Chapter 12

"Wouldst know him now? Behold him, The Cadmus of the blind, Giving the dumb lip language, The idiot clay a mind.

"Walking his round of duty Serenely day by day, With the strong man's hand of labor And childhood's heart of play.

"True as the knights of story, Sir Lancelot and his peers, Brave in his calm endurance As they in tilt of spears.

"As waves in stillest waters, As stars in noonday skies, All that wakes to noble action In his noon of calmness lies.

"Wherever outraged Nature Asks word or action brave, Wherever struggles labor, Wherever groans a slave,--

"Wherever rise the peoples, Wherever sinks a throne, The throbbing heart of Freedom finds An answer in his own.

"Knight of a better era, Without reproach or fear! Said I not well that Bayards And Sidneys still are here?

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS

O friends! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument; Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds; Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod: I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such His pitying love I deem Ye seek a king; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss; I hear our Lord's beatitudes And prayer upon the cross.

The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above: I know not of His hate,--I know His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone, For vanished smiles I long, But God bath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee!

THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW

Pipes of the misty moorlands Voice of the glens and hills; The droning of the torrents, The treble of the rills! Not the braes of broom and heather, Nor the mountains dark with rain, Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, Have heard your sweetest strain!

Dear to the Lowland reaper, And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The Scottish pipes are dear;-- Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch O'er mountain, loch, and glade; But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played.

Day by day the Indian tiger Louder yelled, and nearer crept; Round and round the jungle-serpent Near and nearer circles swept. "Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-- Pray to-day!" the soldier said; "To-morrow, death's between us And the wrong and shame we dread."

O, they listened, looked, and waited, Till their hope became despair; And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer. Then up spake a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground "Dinna ye hear it?--dinna ye hear it? The pipes o' Havelock sound!"

Hushed the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones; Alone they heard the drum-roll And the roar of Sepoy guns. But to sounds of home and childhood The Highland ear was true; As her mother's cradle-crooning The mountain pipes she knew.

Like the march of soundless music Through the vision of the seer, More of feeling than of hearing, Of the heart than of the ear, She knew the droning pibroch, She knew the Campbell's call "Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,-- The grandest o' them all!"

O, they listened, dumb and breathless, And they caught the sound at last; Faint and far beyond the Goomtee Rose and fell the piper's blast! Then a burst of wild thanksgiving Mingled woman's voice and man's "God be praised!--the March of Havelock! The piping of the clans!"

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, Stinging all the air to life. But when the far-off dust-cloud To plaided legions grew, Full tenderly and blithesomely The pipes of rescue blew!

Round the silver domes of Lucknow, Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, Breathed the air to Britons dearest, The air of Auld Lang Syne. O'er the cruel roll of war-drums Rose that sweet and homelike strain; And the tartan clove the turban, As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.

Dear to the corn-land reaper And plaided mountaineer,-- To the cottage and the castle The piper's song is dear. Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch O'er mountain, glen, and glade, But the sweetest of all music The Pipes at Lucknow played!

COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION

The beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of high way,--

When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm.

And there, in the golden weather, He stitched and hammered and sung; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue.

Well knew the tough old Teuton Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the good-wife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale.

The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine.

Woodsy and wild and lonesome, The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples Flashing in foam and spray,--

Down on the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade.

Woodsy and wild and lonesome, East and west and north and south; Only the village of fishers Down at the river's mouth;

Only here and there a clearing, With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, Where the scanty harvest grew.

No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, And on the green no dancing feet The merry violin stirred.

"Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, "When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing At the faces so sour and sad?"

Small heed had the careless cobbler What sorrow of heart was theirs Who travailed in pain with the births of God And planted a state with prayers,--

Hunting of witches and warlocks, Smiting the heathen horde,-- One hand on the mason's trowel And one on the soldier's sword!

But give him his ale and cider, Give him his pipe and song, Little he cared for Church or State, Or the balance of right and wrong.

"'Tis work, work, work," he muttered-- "And for rest a snuffle of psalms!" He smote on his leathern apron With his brown and waxen palms.

"O for the purple harvests Of the days when I was young! For the merry grape-stained maidens, And the pleasant songs they sung

"O for the breath of vineyards, Of apples and nuts and wine! For an oar to row and a breeze to blow Down the grand old river Rhine!"

