Part 10

Surely, surely, I thought, these breathers of harmony cannot be ugly spiders. They are too human--or shall I say too divine?--for that. I had been so absorbed in the two songs that, strange perhaps to say, though I think not, I had scarcely noticed the spiders themselves nor their illuminated web-woven words. I felt now that the songs were nearly ended; and through tear-dimmed eyes, I looked once more at the page on my desk. How strangely brighter the light seemed to be, yet so softer!

Could it be possible! Wasn’t this, after all, some dream?--I dashed the tears from my eyes with my left hand.--No, I was wide awake. No doubt about that. There, too, that light from the words was even brighter than when it was seen through my tears.

Surely, surely, these were not spiders; but spirits, rather, in this disguise. As this thought flew through my brain, I removed the fifth finished page of manuscript, when lo! I almost screamed for mercy that no more revelations be made to me. For the spider glided to the top of the new page, and as he did so, I saw and marveled how much smaller he had grown, as if he had spun his whole body away in his glowing web. But still stranger transformation: All about him, like a spirit embodying the body, was a dim halo of light, such as a star often forms of the mists, that doubtless had been forming from the first although I had not noticed it, having been too absorbed in the songs themselves.

As I looked steadily, transfixed by this new revelation, I saw that haloing light, as true as I live, shape itself in a half human form; and like a light-enhaloed star moving across the scroll of the Almighty in spheric music set to angel words, this transformed being of light trembled across the page before me and trailed these gold-enlighted words through the solemn rhythm of the olden melody.--

By the babbling little brook, In a quiet, shaded nook, Sleeps my loved and lost one now. Over pallid lip and brow Grow the scented flowers wild Bright as when I wandered o’er This same spot when but a child In those happy days of yore.

Many years have come and gone Since that face I’ve looked upon; Many weary paths I’ve trod Since we laid her ’neath the sod. Still I wander, sad and lone; Still my heart is grieved and sore, For she sleeps beneath the stone Since those happy days of yore.

Thoughts of the dead always affect me beyond expression. The thought of the death of this darling girl, glorious in her own true heart, I can but feel, and glorified even more by the unfailing constancy and eternal love of him who, grown old and gray, still keeps her ever in his heart, so affected me that my own heart seemed almost broken. I could endure no more, and turned away. But as I did so,--O sweet angels of mercy! was there no escape?--there the other heaven-gifted musician, spirit-embodied, halo-enshrouded like the first, met my eyes, and I was forced against my will to listen to the most plaintive, most pathetic melody that had yet grieved my heart.--

In a grave down by the seashore, She was laid by loving hands Where old ocean sings a requiem Evermore upon the sands. There the summer tide is flowing As I stand upon the shore, And it calls up sacred mem’ries Of the happy times of yore. Fragments of a wreck are drifting On the surface of a wave-- Emblem of my hopes and prospects, Wrecked, and lying in her grave.

Many weary years have vanished, Years of wand’ring, sad and lone, Since that pure angelic spirit Joined the seraphs round the throne. O’er her grave beside the ocean, Lovingly the stars still shine, While the tide’s wild song of gladness Seems to bear her voice divine. Oft in dreams I see my lost one, Hear her voice as soft and low As a strain of far-off music;-- But the dawn brings back my woe.

Bowed with unutterable grief,--grief that was so severe that it choked back every tear into my heart,--I buried my head in my arms to shut out both sight and sound, and wept as tearless grief alone can weep. The angel-images of the two that had gone Home, forever to await the happier marriage in eternal union there, I saw looking down compassionately, while the two mourners left behind were constantly reaching upwards toward those loved ones beyond their ken in the dim unknown, and sometimes almost touching the finger-tips of the hands unseen! Yes; and the music! I heard it over, and over, and over again, sometimes near, sometimes far, always sweet and tremulous, sometimes sounding in my ear, sometimes dying away and echoing back from the dome of that Home above.

When again my fevered eyes looked upon the page, I wondered if it could be that these embodiments of both verse and music could be changing so rapidly, or if the change had been going on constantly without my notice. Both transformed--I know not now what to call them--had now become so small that I could scarcely distinguish their bodies through the spirit-like halo. And that halo every moment grew more and more human--no, not human; but, though an embodying spirit, it grew more and more like a disembodied human soul. Less and less visible became the body of each, more and more like a human soul became the halo of each as the first wove itself away into the final web.--

Oh, my heart is sad and lone And it sighs with heaving groan As it dreams its dreams of woe Of the silent long ago. But I’ve reached the river’s brink; Soon I’ll dip the golden oar, And beneath the waves will sink All those happy days of yore.

Soon I’ll greet my bright Lenore Where we’ll meet to part no more; Soon I’ll reach the golden sands Where I’ll clasp her angel hands; Soon I’ll kiss her seraph brow On that bright angelic shore, Where I’ll dream no more, as now, Of those happy days of yore.

The two spirits, thus transforming, were passing away, slipping, slipping away from me back into the mysteriousness whence they came, I felt, as both moved across the page to dirge-like yet a kind of happy and hope-inspiring music. The music of each was so blended with that of the other that I could scarcely distinguish the words of the two as the second soul-dreamer mused through the melody.--

Lost! ah lost!--But not forever: I have reached the golden strand; Soon beyond the crystal ocean We will wander hand in hand; Soon across the deep, dark waters I will go to claim my own From among the shining angels, Where she waits for me alone. We will part no more forever Underneath that heavenly dome; Love and joy shall reign together In that bright eternal home.

But look--look!--there, there just before you. See! see it struggling to rise away. Oh, what wonderful transformation can this be!

As both neared the close, their bodies grew imperceptible, the web-woven words more and more brightly illuminated, and the haloing spirit larger, and larger, more and more distinct, yet more and more attenuated, until--no, no! it--but yes! I must believe it, must believe my eyes!--each took on the form of an angel! As the last word of each was woven, simultaneously, and as the low, faint, plaintive echoes of the music went trembling through the blue distance that still trembles in unison with the hearts of millions, the two _meistersingers_, perfect in angel form with a rarer beauty than I ever saw before, the rarest beauty I ever expect to see, shone radiantly in the night for a moment, like a glory struck out of darkness by a beam from heaven, and vanished like that glory passing out of darkness into heaven again. With my eyes following these disembodied embodiments of Beauty, and my palms out-reaching toward them, thus I sat until, when their passing glory at the same time closed the portals through which they vanished and gave the keys to memory, my nerves relaxed, the intense mingled pain and rapture, which had never ceased, seemed to snap my very heart-chords, and consciousness slid like lead into the lethean flow of the river of oblivion.

How long I sat there, drowned in unrefreshing forgetfulness allied to sleep, I have no recollection, and no possible means of knowing. When again I opened my eyes, the morning was far spent. There was a dull pain in my head, but the circumstances I have just related were all so vivid that the whole scene instantly flashed across my mind. I thought surely it must be a dream. Could it be? I was sitting in my night-dress. I got up from my chair and went to my bed-room. There was my bed, just as I had left it when I rose to follow the strange spirit that controlled me. I went to the wall where I had seen the spider. True enough, there was the thread, but no longer illuminated, just where I had seen it. I put my hand to my forehead as one often does in wondering. When I removed it, there, clinging to my forefinger, was the web that had clung to my forehead. No, I had not been asleep and dreamed all this; that was plain enough. I returned to my chair. There on my desk, as I involuntarily glanced at the well-remembered spot, I saw a still more remarkable confirmation of my having been awake; for there lay the whole poem that I had seen woven by the first spirit, as perfect in every way as if it had been written by human hand. But the characters were no longer illuminated. They had burnt into the paper, and were as black as my own ink. They were all made out, too, in my own style of handwriting, though I declare and affirm to all the world that never before this occurrence had I written one line of poetry. Perhaps it would have been better for me and for you if I had stopped with this--palmed it off as my own on account of the similarity of handwriting; and if I had never trifled with the tricks of the muses thereafter.

I looked on my desk for the other poem, but alas! it could not be found; for, as I have said before, it was only _psychologically_ present to me, while it was _really_ present to some one else. In a few days I had the most remarkable confirmation of this--even more remarkable than what I have related in the preceding.

By the very next mail (I was teaching in the country and got my mail but once a week, on Saturday) I received a letter from my old chum, dated May 8, 1885. As I opened it, behold! that identical poem that I had in my mind seen wrought by the second spirit of beauty fell on my table. In a letter of sixteen quarto pages, he told one substantially the same experience of himself with two spirit-singers--one of them present, the other psychologically present, each unconscious of the other, yet each influencing the other in some indefinable way--as I have here related.

