Chapter 5

Well, the whole thing is over, and here I sit With one arm in a sling and a milk-score of gashes, 50 And this flagon of Cyprus must e'en warm my wit, Since what's left of youth's flame is a head flecked with ashes. I remember I sat in this very same inn,-- I was young then, and one young man thought I was handsome,-- I had found out what prison King Richard was in, And was spurring for England to push on the ransom.

How I scorned the dull souls that sat guzzling around And knew not my secret nor recked my derision! Let the world sink or swim, John or Richard be crowned, All one, so the beer-tax got lenient revision. 60 How little I dreamed, as I tramped up and down, That granting our wish one of Fate's saddest Jokes is! I had mine with a vengeance,--my king got his crown, And made his whole business to break other folks's.

I might as well join in the safe old _tum, tum_: A hero's an excellent loadstar,--but, bless ye, What infinite odds 'twixt a hero to come And your only too palpable hero _in esse!_ Precisely the odds (such examples are rife) 'Twixt the poem conceived and the rhyme we make show of, 70 'Twixt the boy's morning dream and the wake-up of life, 'Twixt the Blondel God meant and a Blondel I know of!

But the world's better off, I'm convinced of it now, Than if heroes, like buns, could be bought for a penny To regard all mankind as their haltered milch-cow, And just care for themselves. Well, God cares for the many; For somehow the poor old Earth blunders along, Each son of hers adding his mite of unfitness, And, choosing the sure way of coming out wrong, Gets to port as the next generation will witness. 80

You think her old ribs have come all crashing through, If a whisk of Fate's broom snap your cobweb asunder; But her rivets were clinched by a wiser than you. And our sins cannot push the Lord's right hand from under. Better one honest man who can wait for God's mind In our poor shifting scene here though heroes were plenty! Better one bite, at forty, of Truth's bitter rind, Than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty!

I see it all now: when I wanted a king, 'Twas the kingship that failed in myself I was seeking,-- 90 'Tis so much less easy to do than to sing, So much simpler to reign by a proxy than _be_ king! Yes, I think I _do_ see; after all's said and sung, Take this one rule of life and you never will rue it,-- 'Tis but do your own duty and hold your own tongue And Blondel were royal himself, if he knew it!

MEMORIAE POSITUM

R.G. SHAW

I

Beneath the trees, My lifelong friends in this dear spot, Sad now for eyes that see them not, I hear the autumnal breeze Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness gone, Whispering vague omens of oblivion, Hear, restless as the seas, Time's grim feet rustling through the withered grace Of many a spreading realm and strong-stemmed race, Even as my own through these. 10

Why make we moan For loss that doth enrich us yet With upward yearning of regret? Bleaker than unmossed stone Our lives were but for this immortal gain Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain! As thrills of long-hushed tone Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine With keen vibrations from the touch divine Of noble natures gone. 20

'Twere indiscreet To vex the shy and sacred grief With harsh obtrusions of relief; Yet, Verse, with noiseless feet, Go whisper: '_This_ death hath far choicer ends Than slowly to impearl to hearts of friends; These obsequies 'tis meet Not to seclude in closets of the heart, But, church-like, with wide doorways, to impart Even to the heedless street.' 30

II

Brave, good, and true, I see him stand before me now. And read again on that young brow, Where every hope was new, _How sweet were life!_ Yet, by the mouth firm-set, And look made up for Duty's utmost debt, I could divine he knew That death within the sulphurous hostile lines, In the mere wreck of nobly pitched designs, Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue. 40

Happy their end Who vanish down life's evening stream Placid as swans that drift in dream Round the next river-bend! Happy long life, with honor at the close, Friends' painless tears, the softened thought of foes! And yet, like him, to spend All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure From mid-life's doubt and eld's contentment poor, What more could Fortune send? 50

Right in the van, On the red rampart's slippery swell, With heart that beat a charge, he fell Foeward, as fits a man; But the high soul burns on to light men's feet Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet; His life her crescent's span Orbs full with share in their undarkening days Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise Since valor's praise began. 60

III

His life's expense Hath won him coeternal youth With the immaculate prime of Truth; While we, who make pretence At living on, and wake and eat and sleep, And life's stale trick by repetition keep, Our fickle permanence (A poor leaf-shadow on a brook, whose play Of busy idlesse ceases with our day) Is the mere cheat of sense. 70

We bide our chance, Unhappy, and make terms with Fate A little more to let us wait; He leads for aye the advance, Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good For nobler Earths and days of manlier mood; Our wall of circumstance Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight, A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right And steel each wavering glance. 80

I write of one, While with dim eyes I think of three; Who weeps not others fair and brave as he? Ah, when the fight is won, Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn, (Thee! from whose forehead Earth awaits her morn,) How nobler shall the sun Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air, That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare And die as thine have done!

ON BOARD THE '76

WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

NOVEMBER 3, 1884

Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side; Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide; Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn, We lay, awaiting morn.

Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair; And she that bare the promise of the world. Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, At random o'er the wildering waters hurled; 10 The reek of battle drifting slow alee Not sullener than we.

Morn came at last to peer into our woe, When lo, a sail! Mow surely help was nigh; The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge; but no, Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes by And hails us:--'Gains the leak! Ay, so we thought! Sink, then, with curses fraught!'

I leaned against my gun still angry-hot, And my lids tingled with the tears held back: 20 This scorn methought was crueller than shot: The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack, Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly far Than such fear-smothered war.

There our foe wallowed, like a wounded brute The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best? Once more tug bravely at the peril's root, Though death came with it? Or evade the test If right or wrong in this God's world of ours Be leagued with mightier powers? 30

Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flag That knits us with our past, and makes us heirs Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 'Neath the all-seeing sun.

But there was one, the Singer of our crew, Upon whose head Age waved his peaceful sign, But whose red heart's-blood no surrender knew; And couchant under brows of massive line, 40 The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, Watched, charged with lightnings yet.

The voices of the hills did his obey; The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song; He brought our native fields from far away, Or set us 'mid the innumerable throng Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm Old homestead's evening psalm.

But now he sang of faith to things unseen, Of freedom's birthright given to us in trust; 50 And words of doughty cheer he spoke between, That made all earthly fortune seem as dust, Matched with that duty, old as Time and new, Of being brave and true.

We, listening, learned what makes the might of words,-- Manhood to back them, constant as a star: His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords, And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and spar Heard him and stiffened; the sails heard, and wooed The winds with loftier mood. 60

In our dark hours he manned our guns again; Remanned ourselves from his own manhood's stores; Pride, honor, country, throbbed through all his strain; And shall we praise? God's praise was his before; And on our futile laurels he looks down, Himself our bravest crown.

ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION

JULY 21, 1865

I

Weak-winged is song, Nor aims at that clear-ethered height Whither the brave deed climbs for light: We seem to do them wrong, Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse, Our trivial song to honor those who come With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: 10 Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, A gracious memory to buoy up and save From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave Of the unventurous throng.

II

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back Her wisest Scholars, those who understood The deeper teaching of her mystic tome, And offered their fresh lives to make it good: No lore of Greece or Rome, No science peddling with the names of things, 20 Or reading stars to find inglorious fates, Can lift our life with wings Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits, And lengthen out our dates With that clear fame whose memory sings In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all! Not such the trumpet-call Of thy diviner mood, That could thy sons entice 30 From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest Of those half-virtues which the world calls best, Into War's tumult rude; But rather far that stern device The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood In the dim, unventured wood, The VERITAS that lurks beneath The letter's unprolific sheath, Life of whate'er makes life worth living, Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food, 40 One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.

III

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil Amid the dust of books to find her, Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, 50 Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her. Where faith made whole with deed 60 Breathes its awakening breath Into the lifeless creed, They saw her plumed and mailed, With sweet, stern face unveiled. And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.

IV

Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides Into the silent hollow of the past; What is there that abides To make the next age better for the last? Is earth too poor to give us 70 Something to live for here that shall outlive us? Some more substantial boon Than such as flows and ebbs with Fortune's fickle moon? The little that we see From doubt is never free; The little that we do Is but half-nobly true; With our laborious hiving What men call treasure, and the gods call dross, Life seems a fest of Fate's contriving, 80 Only secure in every one's conniving, A long account of nothings paid with loss, Where we poor puppets, jerked by unseen wires, After our little hour of strut and rave, With all our pasteboard passions and desires, Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires, Are tossed pell-mell together in the grave. But stay! no age was e'er degenerate, Unless men held it at too cheap a rate, For in our likeness still we shape our fate. 90 Ah, there is something here Unfathomed by the cynic's sneer, Something that gives our feeble light A high immunity from Night, Something that leaps life's narrow bars To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven; A seed of sunshine that can leaven Our earthly dullness with the beams of stars, And glorify our clay With light from fountains elder than the Day; 100 A conscience more divine than we, A gladness fed with secret tears, A vexing, forward-reaching sense Of some more noble permanence; A light across the sea, Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, Still beaconing from the heights of undegenerate years.

V

Whither leads the path To ampler fates that leads? Not down through flowery meads, 110 To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds, But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword 120 Dreams in its easeful sheath; But some day the live coal behind the thought, Whether from Baäl's stone obscene, Or from the shrine serene Of God's pure altar brought, Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men: Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 130 Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful: 'Was it, then, my praise, And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate!' Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; 140 But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs.

VI

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 150 Whom late the Nation he had led. With ashes on her head, Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating as by rote: 160 For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true, How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, 170 But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; 180 Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. Nothing of Europe here, Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface And thwart her genial will; Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 190 I praise him not; it were too late; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate, So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, 201 Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American.

VII

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern Or only guess some more inspiring goal 210 Outside of Self, enduring as the pole, Along whose course the flying axles burn Of spirits bravely pitched, earth's manlier brood, Long as below we cannot find The meed that stills the inexorable mind; So long this faith to some ideal Good, Under whatever mortal names it masks, Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks, Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 220 While others skulk in subterfuges cheap, And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks, Shall win man's praise and woman's love, Shall be a wisdom that we set above All other skills and gifts to culture dear, A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe Laurels that with a living passion breathe When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 230 Save that our brothers found this better way?

VIII

We sit here in the Promised Land That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; But 'twas they won it, sword in hand, Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk. We welcome back our bravest and our best;-- Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here! I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, But the sad strings complain, 240 And will not please the ear: I sweep them for a pæan, but they wane Again and yet again Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps, Dark to the triumph which they died to gain: Fitlier may others greet the living, For me the past is unforgiving; I with uncovered head 250 Salute the sacred dead, Who went, and who return not.--Say not so! 'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No ban of endless night exiles the brave; And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: 260 I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 270 Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!

IX

But is there hope to save Even this ethereal essence from the grave? What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song? Before my musing eye The mighty ones of old sweep by, Disvoicèd now and insubstantial things, As noisy once as we; poor ghosts of kings, Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust, 280 And many races, nameless long ago, To darkness driven by that imperious gust Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow: O visionary world, condition strange, Where naught abiding is but only Change, Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and range! Shall we to more continuance make pretence? Renown builds tombs, a life-estate is Wit; And, bit by bit, The cunning years steal all from us but woe; 290 Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow. But, when we vanish hence, Shall they lie forceless in the dark below, Save to make green their little length of souls, Or deepen pansies for a year or two, Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods? Was dying all they had the skill to do? That were not fruitless: but the Soul resents Such short-lived service, as if blind events Ruled without her, or earth could so endure; 300 She claims a more divine investiture Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents; Whate'er she touches doth her nature share; Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air, Gives eyes to mountains blind, Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind, And her clear trump slugs succor everywhere By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind; For soul inherits all that soul could dare: Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 310 And larger privilege of life than man. The single deed, the private sacrifice, So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears, Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years; But that high privilege that makes all men peers, That leap of heart whereby a people rise Up to a noble anger's height, And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright, That swift validity in noble veins, 320 Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, Of being set on flame By the pure fire that flies all contact base But wraps its chosen with angelic might, These are imperishable gains, Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, These hold great futures in their lusty reins And certify to earth a new imperial race.

X

Who now shall sneer? Who dare again to say we trace 330 Our lines to a plebeian race? Roundhead and Cavalier! Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, They flit across the ear: That is best blood that hath most iron in 't, To edge resolve with, pouring without stint For what makes manhood dear. Tell us not of Plantagenets, Hapsburgs, and Guelfs, whose thin bloods crawl 340 Down from some victor in a border-brawl! How poor their outworn coronets, Matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath Our brave for honor's blazon shall bequeath, Through whose desert a rescued Nation sets Her heel on treason, and the trumpet hears Shout victory, tingling Europe's sullen ears With vain resentments and more vain regrets!

XI

Not in anger, not in pride, Pure from passion's mixture rude 350 Ever to base earth allied, But with far-heard gratitude, Still with heart and voice renewed, To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, The strain should close that consecrates our brave. Lift the heart and lift the head! Lofty be its mood and grave, Not without a martial ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: 360 Little right has he to sing Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all, 370 For her time of need, and then Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower! How could poet ever tower, If his passions, hopes, and fears, If his triumphs and his tears, Kept not measure with his people? 380 Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves! Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! Banners, adance with triumph, bend your staves! And from every mountain-peak Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, Till the glad news be sent Across a kindling continent, Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: 390 'Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, She of the open soul and open door, With room about her hearth for all mankind! The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 400 No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, enthroned between her subject seas.'

XII

Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! Thy God, in these distempered days, Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of his ways, And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! Bow down in prayer and praise! 410 No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow. O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, 420 Among the Nations bright beyond compare? What were our lives without thee? What all our lives to save thee? We reck not what we gave thee; We will not dare to doubt thee, But ask whatever else, and we will dare!

L'ENVOI

TO THE MUSE

Whither? Albeit I follow fast, In all life's circuit I but find, Not where thou art, but where thou wast, Sweet beckoner, more fleet than wind! I haunt the pine-dark solitudes, With soft brown silence carpeted, And plot to snare thee in the woods: Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled! I find the rock where thou didst rest, The moss thy skimming foot hath prest; 10 All Nature with thy parting thrills, Like branches after birds new-flown; Thy passage hill and hollow fills With hints of virtue not their own; In dimples still the water slips Where thou hast dipt thy finger-tips; Just, just beyond, forever burn Gleams of a grace without return; Upon thy shade I plant my foot, And through my frame strange raptures shoot; 20 All of thee but thyself I grasp; I seem to fold thy luring shape, And vague air to my bosom clasp, Thou lithe, perpetual Escape!

One mask and then another drops, And thou art secret as before; Sometimes with flooded ear I list, And hear thee, wondrous organist, From mighty continental stops A thunder of new music pour; 30 Through pipes of earth and air and stone Thy inspiration deep is blown; Through mountains, forests, open downs, Lakes, railroads, prairies, states, and towns, Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on From Maine to utmost Oregon; The factory-wheels in cadence hum, From brawling parties concords come; All this I hear, or seem to hear, But when, enchanted, I draw near 40 To mate with words the various theme, Life seems a whiff of kitchen steam, History an organ-grinder's thrum, For thou hast slipt from it and me And all thine organ-pipes left dumb, Most mutable Perversity!

Not weary yet, I still must seek, And hope for luck next day, next week; I go to see the great man ride, Shiplike, the swelling human tide 50 That floods to bear him into port, Trophied from Senate-hall and Court; Thy magnetism, I feel it there, Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare, Making the Mob a moment fine With glimpses of their own Divine, As in their demigod they see Their cramped ideal soaring free; 'Twas thou didst bear the fire about, That, like the springing of a mine, 60 Sent up to heaven the street-long shout; Full well I know that thou wast here, It was thy breath that brushed my ear; But vainly in the stress and whirl I dive for thee, the moment's pearl.

