Chapter 5
52. There is in early English literature a most interesting play entitled `Mary Magdalene': see Pollard's `English Miracle Plays' (New York), where extracts are given.
55-56. See `Introduction', p. xlvi [Part IV].
The Symphony
"O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead! [1] The Time needs heart -- 'tis tired of head: We're all for love," the violins said. "Of what avail the rigorous tale Of bill for coin and box for bale? Grant thee, O Trade! thine uttermost hope: Level red gold with blue sky-slope, And base it deep as devils grope: When all's done, what hast thou won Of the only sweet that's under the sun? Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh [11] Of true love's least, least ecstasy?" Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling, All the mightier strings assembling Ranged them on the violins' side As when the bridegroom leads the bride, And, heart in voice, together cried: "Yea, what avail the endless tale Of gain by cunning and plus by sale? Look up the land, look down the land, The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand [21] Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand Against an inward-opening door That pressure tightens evermore: They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh For the outside leagues of liberty, Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky Into a heavenly melody. `Each day, all day' (these poor folks say), `In the same old year-long, drear-long way, We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, [31] We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, To relieve, O God, what manner of ills? -- The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die; And so do we, and the world's a sty; Hush, fellow-swine: why nuzzle and cry? "Swinehood hath no remedy" Say many men, and hasten by, Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. But who said once, in the lordly tone, [41] "Man shall not live by bread alone But all that cometh from the Throne?" Hath God said so? But Trade saith "No": And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go: There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. Move out, if you think you're underpaid. The poor are prolific; we're not afraid; Trade is trade."'" Thereat this passionate protesting [51] Meekly changed, and softened till It sank to sad requesting And suggesting sadder still: "And oh, if men might some time see How piteous-false the poor decree That trade no more than trade must be! Does business mean, "Die, you -- live, I"? Then `Trade is trade' but sings a lie: 'Tis only war grown miserly. If business is battle, name it so: [61] War-crimes less will shame it so, And widows less will blame it so. Alas, for the poor to have some part In yon sweet living lands of Art, Makes problem not for head, but heart. Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it: Plainly the heart of a child could solve it."
And then, as when from words that seem but rude We pass to silent pain that sits abrood Back in our heart's great dark and solitude, [71] So sank the strings to gentle throbbing Of long chords change-marked with sobbing -- Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred. Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo! Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow Died to a level with each level bow And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so, As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go [81] To linger in the sacred dark and green Where many boughs the still pool overlean And many leaves make shadow with their sheen. But presently A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly Upon the bosom of that harmony, And sailed and sailed incessantly, As if a petal from a wild-rose blown Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone And boatwise dropped o' the convex side [91] And floated down the glassy tide And clarified and glorified The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. From the warm concave of that fluted note Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did float, As if a rose might somehow be a throat: "When Nature from her far-off glen Flutes her soft messages to men, The flute can say them o'er again; Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone, [101] Breathes through life's strident polyphone The flute-voice in the world of tone. Sweet friends, Man's love ascends To finer and diviner ends Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends For I, e'en I, As here I lie, A petal on a harmony, Demand of Science whence and why [111] Man's tender pain, man's inward cry, When he doth gaze on earth and sky? I am not overbold: I hold Full powers from Nature manifold. I speak for each no-tongued tree That, spring by spring, doth nobler be, And dumbly and most wistfully His mighty prayerful arms outspreads Above men's oft-unheeding heads, [121] And his big blessing downward sheds. I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves, Lichens on stones and moss on eaves, Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves; Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes, And briery mazes bounding lanes, And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains, And milky stems and sugary veins; For every long-armed woman-vine That round a piteous tree doth twine; [131] For passionate odors, and divine Pistils, and petals crystalline; All purities of shady springs, All shynesses of film-winged things That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings; All modesties of mountain-fawns That leap to covert from wild lawns, And tremble if the day but dawns; All sparklings of small beady eyes Of birds, and sidelong glances wise [141] Wherewith the jay hints tragedies; All piquancies of prickly burs, And smoothnesses of downs and furs Of eiders and of minevers; All limpid honeys that do lie At stamen-bases, nor deny The humming-birds' fine roguery, Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly; All gracious curves of slender wings, Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings, [151] Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings; Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell Wherewith in every lonesome dell Time to himself his hours doth tell; All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones, Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans, And night's unearthly under-tones; All placid lakes and waveless deeps, All cool reposing mountain-steeps, Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; -- [161] Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights, And warmths, and mysteries, and mights, Of Nature's utmost depths and heights, -- These doth my timid tongue present, Their mouthpiece and leal instrument And servant, all love-eloquent. I heard, when `ALL FOR LOVE' the violins cried: So, Nature calls through all her system wide, `Give me thy love, O man, so long denied.' Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways, [171] Since Nature, in the antique fable-days, Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays, False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise. The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain, Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fain Never to lave its love in them again. Later, a sweet Voice `Love thy neighbor' said; Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread. Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head: [181] `ALL MEN ARE NEIGHBORS,' so the sweet Voice said. So, when man's arms had circled all man's race, The liberal compass of his warm embrace Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space; With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace, Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face: Yea man found neighbors in great hills and trees And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees, And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these. But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor! [191] That stand by the inward-opening door Trade's hand doth tighten ever more, And sigh their monstrous foul-air sigh For the outside hills of liberty, Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky For Art to make into melody! Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days! Change thy ways, Change thy ways; Let the sweaty laborers file [201] A little while, A little while, Where Art and Nature sing and smile. Trade! is thy heart all dead, all dead? And hast thou nothing but a head? I'm all for heart," the flute-voice said, And into sudden silence fled, Like as a blush that while 'tis red Dies to a still, still white instead.
Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds, [211] Till presently the silence breeds A little breeze among the reeds That seems to blow by sea-marsh weeds: Then from the gentle stir and fret Sings out the melting clarionet, Like as a lady sings while yet Her eyes with salty tears are wet. "O Trade! O Trade!" the Lady said, "I too will wish thee utterly dead If all thy heart is in thy head. [221] For O my God! and O my God! What shameful ways have women trod At beckoning of Trade's golden rod! Alas when sighs are traders' lies, And heart's-ease eyes and violet eyes Are merchandise! O purchased lips that kiss with pain! O cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain! O trafficked hearts that break in twain! -- And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime? [231] So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime, Men love not women as in olden time. Ah, not in these cold merchantable days Deem men their life an opal gray, where plays The one red Sweet of gracious ladies'-praise. Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye -- Says, `Here, you Lady, if you'll sell I'll buy: Come, heart for heart -- a trade? What! weeping? why?' Shame on such wooers' dapper mercery! I would my lover kneeling at my feet [241] In humble manliness should cry, `O sweet! I know not if thy heart my heart will greet: I ask not if thy love my love can meet: Whate'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say, I'll kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay: I do but know I love thee, and I pray To be thy knight until my dying day.' Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives! Base love good women to base loving drives. If men loved larger, larger were our lives; [251] And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives."
There thrust the bold straightforward horn To battle for that lady lorn, With heartsome voice of mellow scorn, Like any knight in knighthood's morn. "Now comfort thee," said he, "Fair Lady. For God shall right thy grievous wrong, And man shall sing thee a true-love song, Voiced in act his whole life long, [261] Yea, all thy sweet life long, Fair Lady. Where's he that craftily hath said, The day of chivalry is dead? I'll prove that lie upon his head, Or I will die instead, Fair Lady. Is Honor gone into his grave? Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, And Selfhood turned into a slave [271] To work in Mammon's cave, Fair Lady? Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain All great contempts of mean-got gain And hates of inward stain, Fair Lady? For aye shall name and fame be sold, And place be hugged for the sake of gold, And smirch-robed Justice feebly scold [281] At Crime all money-bold, Fair Lady? Shall self-wrapt husbands aye forget Kiss-pardons for the daily fret Wherewith sweet wifely eyes are wet -- Blind to lips kiss-wise set -- Fair Lady? Shall lovers higgle, heart for heart, Till wooing grows a trading mart Where much for little, and all for part, [291] Make love a cheapening art, Fair Lady? Shall woman scorch for a single sin That her betrayer may revel in, And she be burnt, and he but grin When that the flames begin, Fair Lady? Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea, `We maids would far, far whiter be If that our eyes might sometimes see [301] Men maids in purity,' Fair Lady? Shall Trade aye salve his conscience-aches With jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes -- The wars that o'erhot knighthood makes For Christ's and ladies' sakes, Fair Lady? Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed To fight like a man and love like a maid, Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade, [311] I' the scabbard, death, was laid, Fair Lady, I dare avouch my faith is bright That God doth right and God hath might. Nor time hath changed His hair to white, Nor His dear love to spite, Fair Lady. I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay, And fight my fight in the patient modern way For true love and for thee -- ah me! and pray [321] To be thy knight until my dying day, Fair Lady." Made end that knightly horn, and spurred away Into the thick of the melodious fray.
