Part 2

Thine on that heavenly height Are beauty, and warmth, and delight; And long as our parting shall be, Live there in thy summer! nor know How near lie the frost and the snow On hearts that are breaking for thee.

AMONG THE FLAGS

IN DORIC HALL, MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE.

DEAR witnesses, all luminous, eloquent, Stacked thickly on the tesselated floor! The soldier-blood stirs in me, as of yore In sire and grandsire who to battle went: I seem to know the shaded valley tent, The armed and bearded men, the thrill of war, Horses that prance to hear the cannon roar, Shrill bugle-calls, and camp-fire merriment. And as fair symbols of heroic things, Not void of tears mine eyes must e’en behold These banners lovelier as the deeper marred: A panegyric never writ for kings On every tarnished staff and tattered fold; And by them, tranquil spirits standing guard.

CHILD AND FLOWER.

[_From the French of Chateaubriand._][B]

ALONG her coffin-lid the spotless roses rest A father’s sad, sad hand culled from a happy bower; Earth, they were born of thee: take back upon thy breast Young child and tender flower.

To this unhallowed world, ah! let them not return, To this dark world where grief and sin and anguish lower; The winds might wound and break, the sun might parch and burn Young child and tender flower.

Thou sleepest, O Elise! thy years were brief and bright; The burden and the heat are spared thy noonday hour; For dewy morn has flown, and on its pinions light, Young child and tender flower.

FOOTNOTE:

[B] The author’s title runs: “Sur la Fille de mon Ami, enterrée devant moi hier au Cimetière de Passy: 16 Juin, 1832.”

KNIGHT FALSTAFF.

I SAW the dusty curtain, ages old, Its purple tatters twitched aside, and lo! The fourth King Harry’s reign in lusty show Behind, its deeds in living file outrolled Of peace and war; some sage, some mad, and bold: Last, near a tree, a bridled neighing row With latest spoils encumbered, saints do know, By Hal and Hal’s boon cronies; on the wold Laughter of prince and commons; there and here Travellers fleeing; drunken thieves that sang; Wild bells; a tavern’s echoing jolly shout; Signals along the highway, full of cheer; A gate that closed with not incautious clang, When that sweet rogue, bad Jack! came lumbering out.

THE POET.[C]

LISTEN! the mother Croons o’er her darling; Birds to the summer Call from the trees; Sailors in chorus Chant of the ocean: The poet’s heart singeth Songs sweeter than these.

Thy lute, gentle lover, To her thou adorest; Ye troubadours! pæans For princes of Guelph: But Heaven’s own harpers Breathe not in their music The song that his happy heart Sings to itself; The changeless, soft song that it Sings to itself!

FOOTNOTE:

[C] For this trifle, obligations are due to Maestro Mozart. A sunny little opening Andante of his, from the Second Sonata in A major, suggested immediately and quite irresistibly the words here appended, which follow its rhythm throughout.

A CRIMINAL. 1865.

“CLOSE as a mask he wore this fiery sin Of hate; and daring peril foremost, died Ere yet the wrath of law was justified, Hopeless, with memory such as miscreants win. One sacred head he smote, encircled in A people’s arms; and shook, with storms allied, The pillars of the world from side to side.”... E’en so the Angel’s record must begin. Show me not anguish since that traitor-stroke Rang o’er the brunt of war; yet child, O child! When later days bring bitter thoughts, recall, No maledictions on his name I spoke, Catching lost cues; but asked, well-reconciled, God, our Interpreter, to right us all.

ORIENT-BORN.

BEAUTIFUL olive-brown brows, chin where the fairy-print lies; Vagrant dark tresses above splendid mysterious eyes;

Mellowest fires that glow under the calm of her face, Girl of all girls in the world for mould and for color and grace.

Such are the opal-like maids that flash in the groves to and fro, Dancers Arabian; such, languorous ages ago,

Ptolemy’s daughter; and so, breathing faint cassia and musk, Veilèd young Moors on divans, singing and sighing at dusk.

Never in opiate dreams have I o’ertaken you, sweet; Never with henna-tipped hands; never with silken-shod feet;

Still the love-charm of the East must over and over be told: By-and-by havoc with hearts!... Ah, slowly, my seven-year-old!

CHARONDAS.