Through every shape thou well canst run, Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun, Well pleased with logger-camps in Maine As where Milan's pale Duomo lies A stranded glacier on the plain, 70 Its peaks and pinnacles of ice Melted in many a quaint device, And sees, above the city's din, Afar its silent Alpine kin: I track thee over carpets deep To wealth's and beauty's inmost keep; Across the sand of bar-room floors Mid the stale reek of boosing boors; Where browse the hay-field's fragrant heats, Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats; 80 I dog thee through the market's throngs To where the sea with myriad tongues Laps the green edges of the pier, And the tall ships that eastward steer, Curtsy their farewells to the town, O'er the curved distance lessening down: I follow allwhere for thy sake, Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake, Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies, Warm from thy limbs, thy last disguise; 90 But thou another shape hast donned, And lurest still just, just beyond!

But here a voice, I know not whence, Thrills clearly through my inward sense, Saying: 'See where she sits at home While thou in search of her dost roam! All summer long her ancient wheel Whirls humming by the open door, Or, when the hickory's social zeal Sets the wide chimney in a roar, 100 Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth, It modulates the household mirth With that sweet serious undertone Of duty, music all her own; Still as of old she sits and spins Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins; With equal care she twines the fates Of cottages and mighty states; She spins the earth, the air, the sea, The maiden's unschooled fancy free, 110 The boy's first love, the man's first grief, The budding and the fall o' the leaf; The piping west-wind's snowy care For her their cloudy fleeces spare, Or from the thorns of evil times She can glean wool to twist her rhymes; Morning and noon and eve supply To her their fairest tints for dye, But ever through her twirling thread There spires one line of warmest red, 120 Tinged from the homestead's genial heart, The stamp and warrant of her art; With this Time's sickle she outwears, And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears.

'Harass her not: thy heat and stir But greater coyness breed in her; Yet thou mayst find, ere Age's frost, Thy long apprenticeship not lost, Learning at last that Stygian Fate Unbends to him that knows to wait. 130 The Muse is womanish, nor deigns Her love to him that pules and plains; With proud, averted face she stands To him that wooes with empty hands. Make thyself free of Manhood's guild; Pull down thy barns and greater build; The wood, the mountain, and the plain Wave breast-deep with the poet's grain; Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold, Glean from the heavens and ocean old; 140 From fireside lone and trampling street Let thy life garner daily wheat; The epic of a man rehearse, Be something better than thy verse; Make thyself rich, and then the Muse Shall court thy precious interviews, Shall take thy head upon her knee, And such enchantment lilt to thee, That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow From farthest stars to grass-blades low, 150 And find the Listener's science still Transcends the Singer's deepest skill!'

THE CATHEDRAL

* * * * *

To

MR. JAMES T. FIELDS

MY DEAR FIELDS:

Dr. Johnson's sturdy self-respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to discover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me record my sense of many thoughtful services by associating your name with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality.

Cordially yours,

J.R. LOWELL.

CAMBRIDGE, _November_ 29, 1869.

* * * * *

Far through the memory shines a happy day, Cloudless of care, down-shod to every sense, And simply perfect from its own resource, As to a bee the new campanula's Illuminate seclusion swung in air. Such days are not the prey of setting suns, Nor ever blurred with mist of afterthought; Like words made magical by poets dead, Wherein the music of all meaning is The sense hath garnered or the soul divined, 10 They mingle with our life's ethereal part, Sweetening and gathering sweetness evermore, By beauty's franchise disenthralled of time.

I can recall, nay, they are present still, Parts of myself, the perfume of my mind, Days that seem farther off than Homer's now Ere yet the child had loudened to the boy, And I, recluse from playmates, found perforce Companionship in things that not denied Nor granted wholly; as is Nature's wont, 20 Who, safe in uncontaminate reserve, Lets us mistake our longing for her love, And mocks with various echo of ourselves.

These first sweet frauds upon our consciousness, That blend the sensual with its imaged world, These virginal cognitions, gifts of morn, Ere life grow noisy, and slower-footed thought Can overtake the rapture of the sense, To thrust between ourselves and what we feel, Have something in them secretly divine. 30 Vainly the eye, once schooled to serve the brain, With pains deliberate studies to renew The ideal vision: second-thoughts are prose; For beauty's acme hath a term as brief As the wave's poise before it break in pearl, Our own breath dims the mirror of the sense, Looking too long and closely: at a flash We snatch the essential grace of meaning out, And that first passion beggars all behind, Heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed. 40 Who, seeing once, has truly seen again The gray vague of unsympathizing sea That dragged his Fancy from her moorings back To shores inhospitable of eldest time, Till blank foreboding of earth-gendered powers, Pitiless seignories in the elements, Omnipotences blind that darkling smite, Misgave him, and repaganized the world? Yet, by some subtler touch of sympathy, These primal apprehensions, dimly stirred, 50 Perplex the eye with pictures from within. This hath made poets dream of lives foregone In worlds fantastical, more fair than ours; So Memory cheats us, glimpsing half-revealed. Even as I write she tries her wonted spell In that continuous redbreast boding rain: The bird I hear sings not from yonder elm; But the flown ecstasy my childhood heard Is vocal in my mind, renewed by him, Haply made sweeter by the accumulate thrill 60 That threads my undivided life and steals A pathos from the years and graves between.

I know not how it is with other men, Whom I but guess, deciphering myself; For me, once felt is so felt nevermore. The fleeting relish at sensation's brim Had in it the best ferment of the wine. One spring I knew as never any since: All night the surges of the warm southwest Boomed intermittent through the wallowing elms, 70 And brought a morning from the Gulf adrift, Omnipotent with sunshine, whose quick charm Startled with crocuses the sullen turf And wiled the bluebird to his whiff of song: One summer hour abides, what time I perched, Dappled with noonday, under simmering leaves, And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while aloof An oriole clattered and the robins shrilled, Denouncing me an alien and a thief: One morn of autumn lords it o'er the rest, 80 When in the lane I watched the ash-leaves fall, Balancing softly earthward without wind, Or twirling with directer impulse down On those fallen yesterday, now barbed with frost, While I grew pensive with the pensive year: And once I learned how marvellous winter was, When past the fence-rails, downy-gray with rime, I creaked adventurous o'er the spangled crust That made familiar fields seem far and strange As those stark wastes that whiten endlessly 90 In ghastly solitude about the pole, And gleam relentless to the unsetting sun: Instant the candid chambers of my brain Were painted with these sovran images; And later visions seem but copies pale From those unfading frescos of the past, Which I, young savage, in my age of flint, Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me Parted from Nature by the joy in her That doubtfully revealed me to myself. 100 Thenceforward I must stand outside the gate; And paradise was paradise the more, Known once and barred against satiety.

What we call Nature, all outside ourselves, Is but our own conceit of what we see, Our own reaction upon what we feel; The world's a woman to our shifting mood, Feeling with us, or making due pretence And therefore we the more persuade ourselves To make all things our thought's confederates, 110 Conniving with us in whate'er we dream. So when our Fancy seeks analogies, Though she have hidden what she after finds, She loves to cheat herself with feigned surprise. I find my own complexion everywhere; No rose, I doubt, was ever, like the first, A marvel to the bush it dawned upon, The rapture of its life made visible, The mystery of its yearning realized, As the first babe to the first woman born; 120 No falcon ever felt delight of wings As when, an eyas, from the stolid cliff Loosing himself, he followed his high heart To swim on sunshine, masterless as wind; And I believe the brown earth takes delight In the new snowdrop looking back at her, To think that by some vernal alchemy It could transmute her darkness into pearl; What is the buxom peony after that, With its coarse constancy of hoyden blush? 130 What the full summer to that wonder new?

But, if in nothing else, in us there is A sense fastidious hardly reconciled To the poor makeshifts of life's scenery, Where the same slide must double all its parts, Shoved in for Tarsus and hitched back for Tyre, I blame not in the soul this daintiness, Rasher of surfeit than a humming-bird, In things indifferent by sense purveyed; It argues her an immortality 140 And dateless incomes of experience, This unthrift housekeeping that will not brook A dish warmed-over at the feast of life, And finds Twice stale, served with whatever sauce. Nor matters much how it may go with me Who dwell in Grub Street and am proud to drudge Where men, my betters, wet their crust with tears; Use can make sweet the peach's shady side, That only by reflection tastes of sun.

But she, my Princess, who will sometimes deign 150 My garret to illumine till the walls, Narrow and dingy, scrawled with hackneyed thought (Poor Richard slowly elbowing Plato out), Dilate and drape themselves with tapestries Nausikaa might have stooped o'er, while, between, Mirrors, effaced in their own clearness, send Her only image on through deepening deeps With endless repercussion of delight,-- Bringer of life, witching each sense to soul, That sometimes almost gives me to believe 160 I might have been a poet, gives at least A brain dasaxonized, an ear that makes Music where none is, and a keener pang Of exquisite surmise outleaping thought,-- Her will I pamper in her luxury: No crumpled rose-leaf of too careless choice Shall bring a northern nightmare to her dreams, Vexing with sense of exile; hers shall be The invitiate firstlings of experience, Vibrations felt but once and felt life long: 170 Oh, more than half-way turn that Grecian front Upon me, while with self-rebuke I spell, On the plain fillet that confines thy hair In conscious bounds of seeming unconstraint, The _Naught in overplus_, thy race's badge!

One feast for her I secretly designed In that Old World so strangely beautiful To us the disinherited of eld,-- A day at Chartres, with no soul beside To roil with pedant prate my joy serene 180 And make the minster shy of confidence. I went, and, with the Saxon's pious care, First ordered dinner at the pea-green inn, The flies and I its only customers. Eluding these, I loitered through the town, With hope to take my minster unawares In its grave solitude of memory. A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumorous now Upon the mind's horizon, as of storm 190 Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, That mingle with our mood, but not disturb. Its once grim bulwarks, tamed to lovers' walks, Look down unwatchful on the sliding Eure, Whose listless leisure suits the quiet place, Lisping among his shallows homelike sounds At Concord and by Bankside heard before. Chance led me to a public pleasure-ground, Where I grew kindly with the merry groups, And blessed the Frenchman for his simple art 200 Of being domestic in the light of day. His language has no word, we growl, for Home; But he can find a fireside in the sun, Play with his child, make love, and shriek his mind, By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. He makes his life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with consciousness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, 210 And each bystander a detective were, Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise.

So, musing o'er the problem which was best,-- A life wide-windowed, shining all abroad, Or curtains drawn to shield from sight profane The rites we pay to the mysterious I,-- With outward senses furloughed and head bowed I followed some fine instinct in my feet, Till, to unbend me from the loom of thought, Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes 220 Confronted with the minster's vast repose. Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat, That hears afar the breeze-borne rote and longs, Remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell, Spume-sliding down the baffled decuman, It rose before me, patiently remote From the great tides of life it breasted once, Hearing the noise of men as in a dream. I stood before the triple northern port, 230 Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings, Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch, Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say, _Ye come and go incessant; we remain Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past; Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, Of faith so nobly realized as this._ I seem to have heard it said by learnèd folk Who drench you with æsthetics till you feel As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, 240 The faucet to let loose a wash of words, That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore worse; But, being convinced by much experiment How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies, I give thanks For a new relish, careless to inquire My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness, Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained, 250 The one thing finished in this hasty world, Forever finished, though the barbarous pit, Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout As if a miracle could be encored. But ah! this other, this that never ends, Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, As full of morals half-divined as life, Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise Of hazardous caprices sure to please, Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern, 260 Imagination's very self in stone! With one long sigh of infinite release From pedantries past, present, or to come, I looked, and owned myself a happy Goth. Your blood is mine, ye architects of dream, Builders of aspiration incomplete, So more consummate, souls self-confident, Who felt your own thought worthy of record In monumental pomp! No Grecian drop Rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill, 270 After long exile, to the mother-tongue.

Ovid in Pontus, puling for his Rome Of men invirile and disnatured dames That poison sucked from the Attic bloom decayed, Shrank with a shudder from the blue-eyed race Whose force rough-handed should renew the world, And from the dregs of Romulus express Such wine as Dante poured, or he who blew Roland's vain blast, or sang the Campeador In verse that clanks like armor in the charge, 280 Homeric juice, though brimmed in Odin's horn. And they could build, if not the columned fane That from the height gleamed seaward many-hued, Something more friendly with their ruder skies: The gray spire, molten now in driving mist, Now lulled with the incommunicable blue; The carvings touched to meaning new with snow, Or commented with fleeting grace of shade; The statues, motley as man's memory, Partial as that, so mixed of true and false, 290 History and legend meeting with a kiss Across this bound-mark where their realms confine; The painted windows, freaking gloom with glow, Dusking the sunshine which they seem to cheer, Meet symbol of the senses and the soul, And the whole pile, grim with the Northman's thought Of life and death, and doom, life's equal fee,-- These were before me: and I gazed abashed, Child of an age that lectures, not creates, Plastering our swallow-nests on the awful Past, 300 And twittering round the work of larger men, As we had builded what we but deface. Far up the great bells wallowed in delight, Tossing their clangors o'er the heedless town, To call the worshippers who never came, Or women mostly, in loath twos and threes. I entered, reverent of whatever shrine Guards piety and solace for my kind Or gives the soul a moment's truce of God, And shared decorous in the ancient rite 310 My sterner fathers held idolatrous. The service over, I was tranced in thought: Solemn the deepening vaults, and most to me, Fresh from the fragile realm of deal and paint, Or brick mock-pious with a marble front; Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof, The clustered stems that spread in boughs disleaved, Through which the organ blew a dream of storm, Though not more potent to sublime with awe And shut the heart up to tranquillity, 320 Than aisles to me familiar that o'erarch The conscious silences of brooding woods, Centurial shadows, cloisters of the elk:, Yet here was sense of undefined regret, Irreparable loss, uncertain what: Was all this grandeur but anachronism, A shell divorced of its informing life, Where the priest housed him like a hermit-crab, An alien to that faith of elder days That gathered round it this fair shape of stone? 330 Is old Religion but a spectre now, Haunting the solitude of darkened minds, Mocked out of memory by the sceptic day? Is there no corner safe from peeping Doubt, Since Gutenberg made thought cosmopolite And stretched electric threads from mind to mind? Nay, did Faith build this wonder? or did Fear, That makes a fetish and misnames it God (Blockish or metaphysic, matters not), Contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in, 340 Appeased with playthings, that he might not harm?

I turned and saw a beldame on her knees; With eyes astray, she told mechanic beads Before some shrine of saintly womanhood, Bribed intercessor with the far-off Judge: Such my first thought, by kindlier soon rebuked, Pleading for whatsoever touches life With upward impulse: be He nowhere else, God is in all that liberates and lifts, In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles: 350 Blessed the natures shored on every side With landmarks of hereditary thought! Thrice happy they that wander not life long Beyond near succor of the household faith, The guarded fold that shelters, not confines! Their steps find patience In familiar paths, Printed with hope by loved feet gone before Of parent, child, or lover, glorified By simple magic of dividing Time. My lids were moistened as the woman knelt, 360 And--was it will, or some vibration faint Of sacred Nature, deeper than the will?-- My heart occultly felt itself in hers, Through mutual intercession gently leagued.

Or was it not mere sympathy of brain? A sweetness intellectually conceived In simpler creeds to me impossible? A juggle of that pity for ourselves In others, which puts on such pretty masks And snares self-love with bait of charity? 370 Something of all it might be, or of none: Yet for a moment I was snatched away And had the evidence of things not seen; For one rapt moment; then it all came back, This age that blots out life with question-marks, This nineteenth century with its knife and glass That make thought physical, and thrust far off The Heaven, so neighborly with man of old, To voids sparse-sown with alienated stars.

