Chapter 9

Low and mournful be the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Meanings of the tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains. Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric's torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed,-- Hapless sire to hapless son,-- Was the wailing song he breathed, And his chain when life was done.

What his fault, or what his crime? Or what ill planet crossed his prime? Heart too soft and will too weak To front the fate that crouches near,-- Dove beneath the vulture's beak;-- Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, Displaced, disfurnished here, His wistful toil to do his best Chilled by a ribald jeer. Great men in the Senate sate, Sage and hero, side by side, Building for their sons the State, Which they shall rule with pride. They forbore to break the chain Which bound the dusky tribe, Checked by the owners' fierce disdain, Lured by 'Union' as the bribe. Destiny sat by, and said, 'Pang for pang your seed shall pay, Hide in false peace your coward head, I bring round the harvest day.'

II

Freedom all winged expands, Nor perches in a narrow place; Her broad van seeks unplanted lands; She loves a poor and virtuous race. Clinging to a colder zone Whose dark sky sheds the snowflake down, The snowflake is her banner's star, Her stripes the boreal streamers are. Long she loved the Northman well; Now the iron age is done, She will not refuse to dwell With the offspring of the Sun; Foundling of the desert far, Where palms plume, siroccos blaze, He roves unhurt the burning ways In climates of the summer star. He has avenues to God Hid from men of Northern brain, Far beholding, without cloud, What these with slowest steps attain. If once the generous chief arrive To lead him willing to be led, For freedom he will strike and strive, And drain his heart till he be dead.

III

In an age of fops and toys, Wanting wisdom, void of right, Who shall nerve heroic boys To hazard all in Freedom's fight,-- Break sharply off their jolly games, Forsake their comrades gay And quit proud homes and youthful dames For famine, toil and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, The youth replies, _I can_.

IV

O, well for the fortunate soul Which Music's wings infold, Stealing away the memory Of sorrows new and old! Yet happier he whose inward sight, Stayed on his subtile thought, Shuts his sense on toys of time, To vacant bosoms brought. But best befriended of the God He who, in evil times, Warned by an inward voice, Heeds not the darkness and the dread, Biding by his rule and choice, Feeling only the fiery thread Leading over heroic ground, Walled with mortal terror round, To the aim which him allures, And the sweet heaven his deed secures. Peril around, all else appalling, Cannon in front and leaden rain Him duty through the clarion calling To the van called not in vain.

Stainless soldier on the walls, Knowing this,--and knows no more,-- Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore, Justice after as before,-- And he who battles on her side, God, though he were ten times slain, Crowns him victor glorified, Victor over death and pain.

V

Blooms the laurel which belongs To the valiant chief who fights; I see the wreath, I hear the songs Lauding the Eternal Rights, Victors over daily wrongs: Awful victors, they misguide Whom they will destroy, And their coming triumph hide In our downfall, or our joy: They reach no term, they never sleep, In equal strength through space abide; Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep, The strong they slay, the swift outstride: Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods, And rankly on the castled steep,-- Speak it firmly, these are gods, All are ghosts beside.

LOVE AND THOUGHT

Two well-assorted travellers use The highway, Eros and the Muse. From the twins is nothing hidden, To the pair is nought forbidden; Hand in hand the comrades go Every nook of Nature through: Each for other they were born, Each can other best adorn; They know one only mortal grief Past all balsam or relief; When, by false companions crossed, The pilgrims have each other lost.

UNA

Roving, roving, as it seems, Una lights my clouded dreams; Still for journeys she is dressed; We wander far by east and west.

In the homestead, homely thought, At my work I ramble not; If from home chance draw me wide, Half-seen Una sits beside.

In my house and garden-plot, Though beloved, I miss her not; But one I seek in foreign places, One face explore in foreign faces.

At home a deeper thought may light The inward sky with chrysolite, And I greet from far the ray, Aurora of a dearer day.

But if upon the seas I sail, Or trundle on the glowing rail, I am but a thought of hers, Loveliest of travellers.

So the gentle poet's name To foreign parts is blown by fame, Seek him in his native town, He is hidden and unknown.

BOSTON

SICUT PATRIBUS, SIT DEUS NOBIS

The rocky nook with hilltops three Looked eastward from the farms, And twice each day the flowing sea Took Boston in its arms; The men of yore were stout and poor, And sailed for bread to every shore.

And where they went on trade intent They did what freemen can, Their dauntless ways did all men praise, The merchant was a man. The world was made for honest trade,-- To plant and eat be none afraid.

The waves that rocked them on the deep To them their secret told; Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep, 'Like us be free and bold!' The honest waves refused to slaves The empire of the ocean caves.