In speaking of the vanishing of the two spirit-forms, he wrote:--

“I firmly believe those two spirits were none other than the angel-forms of the two maidens the poems celebrate; that they have woven their spirits of beauty into these two embodiments of verse that we mortals may be the better for it; and that, when they vanished, they entered these two poems, where they still abide.”

Strange, but this is the same thought that I had had, and still do have. I most sincerely believe it is the only correct conclusion, though I cannot solve the mysteries that are connected with it. Indeed, it would be sacrilege to attempt it.

I still have these original manuscripts that were thus mysteriously wrought. They are lying here on the desk before me as I write; and as I glance across this page at them, the whole scene of that memorable night, more vivid, far, far more vivid than my pen has delineated it for you, comes flashing across my brain. In this quick, bright light of memory, reason marshals the long line of causes that produced this psychological phenomenon; I follow the approaching lines with my mind’s eye, until I am lost in the dim distance of their vanishing perspective, then return, follow again, only to lose myself in the same unfathomable mystery, and so again and again. Though I know some of the causes that produced it, I cannot reach the hidden ones. I could almost fancy still that I had dreamed all this did not these original manuscripts before me constantly remind me of the reality of what I have here set down. They are free for the inspection of all who wish to verify the facts I have related.

I challenge the world to produce two such similar poems, good, bad, or indifferent, written under such remarkable circumstances.

The events I have here recorded are the events of my boyhood, or early manhood, rather, faithfully told. I have long hesitated to publish them for fear that there might be a few in these days of fiction who would doubt their reality. But what makes them a hundredfold more wonderful to me is the truth of all their seemingly impossible facts.

My friend, you think this a strange, strange story, I know. Indeed, I think so too; far more strange to me than to you, for I have felt the truth of it and you have only read it. As true as these two poems exist, the circumstances under which they were written are far, far more strange to me than I can possibly make the story; far, far more strange to me than the weirdest, most wonderful story pen can write.

I have therefore published this account of an incident of my life that it may please some with the strange facts that they will take for mere fancy; that it may waken some to the knowledge that in our most rational moments we are by no means independent, our minds are by no means our own, but are influenced by circumstances, by the psychological action of the minds of our most intimate friends, and by the spiritual power within us and at the same time above us; that it may teach others that out of the most despised creatures of God’s making and care, the Soul of Beauty may come and wed itself to Use by weaving its life into an angel-image of Love that shall dwell in the human heart forever.

BOY BARDS.

TO E. L. H.

Together we thought, Together we wrought; And ever and ever The golden days were fraught With the light and life of Time That dripped like dews From the heart of our Muse Between the buds of rhyme.

Oh never, no never Such rainbow colors were caught From the dripping clouds in pain-- So sweet distraught With the iris wrought Of the mingled shine and rain.

Oh never, no never Such scent in the summer was caught From the morning-glory’s bloom Where the humming-bird Has gently stirred The leaves by the open room.

THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH.

I.

FROM SUN TO SUN.

From sun to sun Till life is done We still aspire, Still have some wish not gratified;

With every breath-- E’en unto death-- We still reach higher, Our hearts are still unsatisfied.

II.

WHAT THE STRIVING?

What means this striving, This toil, this endless labor, This bargaining with our neighbor, This too fast living, This wishing, this longing, This constant thronging Of thoughts of--what? Gods! I know not!-- What means it all, Philosopher, This rise and fall, This hope and fear, This constant changing station Of every man and nation, Or rich Or poor, With koh-i-noor Or bacon flitch, Still envying some other, Still striving ’gainst some brother And justling And hustling And rushing And pushing

As by a mighty cyclone hurled Headlong midway the narrow world, And as it were Made all too small For half to gyrate in, Or even half begin-- What means it all, Philosopher? The rich, the poor, The high, the low, The good, the bad, (And who can tell?) Keep bickering And dickering And chaffering On everything They buy and sell For more and more Of earth, as though Gone staring mad.

Whether the cause Be unequal laws Of God, or man, or neither one, or both, Activity o’ermatching tardy sloth, Some must rise and some must fall In the strife of all for all.

III.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH OURS.

That there should be unjust division Of wealth and life and station Needs, calm, deliberate decision Of every man and nation.

The world is too much ours, And we too much of it. The times are out of joint; The heart is out of tune, And needs the Master’s hand. Like churlish curs we stand And guard our little own, And watch Death’s finger point To Woes, while Pleasures sit And glass the glossing hours.

Like demons, too, we rave Because our neighbors have One jot or tittle more than we; And curse ourselves as slaves Dumb driven to our graves Fast bound from light of liberty.

The remedy lies not in force, Nor in the frenzy of the hour Engendered by the unreasoning mob. ’Tis in a nobler, gentler course Of a higher, nobler power New-born at every true heart-throb.

IV.

HAND AND HEART.

No vain philosophy, That flows from ailing springs of earth Can cure the cankered ills of mortal clay. No, naught save that eternal fountain’s spray That gives the heart immortal birth Can heal humanity.

In every heart at birth That fountain bubbles up To purify this earth With life and love and hope.

But in the hearts of all, Ere life is scarce begun, Some clay of earth must fall To dim the mirrored sun.

True, all (’tis law) must labor; But with the hand alone? And that against a neighbor, His heart our stepping stone?

Nay, with the hand and heart, the rather; For each who climbs above Must reach the door of Him our Father On stepping-stones of love.

V.

COURTING THE CROWD.

Our wrongs we make that make us wrong: We court the crowd; we tickle the public ear; The crowd laughs, and we laugh with it always; we’re Mere puppets dandled by the throng.

We jingle our laughter,-- The world follows after As if it were money; We bow in our sorrow,-- The world bids “good-morrow,” Hey-nonny hey-nonny.

We praise and we flatter,-- The world with a clatter Comes after the honey; We ask when we’re needy,-- The world is too greedy, Hey-nonny hey-nonny.

We’re loved while we’re living If always we’re giving The world something funny; But dead, there’s erected, A stone,--then neglected, Hey-nonny hey-nonny.

So, so! the world is all a cheat And yet we worship at its feet. Deceived by dross of gold and gloss of art, We too much court the hand and not the heart.

VI.

IMMORTAL AND GOD-GIVEN.

Sowing and reaping, Glutting our greed, Getting and keeping, What do we need?

World ever spinning, World never slack, World ever winning, What does it lack?

--What? What not?-- --The greatest thing on earth, The greatest, too, in heaven above, The greatest good of greatest worth, Immortal and God-given,-- Love!

Love that bids no stricken soul depart With honeyed, sweet “good-morrow”; Love that binds and balms the wounded heart And sorrows, too, with sorrow.

Love that loves in field or shop or kirk, Unselfish and ungreedy; Love that teaches toilless hands to work, And leaves no mortal needy.

Love that ne’er forgets a heart that sleeps, Nor leaves its tomb neglected; Love that laughs and weeps and ever keeps The throne of Love erected.

VII.

ASKING HEARTS.

This pushing, This driving, This rushing, This too fast living Is an endless striving Resulting from unsatisfied desire: No peace, no rest, An endless quest, Forever reaching up for something higher,-- For the world is good by nature, And though debased, still looks above. (The heathen even hopes beyond this earth.) Stamped in every line and feature, There is the image still of Love, Sweet Love, fast-graven in the heart at birth.

Our lives-long our asking hearts keep fretting: We beat the tangles of the world’s wide wild-wood, Remorsefully and endlessly regretting The loss of that sweet innocence of childhood.

The world is like us.--We are it! Time-long the noisy nations of the earth Have searched, and only found regret At the loss of Love the child-world had at birth.

And so, we strive, and strive,--we know not why. And not attaining what the heart would have, We set the hand to work; we sweat and slave; Allured by lights around earth’s narrow zone That, followed, fly, we follow on and on; For fame and wealth and power we barter away Our lives; we would be gods: but mortal clay Still clings about our feet, still drags us down, And fetters us to earth without a crown. And so, still unattaining all through life, We follow still the bootless, mortal strife, And laugh, and weep, and flatter, and fret, and--die!-- Die still unsatisfied, Some wish not gratified!

VIII.

THE CROWNING GLORY.

Labor night and day Howsoe’er we may And toil And moil With ceaseless sweating, Forever fretting, Still coping In endless strife And hoping An easier life, Yet with it all Result must fall Far short of aspiration.

’Tis the great Law of laws, Nor far to seek the cause; For in our heart of hearts we know The Law of Life must needs be so That man may climb Through changing time Above this clod Of mouldy mortal earth Back unto God, His home of love at birth, And find in endless life Above The crown of all our strife Is Love, --The crown of all creation.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious spelling, punctuation and printers’ errors haven been silently corrected.

2. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.

3. Hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been kept as in the original.