Part 3

It is a glorious morning. Storm Hath left no traces, and the warm, Rich sunshine cometh like a strain Of parted music, back again. The trees are bare, but like a true And changeless friend, the sun shines through, And round the sad and fallen leaves His mesh of light he softly weaves. I see and feel how very fair This summer sun, and breezes are; I see the white, thin vapors wreathed About the hills as if they breathed; I see the sky’s pure, delicate blue, Like a soft eye which melts me through, And I’ve remembered the sweet eyes I likened to those gentle skies, And gazed this hour as if their look Were written in that azure book, And the long echo came but now Of my hot speech and silly vow. I cannot wander; but I know How earth’s deep voices softly flow; I know how light the waters run O’er the sere grass and fretful stone; I know how fountains leap, how still The winds creep over lake and hill; The Autumn birds, the last leaf-fall, The morn’s sweet breath--I know them all.

I know them all--and yet my feet Are not where singing waters meet; My books are for the running streams, And stupid schoolmen for the dreams Of gentle spirits; I am tied While nature joyeth like a bride; Chained down to reason on the cool, Dull precepts of a skeptic’s rule, While beauty over earth and sea Is gushing as a fount let free.

It hath its lesson. Beautiful things Are given like retreating wings; Not to be gathered, never won, But sent to lead the spirit on; Winning the upward eye of prayer, As ’twere a finger pointing there, Till we have followed to the sky An angel, imperceptibly.

III.

It is a holy night. The moon Hath made it like a gentler noon, And every deep and starry eye Is waking in the summer sky, As if its light were made alone For restless hearts to gaze upon. There are no voices, and the stir Of the soft south goes lightlier Among the branches, and the deep, Felt stillness of a world asleep, Is on my spirit like the touch Of a sweet friend who loveth much. I’ve left my books. I cannot damp My heart beside a weary lamp While heaven is set with stars, and I Am not to sit down quietly, And on a musty altar fling The birthright of a glorious wing. Reason who will; while skies of June Are molten by this silent moon, While flowers have breath, and voices creep From running brook and fountain-leap, While any thing is left to love In this fair earth and heaven above, I would not wear a fettered limb To make Chaldea’s wisdom dim.

Why, what is duty? Sky and sea, Thou promised heaven! are types of thee; The earth is like a flowing cup Of perfect beauty mingled up; The very elements of heaven, Life, light, and music, freely given; The world an Eden, and we thirst For every voice and fountain-burst; And yet, we’re told, at duty’s call We must forego--forget them all!

How has the foot of nature trod The pathway of a perfect God, How are the springs of earnest thought With his diviner cunning wrought, If all that makes us feel our fate Not altogether desolate-- This burning love for beautiful things, Is sealed among forbidden springs, And we must throw a gift of fire Aside like a neglected lyre?

BETTER MOMENTS.

My mother’s voice! how often creeps Its cadence on my lonely hours, Like healing sent on wings of sleep, Or dew to the unconscious flowers!

I can forget her melting prayer While leaping pulses madly fly; But in the still unbroken air, Her gentle tone comes stealing by, And years, and sin, and manhood flee, And leave me at my mother’s knee.

The book of nature, and the print Of beauty on the whispering sea, Give aye to me some lineament Of what I have been taught to be. My heart is harder, and perhaps My manliness hath drunk up tears, And there’s a mildew in the lapse Of a few miserable years-- But nature’s book is even yet With all my mother’s lessons writ.

I have been out at eventide Beneath a moonlight sky of spring, When earth was garnished like a bride, And night had on her silver wing; When bursting leaves and diamond grass, And waters leaping to the light, And all that makes the pulses pass With wilder fleetness, thronged the night-- When all was beauty--then have I, With friends on whom my love is flung Like myrrh on winds of Araby, Gazed up where evening’s lamp is hung, And when the beautiful spirit there Flung over me its golden chain, My mother’s voice came on the air Like the light dropping of the rain, And resting on some silver star The spirit of a bended knee, I’ve poured her low and fervent prayer That our eternity might be To rise in heaven like stars at night, And tread a living path of light!

I have been on the dewy hills When night was stealing from the dawn, And mist was on the waking rills, And tints were delicately drawn In the gray east; when birds were waking With a low murmur in the trees, And melody by fits was breaking Upon the whisper of the breeze-- And this when I was forth, perchance, As a worn reveller from the dance! And when the sun sprang gloriously And freely up, and hill and river Were catching upon wave and tree The arrows from his subtle quiver-- I say a voice has thrilled me then, Heard on the still and rushing light, Or creeping from the silent glen, Like words from the departing night-- Hath stricken me, and I have pressed On the wet grass my fevered brow, And pouring forth the earliest, First prayer with which I learned to bow, Have felt my mother’s spirit rush Upon me as in by-past years, And yielding to the blessed gush Of my ungovernable tears, Have risen up--the gay, the wild-- As humble as a very child!

THE HINDOO MOTHER.

It was a gentle eve in Hindoostan. The rains were past, and the delighted earth Was beautiful once more, and glittering leaves Were lifting lightly on their beaten stems, And glancing to the pure, transparent sky, Like a pleased infant smiling through its tears. Clouds lingered in the west, and tints were drawn By sunset fingers on their skirts of gold, And they were floating as serenely there, As if the children of the restless storm Could sleep upon the azure floor of heaven.

Deep ran the holy Ganges, for the rain Had swollen it from Thibet to the sea. Its flow was turbid; and, as if the winds Were not forgotten by the multitude Of its strange waters, they were leaping up, And with a wonderous glory gathering The mantle of the sunset over them. How frequently these living passages Of nature’s book are opened, and how few Are the high hearts that know them, and can feel Their eloquence and beauty!

Meina stood Upon the breathing carpet of the shore, Gazing on sky and river. There was much In the dark features of the young Hindoo, That should have won a gentler history. She had the Eastern eye, with its dark fringe And shadowy depth of lustre; but, beyond The elements of beauty, there was writ A something that the wounded roe would trust For shelter from its hunters. Her closed lips Were delicate as the tinted pencilling Of veins upon a flower; and on her cheek The timid blood had faintly melted through, Like something that was half afraid of light. There was no slighter print upon the grass Than her elastic step; and in her frame There was a perfect symmetry, that seemed Aerial as a bird’s. It was the hour For worship in her land; and she had come, With the religion of a high, pure heart, To bow herself in prayer. A darker mind Might pray at such an hour; but she had caught The spirit of the scene; and, as her eye Followed the coursing of the golden waves, Or rested on the clouds that slept above, Like isles upon the bosom of the sea, Her soul was swept to music like a harp, And she knelt down in her deep blessedness To worship the High Maker. As she prayed, Her beautiful young boy--a very dream, As he might be, of infant loveliness, With his dark hair upon the summer wind, And the sweet laugh of a delighted child Like music on his lips--came leaping by, And, flinging a light wreath upon her brow, Sprang onward like a bounding antelope. She turned a moment--might she not, for him? Him, whom she cradled in the whispering tree, And gathered to her bosom in the hush Of the still night?--to know if he was there. Twas but a moment, and she bowed again; And, as the murmur of her silver tone Stole out upon the wind, her images Of majesty came back, and she was filled, Like a deep channel by the whirlwind swept, Again with the rich rushing of her prayer. The shadows of the stealthy evening came Silently on; but she was up, in thought, Among the crystal palaces of light; And a still prompting came to her, to pray That the poor spirit of a passing world, With all its fond, but frail idolatries, Might on the altar of her God be flung. She breathed it, and along the holy shore She heard the whisper of the waters creep: ‘Thine is the victory, Meina!’--Was it won? Won in its cold, bereaving cruelty? Won from the pride of woman? from her love? Won from thy boy! young mother? No! oh, no! She had forgotten him! He was too young, Too purely, beautifully young, to die! And then the waves repeated to the shore, And the light echo heard it: ‘Give him up!’ And Meina heard it: ‘Give him to thy God!’ And the strong heart arose! One arrowy pulse Of an acuter agony than death; One fearful shiver at the searching thrill, And she had won--aye, with her glorious boy Upon her very breast--the victory! Oh! let the erring oftener be forgiven, That, in the shadowy twilight of the mind, They stray a little from the perfect way! If there is evidence in silent leaves, And the still waters, of a present God, And all who hear not messages of grace, Must gather from its dim and hidden words Their better solaces; remember ye Who reckon lightly of the poor Hindoo, That, in the scattering of the leaves of life, His page was written more imperfectly.

The beautiful sun arose, and there was not A stain upon the sky; the virgin blue Was delicate as light; and, as the east Eclipsed night’s pale and starry jewelry, The pure intensity of noon stole on, Like the soft deepening of a northern eye.

‘Come! my own glorious boy!’ and forth he sprang, As he had been created of the morn A spirit and an element of light. ‘Come! Come!’ and he was bounding airily Beside his stately mother, laughing out His lisping prattle of the promised boat, As if her words had been in playfulness, ‘That the bright waves should float him on to heaven.’ The morning mist stole up, as Meina knelt To offer him to God. Her eyes were dim; But her fine forehead, and her calm, still lip, Were fearfully subdued; and as the cloud Which clothes the lightning slumbers, so they slept. Her soul was in its strength. She held her boy Upon her bosom, till she felt the throb Of his warm pulses numbered on her heart, And her low, leaden cadences, kept on! His silken hair, as delicately soft As the light wind that stirred it, floated up, As if to plead at her transparent cheek; But she had wooed its kisses till it came To be a fond idolatry, and now She nerved her as the strong heart answered it. And the low words broke severally on, Distinctly as a common orison! There is a period in the wreck of hopes By the affections garnered, calmer far Than an untried serenity. It comes With the stern conflict ever, and awaits The passage of that hour, as if the soul Were girded, and had championed suffering; And it is strange, how a weak human heart Will thus be quiet like a hushing storm, And, with a fetter on its pulses, wait To measure spirits for the mastery!

The low ‘Amen!’ died on the silent air, And Meina’s heart was ready. The young boy Sprang joyously away, as if her arms Had prisoned him too long; and, as he saw The painted boat heave lightly to the swell Upon the reedy shore, and caught the breath Of her wreathed helm of flowers, he gave a shout, In his impatient gladness, and away, Like a warm vision of aerial birth, He bounded to implore that she would come. Calmly and steadily came Meina on, Led by her victim boy. The boat was there Among the tall wet reeds, and she went in And scanned its light frame over, and arranged Its mimic ornaments; and then again, When she had seen it all, and he had grown Impatient, she began to note once more The frailties in its lightly plaited reeds, As if she did not know that it was meant To kill. It is a wonderful effect Of nature in the heart, that in the strength Of a mistaken duty, it will turn, And almost trifle with its tenderness, As if it half misgave that all was wrong.

‘Come!’ and he sprang into his mother’s arms With a light leap, and, scarcely faltering In his gay laugh, he looked into her face, And in a tone of fondness whispered her, ‘Will the boat bear, dear mother?’ She had quelled Her feelings until now; had nerved herself To the light grace with which he bounded by; Had heard his voice, and looked upon his hair In its light, breezy floatings, and had shut Her heart up, with an iron thought, to all. But this one doubt, half sadness as it came From his delighted lips, and with his look Of childlike and appealing confidence, Was keener than a mother’s heart could bear! She bowed her head, and struggled, as if life Were bursting from its seal; and, as the thought Rushed over her to take her idol back, And keep him for her God, he murmured low, ‘And are you sure, my mother?’--‘No! my son!’ And the strong tide of nature gathered back With a resistless energy. She clasped Her boy convulsively, and he had lived To quicken, in its gifted elements, The radiant spirit written on his brow, But a high strengthening she knew not of, Awakened her, and pressing down her lips In a long fervent kiss upon his cheek, She hushed him into peace, and lifting up Her face to heaven, she breathed the name of God, And laid him down--for ever!