'Tis irrecoverable, that ancient faith, 380 Homely and wholesome, suited to the time, With rod or candy for child-minded men: No theologic tube, with lens on lens Of syllogism transparent, brings it near,-- At best resolving some new nebula, Or blurring some fixed-star of hope to mist. Science was Faith once; Faith were Science now, Would she but lay her bow and arrows by And arm her with the weapons of the time. Nothing that keeps thought out is safe from thought. 390 For there's no virgin-fort but self-respect, And Truth defensive hath lost hold on God. Shall we treat Him as if He were a child That knew not his own purpose? nor dare trust The Rock of Ages to their chemic tests, Lest some day the all-sustaining base divine Should fail from under us, dissolved in gas? The armèd eye that with a glance discerns In a dry blood-speck between ox and man Stares helpless at this miracle called life, 400 This shaping potency behind the egg, This circulation swift of deity, Where suns and systems inconspicuous float As the poor blood-disks in our mortal veins. Each age must worship its own thought of God, More or less earthy, clarifying still With subsidence continuous of the dregs; Nor saint nor sage could fix immutably The fluent image of the unstable Best, Still changing in their very hands that wrought: 410 To-day's eternal truth To-morrow proved Frail as frost-landscapes on a window-pane. Meanwhile Thou smiledst, inaccessible, At Thought's own substance made a cage for Thought, And Truth locked fast with her own master-key; Nor didst Thou reck what image man might make Of his own shadow on the flowing world; The climbing instinct was enough for Thee. Or wast Thou, then, an ebbing tide that left Strewn with dead miracle those eldest shores, 420 For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood? Idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched By virtue in their mantles left below; Shall the soul live on other men's report, Herself a pleasing fable of herself? Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would, Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense But Nature stall shall search some crevice out With messages of splendor from that Source 430 Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still and lures. This life were brutish did we not sometimes Have intimation clear of wider scope, Hints of occasion infinite, to keep The soul alert with noble discontent And onward yearnings of unstilled desire; Fruitless, except we now and then divined A mystery of Purpose, gleaming through The secular confusions of the world, Whose will we darkly accomplish, doing ours, 440 No man can think nor in himself perceive, Sometimes at waking, in the street sometimes, Or on the hillside, always unforwarned. A grace of being, finer than himself, That beckons and is gone,--a larger life Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse Of spacious circles luminous with mind, To which the ethereal substance of his own Seems but gross cloud to make that visible, Touched to a sudden glory round the edge, 450 Who that hath known these visitations fleet Would strive to make them trite and ritual? I, that still pray at morning and at eve, Loving those roots that feed us from the past, And prizing more than Plato things I learned At that best academe, a mother's knee, Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice, stirred below my conscious self, have felt That perfect disenthralment which is God; Nor know I which to hold worst enemy, 460 Him who on speculation's windy waste Would turn me loose, stript of the raiment warm By Faith contrived against our nakedness, Or him who, cruel-kind, would fain obscure, With painted saints and paraphrase of God, The soul's east-window of divine surprise, Where others worship I but look and long; For, though not recreant to my fathers' faith, Its forms to me are weariness, and most That drony vacuum of compulsory prayer, 470 Still pumping phrases for the Ineffable, Though all the valves of memory gasp and wheeze. Words that have drawn transcendent meanings up From the best passion of all bygone time, Steeped through with tears of triumph and remorse, Sweet with all sainthood, cleansed in martyr-fires, Can they, so consecrate and so inspired, By repetition wane to vexing wind? Alas! we cannot draw habitual breath In the thin air of life's supremer heights, 480 We cannot make each meal a sacrament, Nor with our tailors be disbodied souls,-- We men, too conscious of earth's comedy, Who see two sides, with our posed selves debate, And only for great stakes can be sublime! Let us be thankful when, as I do here, We can read Bethel on a pile of stones, And, seeing where God _has_ been, trust in Him.

Brave Peter Fischer there in Nuremberg, Moulding Saint Sebald's miracles in bronze, 490 Put saint and stander-by in that quaint garb Familiar to him in his daily walk, Not doubting God could grant a miracle Then and in Nuremberg, if so He would; But never artist for three hundred years Hath dared the contradiction ludicrous Of supernatural in modern clothes. Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come Will see God rather in the strenuous doubt, Than in the creed held as an infant's hand 500 Holds purposeless whatso is placed therein.

Say it is drift, not progress, none the less, With the old sextant of the fathers' creed, We shape our courses by new-risen stars, And, still lip-loyal to what once was truth, Smuggle new meanings under ancient names, Unconscious perverts of the Jesuit, Time. Change is the mask that all Continuance wears To keep us youngsters harmlessly amused; Meanwhile some ailing or more watchful child, 510 Sitting apart, sees the old eyes gleam out, Stern, and yet soft with humorous pity too. Whilere, men burnt men for a doubtful point, As if the mind were quenchable with fire, And Faith danced round them with her war-paint on, Devoutly savage as an Iroquois; Now Calvin and Servetus at one board Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast, And o'er their claret settle Comte unread. Fagot and stake were desperately sincere: 520 Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types; And flames that shine in controversial eyes Burn out no brains but his who kindles them. This is no age to get cathedrals built: Did God, then, wait for one in Bethlehem? Worst is not yet: lo, where his coming looms, Of earth's anarchic children latest born, Democracy, a Titan who hath learned To laugh at Jove's old-fashioned thunder-bolts,-- Could he not also forge them, if he would? 530 He, better skilled, with solvents merciless, Loosened in air and borne on every wind, Saps unperceived: the calm Olympian height Of ancient order feels its bases yield, And pale gods glance for help to gods as pale. What will be left of good or worshipful, Of spiritual secrets, mysteries, Of fair religion's guarded heritage, Heirlooms of soul, passed downward unprofaned From eldest Ind? This Western giant coarse, 540 Scorning refinements which he lacks himself, Loves not nor heeds the ancestral hierarchies, Each rank dependent on the next above In ordinary gradation fixed as fate. King by mere manhood, nor allowing aught Of holier unction than the sweat of toil; In his own strength sufficient; called to solve, On the rough edges of society, Problems long sacred to the choicer few, And improvise what elsewhere men receive 550 As gifts of deity; tough foundling reared Where every man's his own Melchisedek, How make him reverent of a King of kings? Or Judge self-made, executor of laws By him not first discussed and voted on? For him no tree of knowledge is forbid, Or sweeter if forbid. How save the ark, Or holy of holies, unprofaned a day From his unscrupulous curiosity That handles everything as if to buy, 560 Tossing aside what fabrics delicate Suit not the rough-and-tumble of his ways? What hope for those fine-nerved humanities That made earth gracious once with gentler arts, Now the rude hands have caught the trick of thought And claim an equal suffrage with the brain?

The born disciple of an elder time, (To me sufficient, friendlier than the new,) Who in my blood feel motions of the Past, I thank benignant nature most for this,-- 570 A force of sympathy, or call it lack Of character firm-planted, loosing me From the pent chamber of habitual self To dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought, Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, And through imagination to possess, As they were mine, the lives of other men. This growth original of virgin soil, By fascination felt in opposites, Pleases and shocks, entices and perturbs. 580 In this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid, This backwoods Charlemagne of empires new, Whose blundering heel instinctively finds out The goutier foot of speechless dignities, Who, meeting Cæsar's self, would slap his back, Call him 'Old Horse,' and challenge to a drink, My lungs draw braver air, my breast dilates With ampler manhood, and I front both worlds, Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, To shape and then reshape them as I will. 590 It was the first man's charter; why not mine? How forfeit? when, deposed in other hands?

Thou shudder'st, Ovid? Dost in him forebode A new avatar of the large-limbed Goth, To break, or seem to break, tradition's clue. And chase to dreamland back thy gods dethroned? I think man's soul dwells nearer to the east, Nearer to morning's fountains than the sun; Herself the source whence all tradition sprang, Herself at once both labyrinth and clue, 600 The miracle fades out of history, But faith and wonder and the primal earth Are born into the world with every child. Shall this self-maker with the prying eyes, This creature disenchanted of respect By the New World's new fiend, Publicity, Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere its smutch, Not one day feel within himself the need Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall ennoble him with the upward look? 610 Shall he not catch the Voice that wanders earth, With spiritual summons, dreamed or heard, As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the sense, We hear our mother call from deeps of Time, And, waking, find it vision,--none the less The benediction bides, old skies return, And that unreal thing, preëminent, Makes air and dream of all we see and feel? Shall he divine no strength unmade of votes, Inward, impregnable, found soon as sought, 620 Not cognizable of sense, o'er sense supreme? Else were he desolate as none before. His holy places may not be of stone, Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than aught By artist feigned or pious ardor reared, Fit altars for who guards inviolate God's chosen seat, the sacred form of man. Doubtless his church will be no hospital For superannuate forms and mumping shams, No parlor where men issue policies 630 Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind, Nor his religion but an ambulance To fetch life's wounded and malingerers in, Scorned by the strong; yet he, unconscious heir To the Influence sweet of Athens and of Rome, And old Judaea's gift of secret fire, Spite of himself shall surely learn to know And worship some ideal of himself, Some divine thing, large-hearted, brotherly, Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, 640 Pleased with his world, and hating only cant. And, if his Church be doubtful, it is sure That, in a world, made for whatever else, Not made for mere enjoyment, in a world Of toil but half-requited, or, at best, Paid in some futile currency of breath, A world of incompleteness, sorrow swift And consolation laggard, whatsoe'er The form of building or the creed professed, The Cross, bold type of shame to homage turned, 650 Of an unfinished life that sways the world, Shall tower as sovereign emblem over all.

The kobold Thought moves with us when we shift Our dwelling to escape him; perched aloft On the first load of household-stuff he went: For, where the mind goes, goes old furniture. I, who to Chartres came to feed my eye And give to Fancy one clear holiday, Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts it stirred Buzzing o'er past and future with vain quest. 660 Here once there stood a homely wooden church, Which slow devotion nobly changed for this That echoes vaguely to my modern steps. By suffrage universal it was built, As practised then, for all the country came From far as Rouen, to give votes for God, Each vote a block of stone securely laid Obedient to the master's deep-mused plan. Will what our ballots rear, responsible To no grave forethought, stand so long as this? 670 Delight like this the eye of after days Brightening with pride that here, at least, were men Who meant and did the noblest thing they knew? Can our religion cope with deeds like this? We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, because Our deacons have discovered that it pays, And pews sell better under vaulted roofs Of plaster painted like an Indian squaw. Shall not that Western Goth, of whom we spoke, So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, 680 Find out, some day, that nothing pays but God, Served whether on the smoke-shut battle-field, In work obscure done honestly, or vote For truth unpopular, or faith maintained To ruinous convictions, or good deeds Wrought for good's sake, mindless of heaven or hell? Shall he not learn that all prosperity, Whose bases stretch not deeper than the sense, Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, A desert-born mirage of spire and dome, 690 Or find too late, the Past's long lesson missed, That dust the prophets shake from off their feet Grows heavy to drag down both tower and wall? I know not; but, sustained by sure belief That man still rises level with the height Of noblest opportunities, or makes Such, if the time supply not, I can wait. I gaze round on the windows, pride of France, Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild Who loved their city and thought gold well spent 700 To make her beautiful with piety; I pause, transfigured by some stripe of bloom, And my mind throngs with shining auguries, Circle on circle, bright as seraphim, With golden trumpets, silent, that await The signal to blow news of good to men. Then the revulsion came that always comes After these dizzy elations of the mind: And with a passionate pang of doubt I cried, 'O mountain-born, sweet with snow-filtered air 710 From uncontaminate wells of ether drawn And never-broken secrecies of sky, Freedom, with anguish won, misprized till lost, They keep thee not who from thy sacred eyes Catch the consuming lust of sensual good And the brute's license of unfettered will. Far from the popular shout and venal breath Of Cleon blowing the mob's baser mind To bubbles of wind-piloted conceit, Thou shrinkest, gathering up thy skirts, to hide 720 In fortresses of solitary thought And private virtue strong in self-restraint. Must we too forfeit thee misunderstood, Content with names, nor inly wise to know That best things perish of their own excess, And quality o'er-driven becomes defect? Nay, is it thou indeed that we have glimpsed, Or rather such illusion as of old Through Athens glided menadlike and Rome, A shape of vapor, mother of vain dreams 730 And mutinous traditions, specious plea Of the glaived tyrant and long-memoried priest?'

I walked forth saddened; for all thought is sad, And leaves a bitterish savor in the brain, Tonic, it may be, not delectable, And turned, reluctant, for a parting look At those old weather-pitted images Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm. About their shoulders sparrows had built nests, And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch, 740 Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, Irreverently happy. While I thought How confident they were, what careless hearts Flew on those lightsome wings and shared the sun, A larger shadow crossed; and looking up, I saw where, nesting in the hoary towers, The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air, With sidelong head that watched the joy below, Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of Kelts. Enduring Nature, force conservative, 750 Indifferent to our noisy whims! Men prate Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered On level with the dullest, and expect (Sick of no worse distemper than themselves) A wondrous cure-all in equality; They reason that To-morrow must be wise Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, As if good days were shapen of themselves, Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls; Meanwhile, long-suffering, imperturbable, 760 Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, And from the premise sparrow here below Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk above, Pleased with the soft-billed songster, pleased no less With the fierce beak of natures aquiline.

Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away In the Past's valley of Avilion, Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed, Then to reclaim the sword and crown again! Thrice beautiful to us; perchance less fair 770 To who possessed thee, as a mountain seems To dwellers round its bases but a heap Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm And the avalanche's silent bolt holds back Leashed with a hair,--meanwhile some far-off clown, Hereditary delver of the plain, Sees it an unmoved vision of repose, Nest of the morning, and conjectures there The dance of streams to idle shepherds' pipes, And fairer habitations softly hung 780 On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, For happier men. No mortal ever dreams That the scant isthmus he encamps upon Between two oceans, one, the Stormy, passed, And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, Has been that future whereto prophets yearned For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated hope, Shall be that past which nerveless poets moan As the lost opportunity of song.

O Power, more near my life than life itself 790 (Or what seems life to us in sense immured), Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive Of sunshine and wide air and wingèd things By sympathy of nature, so do I Have evidence of Thee so far above, Yet in and of me! Rather Thou the root Invisibly sustaining, hid in light, Not darkness, or in darkness made by us. If sometimes I must hear good men debate 800 Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, As if there needed any help of ours To nurse Thy flickering life, that else must cease, Blown out, as 'twere a candle, by men's breath, My soul shall not be taken in their snare, To change her inward surety for their doubt Muffled from sight in formal robes of proof: While she can only feel herself through Thee, I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear, Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked with dreams 810 Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, Thou, Walking Thy garden still, commun'st with men, Missed in the commonplace of miracle.

THREE MEMORIAL POEMS

'Coscienza fusca O della propria o dell' altrui vergogna Pur sentirà la tua parola brusca.'

If I let fall a word of bitter mirth When public shames more shameful pardon won, Some have misjudged me, and my service done, If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth: Through veins that drew their life from Western earth Two hundred years and more my blood hath run In no polluted course from sire to son; And thus was I predestined ere my birth To love the soil wherewith my fibres own Instinctive sympathies; yet love it so As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego The son's right to a mother dearer grown With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow.

* * * * *

To

E.L. GODKIN,

IN CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS EMINENT SERVICE IN HEIGHTENING AND PURIFYING THE TONE OF OUR POLITICAL THOUGHT,

These Three Poems

ARE DEDICATED.

* * * * *

*** Readers, it is hoped, will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in these poems.

ODE

READ AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE

19TH APRIL, 1875

I

Who cometh over the hills, Her garments with morning sweet, The dance of a thousand rills Making music before her feet? Her presence freshens the air; Sunshine steals light from her face; The leaden footstep of Care Leaps to the tune of her pace, Fairness of all that is fair, Grace at the heart of all grace, 10 Sweetener of hut and of hall, Bringer of life out of naught, Freedom, oh, fairest of all The daughters of Time and Thought!