And then the hautboy played and smiled, And sang like any large-eyed child, Cool-hearted and all undefiled. "Huge Trade!" he said, "Would thou wouldst lift me on thy head And run where'er my finger led! [331] Once said a Man -- and wise was He -- `Never shalt thou the heavens see, Save as a little child thou be.'" Then o'er sea-lashings of commingling tunes The ancient wise bassoons, Like weird Gray-beard Old harpers sitting on the high sea-dunes, Chanted runes: "Bright-waved gain, gray-waved loss, [341] The sea of all doth lash and toss, One wave forward and one across: But now 'twas trough, now 'tis crest, And worst doth foam and flash to best, And curst to blest.
"Life! Life! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west, Love, Love alone can pore On thy dissolving score Of harsh half-phrasings, Blotted ere writ, [351] And double erasings Of chords most fit. Yea, Love, sole music-master blest, May read thy weltering palimpsest. To follow Time's dying melodies through, And never to lose the old in the new, And ever to solve the discords true -- Love alone can do. And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying, And ever Love hears the women's sighing, [361] And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying, And ever wise childhood's deep implying, But never a trader's glozing and lying.
"And yet shall Love himself be heard, Though long deferred, though long deferred: O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred: Music is Love in search of a word."
____ Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: The Symphony
The `Introduction' (pp. xxviii f., xxxiii ff. [Part III], xlvii [Part IV]) gives, besides the plan of `The Symphony', a detailed statement of its two themes, -- the evils of the trade-spirit in the commercial and social world and the need in each of the love-spirit. These questions preyed on the poet's mind and were to be treated at length in `The Jacquerie' also, which he expected to make his great work, but which he was unable to complete. This he tells us in a noble passage to Judge Bleckley, in his letter of November 15, 1874. After deploring the lack of time for literary labor (see quotation in `Introduction', p. xlvi [Part IV]), he continues: "I manage to get a little time tho' to work on what is to be my first `magnum opus', a long poem, founded on that strange uprising in the middle of the fourteenth century in France, called `The Jacquerie'. It was the first time that the big hungers of `the People' appear in our modern civilization; and it is full of significance. The peasants learned from the merchant potentates of Flanders that a man who could not be a lord by birth, might be one by wealth; and so Trade arose, and overthrew Chivalry. Trade has now had possession of the civilized world for four hundred years: it controls all things, it interprets the Bible, it guides our national and almost all our individual life with its maxims; and its oppressions upon the moral existence of man have come to be ten thousand times more grievous than the worst tyrannies of the Feudal System ever were. Thus in the reversals of time, it is NOW the GENTLEMAN who must rise and overthrow Trade. That chivalry which every man has, in some degree, in his heart; which does not depend upon birth, but which is a revelation from God of justice, of fair dealing, of scorn of mean advantages; which contemns the selling of stock which one KNOWS is going to fall, to a man who BELIEVES it is going to rise, as much as it would contemn any other form of rascality or of injustice or of meanness; -- it is this which must in these latter days organize its insurrections and burn up every one of the cunning moral castles from which Trade sends out its forays upon the conscience of modern society. -- This is about the plan which is to run through my book: though I conceal it under the form of a pure novel."
Mr. F. F. Browne is doubtless right in saying that `The Symphony' recalls parts of Tennyson's `Maud', but the closest congeners of `The Symphony' in English are, I think, Langland's `Piers The Plowman' in poetry and Ruskin's `Unto This Last' in prose. Widely as these two works differ from `The Symphony' in form, they are one with it in purpose and in spirit. All three voice the outcry of the poor against the hardness of their lot and their longing for a larger life; all three show that the only hope of relief lies in a broader and deeper love for humanity. Analogues to individual verses of `The Symphony' are cited below.
1-2. See `Introduction', p. xxviii [Part III].
31-61. See `Introduction', p. xxix [Part III].
42-43. See St. Matthew 4:4.