A tear in his blue eye glistened And dropped on his beard so gray. "Old, old am I," said Keezar, "And the Rhine flows far away!"

But a cunning man was the cobbler; He could call the birds from the trees, Charm the black snake out of the ledges, And bring back the swarming bees.

All the virtues of herbs and metals, All the lore of the woods, he knew, And the arts of the Old World mingled With the marvels of the New.

Well he knew the tricks of magic, And the lapstone on his knee Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles Or the stone of Doctor Dee.

For the mighty master Agrippa Wrought it with spell and rhyme From a fragment of mystic moonstone In the tower of Nettesheim.

To a cobbler Minnesinger The marvellous stone gave he, And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, Who brought it over the sea.

He held up that mystic lapstone, He held it up like a lens, And he counted the long years coming, By twenties and by tens.

"One hundred years," quoth Keezar. "And fifty have I told Now open the new before me, And shut me out the old!"

Like a cloud of mist, the blackness Rolled from the magic stone, And a marvellous picture mingled The unknown and the known.

Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined; And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line. And cold north hills behind.

But the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town, By many a white-walled farm-house, And many a garner brown.

Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea.

Below in the noisy village The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday.

Swiftly the rival ploughmen Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures, There were the craftsman's wares.

Golden the good-wife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine; Grand were the strutting turkeys, Fat were the beeves and swine.

Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes From the girls who shook them down.

And with blooms of hill and wildwood, That shame the toil of art, Mingled the gorgeous blossoms Of the garden's tropic heart.

"What is it I see?" said Keezar: "Am I here or am I there? Is it a fete at Bingen? Do I look on Frankfort fair?

"But where are the clowns and puppets, And imps with horns and tail? And where are the Rhenish flagons? And where is the foaming ale?

"Strange things, I know, will happen,-- Strange things the Lord permits; But that droughty folk should be dolly Puzzles my poor old wits.

"Here are smiling manly faces, And the maiden's step is gay; Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.

"Here's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use.

"Here's a priest and there is a Quaker, Do the cat and the dog agree? Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood? Have they cut down the gallows-tree?

"Would the old folk know their children? Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a witch to drown?"

Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay; Tossing his arms above him, The lapstone rolled away.

It rolled down the rugged hillside, It spun like a wheel bewitched, It plunged through the leaning willows, And into the river pitched.

There, in the deep, dark water, The magic stone lies still, Under the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill.

But oft the idle fisher Sits on the shadowy bank, And his dreams make marvellous pictures Where the wizard's lapstone sank.

And still, in the summer twilights. When the river seems to run Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun,

The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmed stream, And the sky and the golden water Shape and color her dream.

Fair wave the sunset gardens, The rosy signals fly; Her homestead beckons from the cloud, And love goes sailing by!

THE MAYFLOWERS

Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales, With petals of the sleeted spars, And leaves of frozen sails

What had she in those dreary hours, Within her ice-rimmed bay, In common with the wild-wood flowers, The first sweet smiles of May?

Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim said, Who saw the blossoms peer Above the brown leaves, dry anal dead "Behold our Mayflower here!"

"God wills it: here our rest shall be Our years of wandering o'er; For us the Mayflower of the sea, Shall spread her sails no more."

O sacred flowers of faith and hope, As sweetly now as then Ye bloom on many a birchen slope, In many a pine-dark glen.

Behind the sea-wall's rugged length, Unchanged, your, leaves unfold Like love behind the manly strength Of the brave hearts of old.

So live the fathers in their sons, Their sturdy faith be ours, And ours the love that overruns Its rocky strength with flowers.

The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day Its shadow round us draws; The Mayflower of his stormy bay, Our Freedom's struggling cause.

But warmer suns erelong shall bring To life the frozen sod; And, through dead leaves of hope, shall spring Afresh the flowers of Cod!

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

GOOD-BYE

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine. Long through thy weary crowds I roam; A river-ark on the ocean brine, Long I've been tossed like the driven foam; But now, proud world! I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.

I am going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone,-- A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned; Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and Cod.

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man At the sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, Where man in the bush with God may meet?

EACH AND ALL

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The heifer that lows in the upland faun, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky;-- He sang to my ear,--they sang to my eye. The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home, But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;-- The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. Then I said, "I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth:-- As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soared the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird;-- Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

THE PROBLEM

I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?