The light bark Went smoothly with the tide, and floated on Till his dark eye was scarcely visible. On, and yet on, she bounded! The bright waves Seemed playful in their leaping joyousness, And the curled ripple feathered at the prow Like a glad thing of life. Had death grown slow? Or were the waters ‘stayed,’ that they should keep Their cold embraces from him? On, still on, With her quick undulations! Hope revived In the sick heart of Meina, and she rose To gaze more keenly forward. He was there, And his small arms were lifted; and she thought That, as he tossed them upward, she could hear A cadence of his sweet and silvery voice Like a delighted shouting. It died off, And then again she heard it. Was it joy That broke upon her ear? oh! was there joy In that long cry, thou mother? Hark to it! ’Tis like the arrowy piercing of the wind! He moveth, and she bade him to be still! He riseth! ’tis his boyish restlessness! Look, Meina! Does he dash his little hands, In mirth, upon the waters? Hark! once more! ‘Mother!’ He calls thee! Is thy child afraid? Again! How very fearfully it comes! ‘Help! Mother!’ ’Tis a cry of agony! He sinks! Fly! Fly! he calls to thee! Oh fly! ‘Mother!’ God help thee! Dost thou see him now?

WAITING FOR THE HARVESTERS.

And there she sat in ripened loveliness, An English mother; joying in her babes, Whose life was bright before her, and whose lips Were breaking into language, with the sweet And loving sentences they learn so soon. Her face was very beautiful, and mirth Was native on her lip; but ever now As a sweet tone delighted her, the smile Went melting into sadness, and the lash Drooped gently to her eye, as if it knew Affection was too chaste a thing for mirth. It was the time for harvest, and she sat Awaiting one. A breath of scented hay Was in the air, and from the distance came The noise of sickles, and the voices sent Out on the stillness of the quiet morn; And the low waters, coming like the strain Of a pervading melody, stole in, And made all music! ’Twas a holiness Of nature’s making, and I lifted up My heart to Heaven, and in my gladness prayed That if a heart were sad, or if a tear Were living upon earth, it might be theirs To go abroad in nature, and to see A mother and her gentle babes like these.

FUGITIVE PIECES.

THE SOLDIER’S WIDOW.

Wo! for my vine-clad home! That it should ever be so dark to me, With its bright threshold, and its whispering tree! That I should ever come, Fearing the lonely echo of a tread, Beneath the roof-tree of my glorious dead!

Lead on! my orphan boy! Thy home is not so desolate to thee, And the low shiver in the linden tree May bring to thee a joy; But, oh! how dark is the bright home before thee, To her who with a joyous spirit bore thee!

Lead on! for thou art now My sole remaining helper. God hath spoken, And the strong heart I leaned upon is broken; And I have seen his brow, The forehead of my upright one, and just, Trod by the hoof of battle to the dust.

He will not meet thee there Who blest thee at the eventide, my son! And when the shadows of the night steal on, He will not call to prayer. The lips that melted, giving thee to God, Are in the icy keeping of the sod!

Aye, my own boy! thy sire Is with the sleepers of the valley cast, And the proud glory of my life hath past, With his high glance of fire. Wo! that the linden and the vine should bloom, And a just man be gathered to the tomb!

Why, bear them proudly, boy! It is the sword he girded to his thigh, It is the helm he wore in victory! And shall we have no joy? For thy green vales, O Switzerland, he died! I will forget my sorrow--in my pride!

THE BURIAL OF ARNOLD,

MEMBER OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF YALE COLLEGE.