55-60. It is precisely this evil that Ruskin has in mind, I take it, when he condemns the commercial text, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest," and when he declares that "Competition is the law of death" (`Unto This Last', pp. 40, 59).
117. Compare `Corn', l. 21 ff.
161. For `lotos-sleeps' see Tennyson's `The Lotos-eaters', which almost lulls one to sleep, and `The Odyssey' ix. 80-104.
178. See St. Matthew 19:19.
182. See St. Luke 10:29, ff.
183-190. Compare `Corn', ll. 4-9, and see `Introduction', p. xxxii [Part III].
232-248. See `Introduction', p. xxxiv f., and Peacock's `Lady Clarinda's Song' (Gosse's `English Lyrics').
294-298. See `Tiger-lilies', p. 49, and `Betrayal' in Lanier's complete `Poems', p. 213. These lines of `The Symphony' show clearly that Lanier did not believe that God made one law for man and another for woman, or that one very grievous sin should forever blight a woman's life. What Christ himself thought is clear from St. Luke 7:36-50, and St. John 8:1-11.
302. See `Introduction', p. liv [Part VI].
326. For a full account of the `hautboy' and other musical instruments mentioned in the poem see Lanier's `The Orchestra of To-day', cited in the `Bibliography'.
359. See `Introduction', p. xxxvi [Part III]. Compare 1 Corinthians 13; Drummond's `The Greatest Thing in the World'; William Morris's `Love Is Enough'; `Aurora Leigh', Book ix.:
"Art is much, but Love is more! O Art, my Art, thou'rt much, but Love is more! Art symbolizes Heaven, but Love is God And makes Heaven;"
and Langland's `Piers the Plowman' (ed. by Skeat, i. 202-3):
"Love is leche of lyf and nexte oure Lorde selve, And also the graith gate that goth into hevene."*
-- * The two lines may be translated: "Love is the physician of life and next to our Lord himself; moreover, it is the way that goes straight to Heaven." --
368. See `Introduction', p. xxxii [Part III].
The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama
By Sidney and Clifford Lanier
You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet. [1] De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat. Umph dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' old nigger's feet.
It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June. I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon! Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de moon.
Well, ef dis nigger IS been blind for fo'ty year or mo', Dese ears, DEY sees de world, like, th'u' de cracks dat's in de do'. For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and 'fo'.
I know my front ones IS stopped up, and things is sort o' dim, But den, th'u' DEM, temptation's rain won't leak in on ole Jim! [11] De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous slim.
And as for Hebben, -- bless de Lord, and praise His holy name -- DAT shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame!
Who CALL me? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyar Somebody holl'in' "HOO, JIM, HOO?" My Sarah died las' y'ar; IS dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar?
My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh! Jes' listen, Dinah, NOW! What KIN be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row? Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow? [21]
De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, -- ker-woof, ker-woof -- De Debble's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' shuh enuff, A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof!
I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away: I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day. YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se a gwine to pray.
O hebbenly Marster, what thou willest, dat mus' be jes' so, And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger's bound to go. Den, Lord, please take ole Jim, and lef young Dinah hyar below!
'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster; for she's sich a little chile, [31] She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard stile, But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many a many a mile.
I'se wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder-stack. De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em crack and crack? I cain'st sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' o' my back.
What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is warped and split, and rotten? What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked my cotton? I'se like a word dat somebody said, and den done been forgotten.
But, Dinah! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree, De sap's jes' risin' in her; she do grow owdaciouslee -- [41] Lord, ef you's clarin' de underbrush, don't cut her down, cut me!
I would not proud persume -- but I'll boldly make reques'; Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, gwine do my bes'; When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he answered Yes!
And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de bread, Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head? T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim was dead!
Stop; -- ef I don't believe de Debble's gone on up de stream! Jes' now he squealed down dar; -- hush; dat's a mighty weakly scream! Yas, sir, he's gone, he's gone; -- he snort way off, like in a dream! [51]
O glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high! De Debble's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone flyin' by; I know'd he couldn't stand dat pra'r, I felt my Marster nigh!
You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you didn' trust to grace? I heerd you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his face! You fool, you think de Debble couldn't beat YOU in a race?
I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' dar, When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' de a'r. YAS, DINAH, WHAR 'OULD YOU BE NOW, JES' 'CEPTIN' FUR DAT PRA'R?
____ Baltimore, 1875.
Notes: The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama