE
(AFTER TALIESSIN)
The heavy blue chain Of the boundless main Didst thou, just man, endure.
I have an arrow that will find its mark, A mastiff that will bite without a hark.
* * * * *
VI
POEMS OF YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD
1823-1834
* * * * *
THE BELL
I love thy music, mellow bell, I love thine iron chime, To life or death, to heaven or hell, Which calls the sons of Time.
Thy voice upon the deep The home-bound sea-boy hails, It charms his cares to sleep, It cheers him as he sails.
To house of God and heavenly joys Thy summons called our sires, And good men thought thy sacred voice Disarmed the thunder's fires.
And soon thy music, sad death-bell, Shall lift its notes once more, And mix my requiem with the wind That sweeps my native shore.
1823.
THOUGHT
I am not poor, but I am proud, Of one inalienable right, Above the envy of the crowd,-- Thought's holy light.
Better it is than gems or gold, And oh! it cannot die, But thought will glow when the sun grows cold, And mix with Deity.
BOSTON, 1823.
PRAYER
When success exalts thy lot, God for thy virtue lays a plot: And all thy life is for thy own, Then for mankind's instruction shown; And though thy knees were never bent, To Heaven thy hourly prayers are sent, And whether formed for good or ill, Are registered and answered still.
1826 [?].