Old Europe groans with palaces, Has lords enough and more;-- We plant and build by foaming seas A city of the poor;-- For day by day could Boston Bay Their honest labor overpay.

We grant no dukedoms to the few, We hold like rights, and shall;-- Equal on Sunday in the pew, On Monday in the mall, For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

The noble craftsman we promote, Disown the knave and fool; Each honest man shall have his vote, Each child shall have his school. A union then of honest men, Or union never more again.

The wild rose and the barberry thorn Hung out their summer pride, Where now on heated pavements worn The feet of millions stride.

Fair rose the planted hills behind The good town on the bay, And where the western hills declined The prairie stretched away.

What care though rival cities soar Along the stormy coast, Penn's town, New York and Baltimore, If Boston knew the most!

They laughed to know the world so wide; The mountains said, 'Good-day! We greet you well, you Saxon men, Up with your towns and stay!' The world was made for honest trade,-- To plant and eat be none afraid.

'For you,' they said, 'no barriers be, For you no sluggard rest; Each street leads downward to the sea, Or landward to the west.'

O happy town beside the sea, Whose roads lead everywhere to all; Than thine no deeper moat can be, No stouter fence, no steeper wall!

Bad news from George on the English throne; 'You are thriving well,' said he; 'Now by these presents be it known You shall pay us a tax on tea; 'Tis very small,--no load at all,-- Honor enough that we send the call.

'Not so,' said Boston, 'good my lord, We pay your governors here Abundant for their bed and board, Six thousand pounds a year. (Your Highness knows our homely word) Millions for self-government, But for tribute never a cent.'

The cargo came! and who could blame If _Indians_ seized the tea, And, chest by chest, let down the same, Into the laughing sea? For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

The townsmen braved the English king, Found friendship in the French, And honor joined the patriot ring Low on their wooden bench.

O bounteous seas that never fail! O day remembered yet! O happy port that spied the sail Which wafted Lafayette! Pole-star of light in Europe's night, That never faltered from the right.

Kings shook with fear, old empires crave The secret force to find Which fired the little State to save The rights of all mankind.

But right is might through all the world; Province to province faithful clung, Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled, Till Freedom cheered and joy-bells rung.

The sea returning day by day Restores the world-wide mart; So let each dweller on the Bay Fold Boston in his heart, Till these echoes be choked with snows, Or over the town blue ocean flows.

Let the blood of her hundred thousands Throb in each manly vein; And the wits of all her wisest, Make sunshine in her brain. For you can teach the lightning speech, And round the globe your voices reach.

And each shall care for other, And each to each shall bend, To the poor a noble brother, To the good an equal friend.

A blessing through the ages thus Shield all thy roofs and towers! GOD WITH THE FATHERS, SO WITH US, Thou darling town of ours!

LETTERS

Every day brings a ship, Every ship brings a word; Well for those who have no fear. Looking seaward, well assured That the word the vessel brings Is the word they wish to hear.

RUBIES

They brought me rubies from the mine, And held them to the sun; I said, they are drops of frozen wine From Eden's vats that run.

I looked again,--I thought them hearts Of friends to friends unknown; Tides that should warm each neighboring life Are locked in sparkling stone.

But fire to thaw that ruddy snow, To break enchanted ice, And give love's scarlet tides to flow,-- When shall that sun arise?

MERLIN'S SONG

I

Of Merlin wise I learned a song,-- Sing it low or sing it loud, It is mightier than the strong, And punishes the proud. I sing it to the surging crowd,-- Good men it will calm and cheer, Bad men it will chain and cage-- In the heart of the music peals a strain Which only angels hear; Whether it waken joy or rage Hushed myriads hark in vain, Yet they who hear it shed their age, And take their youth again.

II

Hear what British Merlin sung, Of keenest eye and truest tongue. Say not, the chiefs who first arrive Usurp the seats for which all strive; The forefathers this land who found Failed to plant the vantage-ground; Ever from one who comes to-morrow Men wait their good and truth to borrow. But wilt thou measure all thy road, See thou lift the lightest load. Who has little, to him who has less, can spare, And thou, Cyndyllan's son! beware Ponderous gold and stuffs to bear, To falter ere thou thy task fulfil,-- Only the light-armed climb the hill. The richest of all lords is Use, And ruddy Health the loftiest Muse. Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, Drink the wild air's salubrity: When the star Canope shines in May, Shepherds are thankful and nations gay. The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech: Mask thy wisdom with delight, Toy with the bow, yet hit the white. Of all wit's uses, the main one Is to live well with who has none.

THE TEST

(Musa loquitur.)