Ye’ve gathered to your place of prayer With slow and measured tread; Your ranks are full, your mates all there; But the soul of one has fled. He was the proudest in his strength, The manliest of ye all; Why lies he at that fearful length, And ye around his pall?

Ye reckon it in days since he Strode up that foot-worn aisle, With his dark eye flashing vividly, And his lip wreathed with a smile. Oh! had it been but told you then To mark whose lamp was dim, From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men, Would ye have singled him?

Whose was the sinewy arm which flung Defiance to the ring? Whose laugh of victory loudest rung, Yet not for glorying? Whose heart, in generous deed and thought, No rivalry might brook, And yet distinction claiming not? There lies he; go and look!

On now! his requiem is done; The last deep prayer is said. On to his burial, comrades! on, With the noblest of the dead! Slow! for it presses heavily; It is a man ye bear! Slow! for our thoughts dwell wearily On the noble sleeper there.

Tread lightly, comrades! we have laid His dark locks on his brow Like life, save deeper light and shade; We’ll not disturb them now. Tread lightly; for ’tis beautiful, That blue-veined eyelid’s sleep, Hiding the eye death left so dull; Its slumber we will keep.

Rest now! his journeying is done; Your feet are on his sod. Death’s chain is on your champion; Here waiteth he his God! Aye, turn and weep! ’tis manliness To be heart-broken here; For the grave of earth’s best nobleness Is watered by the tear.

TO LAURA W----,

TWO YEARS OF AGE.

Bright be the skies that cover thee, Child of the sunny brow! Bright as the dream flung over thee, By all that meets thee now. Thy heart is beating joyously, Thy voice is like a bird’s, And sweetly breaks the melody Of thy imperfect words. I know no fount that gushes out, As gladly as thy tiny shout.

Thy coral lip is pencilled well, Thy cheek is deeply dyed; Thine eye might shame the fleet gazelle, In all his desert pride; Thy fairy foot’s uncertain step, Thy light bewitching grace, The smile that curls thy sleeping lip, And lights thy radiant face; Have made a gift of beauty up Too fair to taste life’s tainted cup.

I would that thou mightst ever be As beautiful as now; That time might ever leave us free Thy yet unwritten brow! I would life were all poetry To gentle measures set, That nought but chastened melody, Might dim thine eye of jet, Nor one discordant note be spoken, Till God the cunning harp hath broken.

I would--but deeper things than these With woman’s lot are wove; Wrought of intenser sympathies, And nerved by purer love. By the strong spirit’s discipline, By the fierce wrong forgiven, By all that wrings the heart of sin, Is woman won to heaven. ‘Her lot is on thee,’ lovely child! God keep thy spirit undefiled!

I fear thy gentle loveliness, Thy witching tone and air, Thine eye’s beseeching earnestness, May be to thee a snare. For silver stars may purely shine, The waters taintless flow; But they who kneel at woman’s shrine, Breathe on it as they bow. Ye may fling back the gift again, But the crushed flower will leave a stain.

What shall preserve thee, beautiful child! Keep thee, as thou art now? Bring thee, a spirit undefiled, At God’s pure throne to bow? The world is but a broken reed, And life grows early dim-- Who shall be near thee in thy need, To lead thee up, to Him? He who himself was ‘undefiled’-- With Him we trust thee, beautiful child!

SONNET.

TO A PICTURE OF ‘GENEVIEVE,’ BY ALEXANDER.

Thine is a face to look upon and pray That a pure spirit keep thee. I would meet With one so gentle by the streams away, Living with nature; keeping thy pure feet For the unfingered moss, and for the grass Which leaneth where the gentle waters pass. The autumn leaves should sigh thee to thy sleep, And the capricious April, coming on, Awake thee like a flower, and stars should keep A vigil o’er thee like Endymion; And thou for very gentleness shouldst weep, As dew of the night’s quietness comes down. I’ve praised thee, Genevieve! A dream of mine Hath just such dark and shaded eyes as thine.

SONNET.