II

She cometh, cometh to-day: Hark! hear ye not her tread, Sending a thrill through your clay, Under the sod there, ye dead, Her nurslings and champions? Do ye not hear, as she comes, 20 The bay of the deep-mouthed guns, The gathering rote of the drums? The belts that called ye to prayer, How wildly they clamor on her, Crying, 'She cometh! prepare Her to praise and her to honor, That a hundred years ago Scattered here in blood and tears Potent seeds wherefrom should grow Gladness for a hundred years!' 30

III

Tell me, young men, have ye seen Creature of diviner mien For true hearts to long and cry for, Manly hearts to live and die for? What hath she that others want? Brows that all endearments haunt, Eyes that make it sweet to dare, Smiles that cheer untimely death, Looks that fortify despair, Tones more brave than trumpet's breath; 40 Tell me, maidens, have ye known Household charm more sweetly rare, Grace of woman ampler blown, Modesty more debonair, Younger heart with wit full grown? Oh for an hour of my prime, The pulse of my hotter years, That I might praise her in rhyme Would tingle your eyelids to tears, Our sweetness, our strength, and our star, 50 Our hope, our joy, and our trust, Who lifted us out of the dust, And made us whatever we are!

IV

Whiter than moonshine upon snow Her raiment is, but round the hem Crimson stained; and, as to and fro Her sandals flash, we see on them, And on her instep veined with blue, Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet, High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet, 60 Fit for no grosser stain than dew: Oh, call them rather chrisms than stains, Sacred and from heroic veins! For, in the glory-guarded pass, Her haughty and far-shining head She bowed to shrive Leonidas With his imperishable dead; Her, too, Morgarten saw, Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; She followed Cromwell's quenchless star 70 Where the grim Puritan tread Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar: Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes Yet fresh, nor looked on with untearful eyes.

V

Our fathers found her in the woods Where Nature meditates and broods, The seeds of unexampled things Which Time to consummation brings Through life and death and man's unstable moods; They met her here, not recognized, 80 A sylvan huntress clothed in furs, To whose chaste wants her bow sufficed, Nor dreamed what destinies were hers: She taught them bee-like to create Their simpler forms of Church and State; She taught them to endue The past with other functions than it knew, And turn in channels strange the uncertain stream of Fate; Better than all, she fenced them in their need With iron-handed Duty's sternest creed, 90 'Gainst Self's lean wolf that ravens word and deed.

VI

Why cometh she hither to-day To this low village of the plain Far from the Present's loud highway, From Trade's cool heart and seething brain? Why cometh she? She was not far away. Since the soul touched it, not in vain, With pathos of Immortal gain, 'Tis here her fondest memories stay. She loves yon pine-bemurmured ridge 100 Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps, Dear to both Englands; near him he Who wore the ring of Canace; But most her heart to rapture leaps Where stood that era-parting bridge, O'er which, with footfall still as dew, The Old Time passed into the New; Where, as your stealthy river creeps, He whispers to his listening weeds Tales of sublimest homespun deeds. 110 Here English law and English thought 'Gainst the self-will of England fought; And here were men (coequal with their fate), Who did great things, unconscious they were great. They dreamed not what a die was cast With that first answering shot; what then? There was their duty; they were men Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey, Though leading to the lion's den. They felt the habit-hallowed world give way 120 Beneath their lives, and on went they, Unhappy who was last. When Buttrick gave the word, That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, Strong in their love, and in their lineage strong, Fell crashing; if they heard it not, Yet the earth heard, Nor ever hath forgot, As on from startled throne to throne, Where Superstition sate or conscious Wrong, 130 A shudder ran of some dread birth unknown. Thrice venerable spot! River more fateful than the Rubicon! O'er those red planks, to snatch her diadem, Man's Hope, star-girdled, sprang with them, And over ways untried the feet of Doom strode on.

VII

Think you these felt no charms In their gray homesteads and embowered farms? In household faces waiting at the door Their evening step should lighten up no more? 140 In fields their boyish feet had known? In trees their fathers' hands had set, And which with them had grown, Widening each year their leafy coronet? Felt they no pang of passionate regret For those unsolid goods that seem so much our own? These things are dear to every man that lives, And life prized more for what it lends than gives. Yea, many a tie, through iteration sweet, Strove to detain their fatal feet; And yet the enduring half they chose, 151 Whose choice decides a man life's slave or king, The invisible things of God before the seen and known: Therefore their memory inspiration blows With echoes gathering on from zone to zone; For manhood is the one immortal thing Beneath Time's changeful sky, And, where it lightened once, from age to age, Men come to learn, in grateful pilgrimage, That length of days is knowing when to die. 160

VIII

What marvellous change of things and men! She, a world-wandering orphan then, So mighty now! Those are her streams That whirl the myriad, myriad wheels Of all that does, and all that dreams, Of all that thinks, and all that feels, Through spaces stretched from sea to sea; By idle tongues and busy brains, By who doth right, and who refrains, Here are our losses and our gains; 170 Our maker and our victim she.

IX

Maiden half mortal, half divine, We triumphed in thy coming; to the brinks Our hearts were filled with pride's tumultuous wine; Better to-day who rather feels than thinks. Yet will some graver thoughts intrude, And cares of sterner mood; They won thee: who shall keep thee? From the deeps Where discrowned empires o'er their ruins brood, 179 And many a thwarted hope wrings its weak hands and weeps, I hear the voice as of a mighty wind From all heaven's caverns rushing unconfined, 'I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: I abide With men whom dust of faction cannot blind To the slow tracings of the Eternal Mind; With men by culture trained and fortified, Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, Fearless to counsel and obey. Conscience my sceptre is, and law my sword, Not to be drawn in passion or in play, 190 But terrible to punish and deter; Implacable as God's word, Like it, a shepherd's crook to them that blindly err. Your firm-pulsed sires, my martyrs and my saints, Offshoots of that one stock whose patient sense Hath known to mingle flux with permanence, Rated my chaste denials and restraints Above the moment's dear-paid paradise: Beware lest, shifting with Time's gradual creep, The light that guided shine into your eyes. 200 The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor sleep; Be therefore timely wise, Nor laugh when this one steals, and that one lies, As if your luck could cheat those sleepless spies, Till the deaf Fury comes your house to sweep!' I hear the voice, and unaffrighted bow; Ye shall not be prophetic now, Heralds of ill, that darkening fly Between my vision and the rainbowed sky, Or on the left your hoarse forebodings croak 210 From many a blasted bough On Yggdrasil's storm-sinewed oak, That once was green, Hope of the West, as thou; Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast; For I have loved as those who pardon most.

X

Away, ungrateful doubt, away! At least she is our own to-day. Break into rapture, my song, Verses, leap forth in the sun, Bearing the joyance along 220 Like a train of fire as ye run! Pause not for choosing of words, Let them but blossom and sing Blithe as the orchards and birds With the new coming of spring! Dance in your jollity, bells; Shout, cannon; cease not, ye drums; Answer, ye hillside and dells; Bow, all ye people! She comes, Radiant, calm-fronted, as when 230 She hallowed that April day. Stay with us! Yes, thou shalt stay. Softener and strengthener of men, Freedom, not won by the vain, Not to be courted in play, Not to be kept without pain. Stay with us! Yes, thou wilt stay, Handmaid and mistress of all, Kindler of deed and of thought, Thou that to hut and to hall 240 Equal deliverance brought! Souls of her martyrs, draw near, Touch our dull lips with your fire, That we may praise without fear Her our delight, our desire, Our faith's inextinguishable star, Our hope, our remembrance, our trust, Our present, our past, our to be, Who will mingle her life with our dust 249 And makes us deserve to be free!

UNDER THE OLD ELM

POEM READ AT CAMBRIDGE ON THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON'S TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, 3D JULY, 1775

I

1.

Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done A power abides transfused from sire to son: The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his ear, That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run, With sure impulsion to keep honor clear. When, pointing down, his father whispers, 'Here, Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely great, Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate.' Historic town, thou holdest sacred dust, 10 Once known to men as pious, learnèd, just, And one memorial pile that dares to last: But Memory greets with reverential kiss No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, Touched by that modest glory as it past, O'er which yon elm hath piously displayed These hundred years its monumental shade.

2.

Of our swift passage through this scenery Of life and death, more durable than we, What landmark so congenial as a tree 20 Repeating its green legend every spring, And, with a yearly ring, Recording the fair seasons as they flee, Type of our brief but still-renewed mortality? We fall as leaves: the immortal trunk remains, Builded with costly juice of hearts and brains Gone to the mould now, whither all that be Vanish returnless, yet are procreant still In human lives to come of good or ill, And feed unseen the roots of Destiny. 30

II

1.