I hung my verses in the wind, Time and tide their faults may find. All were winnowed through and through, Five lines lasted sound and true; Five were smelted in a pot Than the South more fierce and hot; These the siroc could not melt, Fire their fiercer flaming felt, And the meaning was more white Than July's meridian light. Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know. Have you eyes to find the five Which five hundred did survive?

SOLUTION

I am the Muse who sung alway By Jove, at dawn of the first day. Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought To fire the stagnant earth with thought: On spawning slime my song prevails, Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales; Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn, Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born. Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race, And Nile substructs her granite base,-- Tented Tartary, columned Nile,-- And, under vines, on rocky isle, Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak, Forward stepped the perfect Greek: That wit and joy might find a tongue, And earth grow civil, HOMER sung.

Flown to Italy from Greece, I brooded long and held my peace, For I am wont to sing uncalled, And in days of evil plight Unlock doors of new delight; And sometimes mankind I appalled With a bitter horoscope, With spasms of terror for balm of hope. Then by better thought I lead Bards to speak what nations need; So I folded me in fears, And DANTE searched the triple spheres, Moulding Nature at his will, So shaped, so colored, swift or still, And, sculptor-like, his large design Etched on Alp and Apennine.

Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur, Taught by Plinlimmon's Druid power, England's genius filled all measure Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, Gave to the mind its emperor, And life was larger than before: Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE'S wit. The men who lived with him became Poets, for the air was fame.

Far in the North, where polar night Holds in check the frolic light, In trance upborne past mortal goal The Swede EMANUEL leads the soul. Through snows above, mines underground, The inks of Erebus he found; Rehearsed to men the damned wails On which the seraph music sails. In spirit-worlds he trod alone, But walked the earth unmarked, unknown, The near bystander caught no sound,-- Yet they who listened far aloof Heard rendings of the skyey roof, And felt, beneath, the quaking ground; And his air-sown, unheeded words, In the next age, are flaming swords.

In newer days of war and trade, Romance forgot, and faith decayed, When Science armed and guided war, And clerks the Janus-gates unbar, When France, where poet never grew, Halved and dealt the globe anew, GOETHE, raised o'er joy and strife, Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life And brought Olympian wisdom down To court and mart, to gown and town. Stooping, his finger wrote in clay The open secret of to-day.

So bloom the unfading petals five, And verses that all verse outlive.

HYMN

SUNG AT THE SECOND CHURCH, AT THE ORDINATION OF REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS

We love the venerable house Our fathers built to God;-- In heaven are kept their grateful vows, Their dust endears the sod.

Here holy thoughts a light have shed From many a radiant face, And prayers of humble virtue made The perfume of the place.

And anxious hearts have pondered here The mystery of life, And prayed the eternal Light to clear Their doubts, and aid their strife.

From humble tenements around Came up the pensive train, And in the church a blessing found That filled their homes again;

For faith and peace and mighty love That from the Godhead flow, Showed them the life of Heaven above Springs from the life below.

They live with God; their homes are dust; Yet here their children pray, And in this fleeting lifetime trust To find the narrow way.

On him who by the altar stands, On him thy blessing fall, Speak through his lips thy pure commands, Thou heart that lovest all.

NATURE I

Winters know Easily to shed the snow, And the untaught Spring is wise In cowslips and anemonies. Nature, hating art and pains, Baulks and baffles plotting brains; Casualty and Surprise Are the apples of her eyes; But she dearly loves the poor, And, by marvel of her own, Strikes the loud pretender down. For Nature listens in the rose And hearkens in the berry's bell To help her friends, to plague her foes, And like wise God she judges well. Yet doth much her love excel To the souls that never fell, To swains that live in happiness And do well because they please, Who walk in ways that are unfamed, And feats achieve before they're named.

NATURE II

She is gamesome and good, But of mutable mood,-- No dreary repeater now and again, She will be all things to all men. She who is old, but nowise feeble, Pours her power into the people, Merry and manifold without bar, Makes and moulds them what they are, And what they call their city way Is not their way, but hers, And what they say they made to-day, They learned of the oaks and firs. She spawneth men as mallows fresh, Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh; She drugs her water and her wheat With the flavors she finds meet, And gives them what to drink and eat; And having thus their bread and growth, They do her bidding, nothing loath. What's most theirs is not their own, But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone, And in their vaunted works of Art The master-stroke is still her part.

THE ROMANY GIRL

The sun goes down, and with him takes The coarseness of my poor attire; The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.

Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race; You captives of your air-tight halls, Wear out indoors your sickly days, But leave us the horizon walls.

And if I take you, dames, to task, And say it frankly without guile, Then you are Gypsies in a mask, And I the lady all the while.