HE lifted his forehead, and stood at his height, And gathered the cloak round his noble age, This man, the law-giver, Charondas the Greek; And loud the Eubœans called to him: “Speak, We listen and learn, O sage!”

“In peace shall ye come where the people be,” Spake the lofty figure with flashing eyes: “But whoso comes armed to the public hall Shall suffer his death before us all.” And the hearers believed him wise.

The years sped quick and the years dragged slow; In council oft was the throng arrayed, But never the statued chamber saw The gleam of a weapon; for loving the law, The Greeks from their hearts obeyed.

War’s challenge knocked at the city gates; Students flocked to the front, grown bold; The strong men, girded, faced up to the north; The women wept to the gods; and forth Went the brave of the days of old.

Peace winged her flight to the city gates; Young men and strong, they followed fast Back to the breast of their fair, free land: Charondas, afar on the foreign strand, Remained at his post the last.

Their leader he, in war as in word, The fire of youth for his life-long lease, The strength of Mars in the arm that stood Seven hot decades upheld for good In the turbulent courts of Greece.

The fight is finished, the council meets. Who is the tardy comer without In cuirass and shield, and with clanking sword, Who strides up the aisles without a word, Rousing that awe-struck shout?

The tardy comer home from the field— Great gods! the first to forget and belie The law he honored, the law he formed: “Charondas—stand! you enter armed,” With a shudder the hundreds cry.

The men who loved him on every side, The men he led to the victor’s gain, He paused a moment, the fearless Greek; A sudden glow on his ashen cheek, A sudden thought in his brain.

“I seal the law with my soul and might: I do not break it,” Charondas said. He raised his blade, and plunged to the hilt. Ah! vain their rush, for in glory and guilt, He lay on the marble, dead.

CRAZY MARGARET.

THAT is she across the way, Dressed as for a holiday, Wandering aimlessly along In oblivion of the throng, With her lay of old regret; That is crazy Margaret.

And her tale floats up and down This enchanted Norman town, Told among the wharves and ships, On the children’s babbling lips, Over gossips’ window-sills, In the rectory, thro’ the mills.

Very sad and very brief, Graven on a cypress leaf, Is the record of her days. When the aloes were ablaze Long ago, in summertide, He maid Margaret cherished, died.

Hush! there is the holier part: He knew nothing of her heart. Tears thrilled in her lustrous eye But to see him passing by, And she turned from many a claim Dreaming on that dearest name.

Solely on his thoughts intent The rapt student came and went, All the gladness in his looks Sprung from visions and from books, Grave with all, and kind to her, His meek peasant worshipper.

So she loved him to the last, Keeping her soul’s secret fast, Suffering much and speaking naught Of the woe her loving wrought; Till the second summertide, The young stranger drooped and died.

At the grave, before them all, In the market, in the hall, Down the forest-paths alone, Ever since, in undertone She goes singing soft and slow: “When I meet him, he shall know.”

Therefore is she eager yet, Poor, unhappy Margaret, Holding still, in faith and truth, The lost idyl of her youth, Seeking fondly and thro’ tears, One who sleeps these forty years.

Should he haunt our Norman coast, Should he come, the gentle ghost; Should she tell him of her pain, Of her passion hushed and vain,— Would he grieve? or would he care? What a tragic chance is there!

TO THE WINDING CHARLES.

THOU wanderer, what longing hath Thee peace on earth denied, Ah, tell me: constant in no path, Thy pensive currents glide.

From dim pursuit and mocking zest, Would I could set thee free! My soul hath its divine unrest, Dear river, like to thee.

MY NEIGHBOR.[D]

WHO art thou that nigh to me Alone dost dwell, perpetually? The latch against thy door is mute, I have not heard thy kind salute, And though I live here at the gate, Have never known thy birth or state, Nor seen thy wide colonial lands With slaves obeying all commands, Or children playing at thy knee; Ah, neighbor mine, unneighborly!

The sun beats hard upon thy roof, The tree’s cool shadow waves aloof; Thou dost not heed, nor speak in ire, Nor wound thy calm with vain desire. The cones that patter as they fall, The drifts that build thine outer wall, The rains that glisten in the trace Of thine inscription, dimmed apace, The winds that blow, the birds that sing,— Thou carest not for any thing!

Two centuries and more art thou In solitude abiding; now This town is other than thy town; Its lanes are highways broad and brown; The oaken houses of thy day, And inns, and booths, are swept away. Strange spires would meet thine eager eye, New ships sail in, new banners fly; And names are kept of them that fell In wars to thee incredible.

How beautiful thine endless rest! The quiet conscience in thy breast, Thy hidden place of peace, where pass The ghost-like stirrings of the grass; The long immunity from strife, The tumult, love; the trouble, life; The blossom at thy feet, to be A thousand summers, dust like thee; The winding-sheet, that white as worth, Shuts all thy failings in the earth.

My silent neighbor! thou and I Keep unobtrusive company. For us each wild October weaves The glistening clouds, the glowing leaves, And March by March the robin sings, Against the solemn porch of King’s, His sweet good-morrow to us both. O be not harsh with me, nor wroth, That I, apart from all the throng, Break, too, thy silence with a song!

FOOTNOTE:

[D] Jacob Sheafe, an old Boston worthy, laid away in 1658, in a quiet northerly corner of King’s Chapel Burying-Ground.

THE SEA-GULL.

OVER the ships that are anchored, Over the fleets that part, Over the cities dark by the shore, High as a dream thou art!

Beautiful is thy coming, Light is thy wing as it goes; And O but to leap and follow this hour Thy perfect flight to the close,

O but to leap and follow Where freedom and rest may be; Where the soul that I loved in surpassing love Hath vanished away, with thee!

LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY.

DARLING of the cloistered flowers, Rising meekly after showers, Every cup a waving censer,— Winds are softer at thy coming; By thee goes the wild bee, humming Music richer and intenser.

Indian balsam is thy breathing, Sabbath stillness thy enwreathing; Peace and thee no thought can sever. In thy plaintive looks and tender, Things of long-forgotten splendor Thrill my inmost spirit ever.

And I love thee in such fashion, With so much of truth and passion, In this sad wish to enshrine thee: Only pure hearts be thy wearers, Only gentlest hands thy bearers, Even if therefore mine resign thee;

Even if now I yield thee wholly To the pure and gentle solely, On whose breast thy cheek is lying! Droop and glisten where she laid thee, And remember me that made thee, Dear, so happy in thy dying.

LOVER LOQUITUR.

LIEGE lady! believe me, All night, from my pillow I heard, but to grieve me, The plash of the willow; The rain on the towers, The winds without number, In the gloom of the hours, And denial of slumber:

And nigh to the dawning,— My heart aching blindly, Unresting and mourning That you were unkindly— What did I ostensibly, Ah, what under heaven, Liege lady! but sensibly Doze till eleven?

VITALITY.

WHEN I was born and wheeled upon my way, As fire in stars my ready life did glow, And thrill me thro’, and mount to lips and lids: I was as dead when I died yesterday As those mild shapes Egyptian, that we know Since Memnon sang, are housed in pyramids.

TO THE RIVER.

FRIEND CHARLES! ’tis long since even for a space We stood in cordial parley: you and I, (Albeit about the selfsame city lie The daily orbits we in silence pace), Seldom, how seldom, see each other’s face! Always had you a mill to turn near by, A race to aid; and I, with scarce a sigh, Passed, on like duties bound with heavy grace. But now good Leisure puts all things in tune, Now o’er their brimming bowls in odorous whiff The gods send up the clouds above us curled, Let us go forth, my Charles! thro’ fields of June Together, gladly, lovingly, as if We could not have enough of this sweet world.

THE SECOND TIME THEY MET.

“OH, would I might see my love,” sang he, As he dreamed in his true heart of her, As he rode that day up the highway wide, With his feathers gay, and the lute at his side; “Oh, would I might see my love,” sang he, “My love that knows not I love her.”

“Oh, would I might see my love,” sang she, As she sat in the porch above him, With the web half-spun in her fingers fair, And a ray of the sun in her brown, brown hair; “Oh, would I might see my love,” sang she, “My love that knows not I love him.”

Then as their eyes met, with a start I forget Whether shame, or delight, or sorrow, The sky in its glow seemed to interest her, And he bent very low to fasten his spur; But “Oh, would I might see my love,”—dear me! They sang it no more till the morrow.

ON NOT READING A POSTHUMOUS WORK.[E]

THEY stirred the carven agate door Back from the cloisters, where of yore One toiled by night, and toiling, kept The starlight on his bended head: “O enter with us, straight and free, The master’s place of mystery; Had he not gone beyond the sea, He would have bid us come,” they said.

But from the threshold hushed and gray The loiterer turned, and made his way From arch to arch, and answered low, Pale with some ever-deepening dread: “What he once promised to unfold, Without him, how shall I behold? O enter you whose hearts are bold; My heart hath failed me here,” he said.

Thou dead magician, be it so! I close thy pages, and forego The beauty other men may scan With much of awe and tenderness; And if this blessing half-divine, With gracious sorrow I resign To faith that firmer is than mine, Thou knowest if I love thee less!

FOOTNOTE:

[E] Hawthorne’s “Doctor Grimshawe.”

BESSY IN THE STORM.

“WHY come ye in with tresses wild, With baffling winds aweary, All damp and cold, my bonny girl, My deary?

“The sun not yet has oped his lids, The clouds hold fast together; Why stirred ye out this angry morn, And whither?”

“O mother mine! mayhap I rose To fetch the gillyflower, Or soothe my sister’s little son An hour;

“Or else I led a bleating lamb, Strayed off from any other, Or went to pray at break of day, Sweet mother!”

“My Bess, my lass, deceive me not; So long it had not taken.” “O no; O no! I did for grief Awaken.

“My true love never you have seen, Down by the ships I found him; In all the gale, I held mine arms Around him.

“He spake to me, he kissed me thrice, And sailed the seas a-mourning; And then my tears rained with the rain Returning.”

AFTER A DUEL.

“In fair and discreet manhood; that is, civilly, by the sword.”—_Ben Jonson._

BY laurels upon your brow New-placed, our worth is reckoned: You are a hero now, And I,—a dead man’s second.

Your prowess was most fair, And fairer yet I own it; A majesty lies there, And you have overthrown it.

To dexterous hands was given Your weapon giant-hewing; The lightning out from heaven Had scarcely dared its doing!

For balm on wounds aghast Supreme in you my trust is; Solicitous to the last, Your pity tempered justice.

Thanks, to my final breath, For challenge, thrust, and parry. With this pale weight of death Your living praise I carry.

I see no hate abhorr’d, But courtesy acting thro’ you: The Devil, sweet my lord, Be thus considerate to you!

In honor, after a lapse, Dare you to combat sprightly, Thenceforth you chance mishaps To superintend,—politely.

INDIFFERENCE.

AS once in a town thro’ the twilight pleasant A belfry chorus majestic rose, While our talk ran on, and the good lamp glistened, And nothing you recked, rapt soul! but listened, And followed on truant wing incessant After the chime to its silvern close;

So later, when over your gentle pages, The harsh world wronged you with scorn and sting, By the far-away joy in your blue eye growing, I knew that beyond these ill winds blowing, You heard, my Poet! the praise of the ages; Only and ever you heard them sing.

THE PLEDGING.

“WE buried a loving heart to-day; We miss his coming over the way, The toss of his hair, his laughter’s ring;

“The radiant presence gone from earth; The serious eyes that could shine with mirth, The luminous brain, the hand of a king;

“So, losing him as we did, I say Fill up the goblets, and glad and gay On his lonely road we will drink him cheer:

“Health to the fine old friend we knew! Peace to his slumbers under the dew! Hail to his memory kind and dear!

“And for second pledge, fill up to the brim; (Laugh lightly, what if our eyes be dim!) Here’s to the first that shall follow him.”

The sun ran riot across the floor; Pomegranate-blossoms swung by the door; Blithe robins lit on the ivied sill:

The voice in the gurgle of wine was lost; Up from the board were the beakers tossed; Loud clashed their rims with a royal will.

And he, the youngest, that swayed them erst, Poured yet again, like a man athirst: “To the first who follows we drink, we three!”

Sudden beside him Another stood, So sudden, he fell as the sandal-wood Sinks when the axe is laid to the tree:

But the Shadow lifted his cup instead With the old quick smile, and the toss of the head: “Franz! thou art the first to follow!” he said.

AT GETTYSBURG.

BELLS of victory are dumb; Trailing sword and muffled drum On we come,

Downcast eyes and broken tread, Weary arms, and burdenèd With our dead.

Lives were proffered: reck not his; For dear Freedom’s ransom is Sacrifice.