If on the heath, below the moon, I court and play with paler blood, Me false to mine dare whisper none,-- One sallow horseman knows me good.

Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain, For teeth and hair with shopmen deal; My swarthy tint is in the grain, The rocks and forest know it real.

The wild air bloweth in our lungs, The keen stars twinkle in our eyes, The birds gave us our wily tongues, The panther in our dances flies.

You doubt we read the stars on high, Nathless we read your fortunes true; The stars may hide in the upper sky, But without glass we fathom you.

DAYS

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

MY GARDEN

If I could put my woods in song And tell what's there enjoyed, All men would to my gardens throng, And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow,-- Snow-loving pines and oaks instead; And rank the savage maples grow From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.

My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, Then plunge to depths profound.

Here once the Deluge ploughed, Laid the terraces, one by one; Ebbing later whence it flowed, They bleach and dry in the sun.

The sowers made haste to depart,-- The wind and the birds which sowed it; Not for fame, nor by rules of art, Planted these, and tempests flowed it.

Waters that wash my garden-side Play not in Nature's lawful web, They heed not moon or solar tide,-- Five years elapse from flood to ebb.

Hither hasted, in old time, Jove, And every god,--none did refuse; And be sure at last came Love, And after Love, the Muse.

Keen ears can catch a syllable, As if one spake to another, In the hemlocks tall, untamable, And what the whispering grasses smother.

Aeolian harps in the pine Ring with the song of the Fates; Infant Bacchus in the vine,-- Far distant yet his chorus waits.

Canst thou copy in verse one chime Of the wood-bell's peal and cry, Write in a book the morning's prime, Or match with words that tender sky?

Wonderful verse of the gods, Of one import, of varied tone; They chant the bliss of their abodes To man imprisoned in his own.

Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear Seldom in this low life's round Are unsealed that he may hear.

Wandering voices in the air And murmurs in the wold Speak what I cannot declare, Yet cannot all withhold.

When the shadow fell on the lake, The whirlwind in ripples wrote Air-bells of fortune that shine and break, And omens above thought.

But the meanings cleave to the lake, Cannot be carried in book or urn; Go thy ways now, come later back, On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast, Of better men than live to-day; If who can read them comes at last He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay.'

THE CHARTIST'S COMPLAINT

Day! hast thou two faces, Making one place two places? One, by humble farmer seen, Chill and wet, unlighted, mean, Useful only, triste and damp, Serving for a laborer's lamp? Have the same mists another side, To be the appanage of pride, Gracing the rich man's wood and lake, His park where amber mornings break, And treacherously bright to show His planted isle where roses glow? O Day! and is your mightiness A sycophant to smug success? Will the sweet sky and ocean broad Be fine accomplices to fraud? O Sun! I curse thy cruel ray: Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!

THE TITMOUSE

You shall not be overbold When you deal with arctic cold, As late I found my lukewarm blood Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood. How should I fight? my foeman fine Has million arms to one of mine: East, west, for aid I looked in vain, East, west, north, south, are his domain. Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home; Must borrow his winds who there would come. Up and away for life! be fleet!-- The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, Curdles the blood to the marble bones, Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, And hems in life with narrowing fence. Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,-- The punctual stars will vigil keep,-- Embalmed by purifying cold; The winds shall sing their dead-march old, The snow is no ignoble shroud, The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.

Softly,--but this way fate was pointing, 'T was coming fast to such anointing, When piped a tiny voice hard by, Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, _Chic-chic-a-dee-de!_ saucy note Out of sound heart and merry throat, As if it said, 'Good day, good sir! Fine afternoon, old passenger! Happy to meet you in these places, Where January brings few faces.'

This poet, though he live apart, Moved by his hospitable heart, Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, To do the honors of his court, As fits a feathered lord of land; Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, Prints his small impress on the snow, Shows feats of his gymnastic play, Head downward, clinging to the spray.

Here was this atom in full breath, Hurling defiance at vast death; This scrap of valor just for play Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, As if to shame my weak behavior; I greeted loud my little savior, 'You pet! what dost here? and what for? In these woods, thy small Labrador, At this pinch, wee San Salvador! What fire burns in that little chest So frolic, stout and self-possest? Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; Ashes and jet all hues outshine. Why are not diamonds black and gray, To ape thy dare-devil array? And I affirm, the spacious North Exists to draw thy virtue forth. I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.'

'T is good will makes intelligence, And I began to catch the sense Of my bird's song: 'Live out of doors In the great woods, on prairie floors. I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea, I too have a hole in a hollow tree; And I like less when Summer beats With stifling beams on these retreats, Than noontide twilights which snow makes With tempest of the blinding flakes. For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin; And polar frost my frame defied, Made of the air that blows outside.'