Proud our love is, nor at last With a sorrow that is past Overcast.

O’er the very clay we bring, Meet it is that we should sing Triumphing:

He was foremost, he was leal; Let his gallant breast reveal Honor’s seal.

Him we yield the Roman crown, Woven bays; in his renown Lay him down.

Earth will softest pillow make, So that never heart shall ache For his sake;

Spring will pass here many a day, Sighing, one with thoughts that pray Far away,

“When the trumpets shake the sod, Raise Thy Knight from this dull clod, Lord our God!”

EARLY DEATH.

A YOUNG bird fell last night across the dark And was not. In the willow hung its nest; But yesterday, with proud and beating breast, From bough to bough it crossed a fairy arc; Among its kindred barely did we hark Its first delightful carol, or note the crest Grow into golden-violet loveliest; There was no dial in our thought to mark The sealèd possibilities of days, The unwrought miracle of happy singing: And now, tho’ newly fail our earthly sense, Elsewhere that delicate intelligence Bursts into blossom of harmonious lays, All summer on a comely tree-top swinging.

MY SOPRANO.

(H. L.)

LOVING her, what should I fail to do for her?— Keep season on season sunny and blue for her, Lengthen her days like a happy tale, With thoughts all tender and hearts all true for her,

Ward her from trouble, good tidings bring to her; Fight for her, laugh with her, comfort her, cling to her, But if I were even a nightingale, I wonder—if I should dare to sing to her!

THE CROSS ROADS.

OUT from the prison at twilight, With stealthy, terrible swiftness, Darted one of the branded, life beating in every vein; Freedom stirring his pulses, Gladness and fear and longing Surging thro’ brain and body with precious unwonted pain.

Out from the damp, dark cell, The shackles, the sorrowful silence, Out from the ring of faces and the jarring of stern commands, Forth to the scent of the meadows, The glisten of garrulous brooklets, And the dim, kindly evening he blessed with his weary hands.

On, like the sweep of a scimitar Dashed he, cutting the darkness, Or as the storm blows on, none knowing its way or its will; Cumbered with horrible fears, Leaped he the perilous ledges Reaching the village that lay in the valley, untroubled and still.

Midway of his sickening haste, Sudden he faltered and moaned, Seeing three stand by a window, as the breeze loitering blew; A woman sad-featured and patient, Two golden heads at her shoulder, Dear eyes he made shine once—dear childish hair that he knew!

Not yet, for surely the bloodhounds Would track him thither to-morrow; Not yet! tho’ soon that door should open, as long ago: Dashing the tear from his cheeks, The bronze, rough cheeks that it hallowed, He rushed on. Had they seen it, the poor, wan face? Did they know?

Here meet the roads: see, eastways, The long, clear track to the forest, There, with chestnuts shaded, the path to the inland town: Behind, a glimpse of the village, Front—four sharp cliffs to the ocean; Quickly, which shall he choose? Hark! the captors are hunting him down!

Shuffle of hurrying feet, Breathings nearer and nearer. No choice for a man that is doomed, unless straight to the merciful sea. Up to the toilsome cliffs! Better death than new anguish! A cry, a plunge . . . shine, stars, on the ripples that ring that sea.

Soft in the ominous shadow the branches stir by the meadow, Fair in the lonely distance the dying household glow; Deep in the dust of the street, Just where the four roads meet, Two trembling forms where he stood a moment so; And a wistful child’s voice said, Touched with great trouble and dread: “O little sister! which way did father go?”

“HEART OF GOLD.”

LADY serene, benign, This dainty name of mine, Pride in my bashful eyes Bending to see, With your look eloquent, Oft for glad service lent, Laughingly, lovingly, Gave you to me.

Generous gift bestowed! Lofty desert avowed! Queen and true Knight indeed Played we those days; All of my faith unspent, Full of my child’s content, Shyly, yet haughtily, Wore I your praise.

O for that happy sport Once in your mimic court! O for your voice again, Lips silencèd! O for the olden name Ere disillusion came; O for “the golden heart,” Too, that is dead!

A JACOBITE REVIVAL.

ONE voice I heard of a ghostly horde, About a visionary board, That said, While goblets filled with ruby-red: “Can you remember, good my lord,

“Among the newer creeds and laws, The unrevived, pathetic cause Of kings? Can you remember all such things? How long, how long ago it was!