Men's monuments, grown old, forget their names They should eternize, but the place Where shining souls have passed imbibes a grace Beyond mere earth; some sweetness of their fames Leaves in the soil its unextinguished trace, Pungent, pathetic, sad with nobler aims, That penetrates our lives and heightens them or shames. This insubstantial world and fleet Seems solid for a moment when we stand On dust ennobled by heroic feet 40 Once mighty to sustain a tottering land, And mighty still such burthen to upbear, Nor doomed to tread the path of things that merely were: Our sense, refined with virtue of the spot, Across the mists of Lethe's sleepy stream Recalls him, the sole chief without a blot, No more a pallid image and a dream, But as he dwelt with men decorously supreme.

2.

Our grosser minds need this terrestrial hint To raise long-buried days from tombs of print; 50 'Here stood he,' softly we repeat, And lo, the statue shrined and still In that gray minster-front we call the Past, Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, Breathes living air and mocks at Death's deceit. It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at last, Its features human with familiar light, A man, beyond the historian's art to kill, Or sculptor's to efface with patient chisel-blight.

3.

Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught 60 Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought Into the seamless tapestry of thought. So charmed, with undeluded eye we see In history's fragmentary tale Bright clues of continuity, Learn that high natures over Time prevail, And feel ourselves a link in that entail That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 70

III

1.

Beneath our consecrated elm A century ago he stood, Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm The life foredoomed to wield our rough-hewn helm:-- From colleges, where now the gown To arms had yielded, from the town, Our rude self-summoned levies flocked to see The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. No need to question long; close-lipped and tall, 80 Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone To bridle others' clamors and his own, Firmly erect, he towered above them all, The incarnate discipline that was to free With iron curb that armed democracy.

2.

A motley rout was that which came to stare, In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, Of every shape that was not uniform, Dotted with regimentals here and there; An array all of captains, used to pray 90 And stiff in fight, but serious drill's despair, Skilled to debate their orders, not obey; Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, But largely liberal to its private moods; Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or pen, Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen, Nor much fastidious as to how and when: Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 100 A thought-staid army or a lasting state: Haughty they said he was, at first; severe; But owned, as all men own, the steady hand Upon the bridle, patient to command, Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear, And learned to honor first, then love him, then revere. Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint.

3.

Musing beneath the legendary tree, The years between furl off: I seem to see 110 The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue And weave prophetic aureoles round the head That shines our beacon now nor darkens with the dead. O man of silent mood, A stranger among strangers then, How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, Familiar as the day in an the homes of men! The winged years, that winnow praise and blame, Blow many names out: they but fan to flame 120 The self-renewing splendors of thy fame.

IV

1.

How many subtlest influences unite, With spiritual touch of Joy or pain, Invisible as air and soft as light, To body forth that image of the brain We call our Country, visionary shape, Loved more than woman, fuller of fire than wine, Whose charm can none define, Nor any, though he flee it, can escape! All party-colored threads the weaver Time 130 Sets in his web, now trivial, now sublime, All memories, all forebodings, hopes and fears, Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree, The casual gleanings of unreckoned years, Take goddess-shape at last and there is She, Old at our birth, new as the springing hours, Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our powers, Consoler, kindler, peerless 'mid her peers, A force that 'neath our conscious being stirs, 140 A life to give ours permanence, when we Are borne to mingle our poor earth with hers, And all this glowing world goes with us on our biers.

2.

Nations are long results, by ruder ways Gathering the might that warrants length of days; They may be pieced of half-reluctant shares Welded by hammer-strokes of broad-brained kings, Or from a doughty people grow, the heirs Of wise traditions widening cautious rings; At best they are computable things, 150 A strength behind us making us feel bold In right, or, as may chance, in wrong; Whose force by figures may be summed and told, So many soldiers, ships, and dollars strong, And we but drops that bear compulsory part In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart; But Country is a shape of each man's mind Sacred from definition, unconfined By the cramped walls where daily drudgeries grind; An inward vision, yet an outward birth 160 Of sweet familiar heaven and earth; A brooding Presence that stirs motions blind Of wings within our embryo being's shell That wait but her completer spell To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare Life's nobler spaces and untarnished air.

3.

You, who hold dear this self-conceived ideal, Whose faith and works alone can make it real, Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her shrine Who lifts our lives away from Thine and Mine 170 And feeds the lamp of manhood more divine With fragrant oils of quenchless constancy. When all have done their utmost, surely he Hath given the best who gives a character Erect and constant, which nor any shock Of loosened elements, nor the forceful sea Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir From its deep bases in the living rock Of ancient manhood's sweet security: And this he gave, serenely far from pride 180 As baseness, boon with prosperous stars allied, Part of what nobler seed shall in our loins abide.

4.

No bond of men as common pride so strong, In names time-filtered for the lips of song, Still operant, with the primal Forces bound Whose currents, on their spiritual round, Transfuse our mortal will nor are gainsaid: These are their arsenals, these the exhaustless mines That give a constant heart in great designs; These are the stuff whereof such dreams are made 190 As make heroic men: thus surely he Still holds in place the massy blocks he laid 'Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly The self-control that makes and keeps a people free.

V

1.

Oh, for a drop of that Cornelian ink Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's brink, With him so statue-like in sad reserve, So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve! 200 Nor need I shun due influence of his fame Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as now The equestrian shape with unimpassioned brow, That paces silent on through vistas of acclaim.

2.

What figure more immovably august Than that grave strength so patient and so pure, Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, sure, That mind serene, impenetrably just, Modelled on classic lines so simple they endure? That soul so softly radiant and so white 210 The track it left seems less of fire than light, Cold but to such as love distemperature? And if pure light, as some deem, be the force That drives rejoicing planets on their course, Why for his power benign seek an impurer source? His was the true enthusiasm that burns long, Domestically bright, Fed from itself and shy of human sight, The hidden force that makes a lifetime strong, And not the short-lived fuel of a song. 220 Passionless, say you? What is passion for But to sublime our natures and control, To front heroic toils with late return, Or none, or such as shames the conqueror? That fire was fed with substance of the soul And not with holiday stubble, that could burn, Unpraised of men who after bonfires run, Through seven slow years of unadvancing war, Equal when fields were lost or fields were won, With breath of popular applause or blame, 230 Nor fanned nor damped, unquenchably the same, Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle fame.

3.

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison; High-poised example of great duties done Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn As life's indifferent gifts to all men born; Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, Tramping the snow to coral where they trod, Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content; 240 Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed Save by the men his nobler temper shamed; Never seduced through show of present good By other than unsetting lights to steer New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear; Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will; Not honored then or now because he wooed The popular voice, but that he still withstood; 250 Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one Who was all this and ours, and all men's,--WASHINGTON.

4.

Minds strong by fits, irregularly great, That flash and darken like revolving lights, Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled to wait On the long curve of patient days and nights Bounding a whole life to the circle fair Of orbed fulfilment; and this balanced soul, So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare Of draperies theatric, standing there 260 In perfect symmetry of self-control, Seems not so great at first, but greater grows Still as we look, and by experience learn How grand this quiet is, how nobly stern The discipline that wrought through life-long throes That energetic passion of repose.

5.

A nature too decorous and severe, Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, For ardent girls and boys Who find no genius in a mind so clear 270 That its grave depths seem obvious and near, Nor a soul great that made so little noise. They feel no force in that calm-cadenced phrase, The habitual full-dress of his well-bred mind, That seems to pace the minuet's courtly maze And tell of ampler leisures, roomier length of days, His firm-based brain, to self so little kind That no tumultuary blood could blind, Formed to control men, not amaze, Looms not like those that borrow height of haze: 280 It was a world of statelier movement then Than this we fret in, he a denizen Of that ideal Rome that made a man for men.

VI

1.

The longer on this earth we live And weigh the various Qualities of men, Seeing how most are fugitive, Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen, The more we feel the high stern-featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty, 290 Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, But finding amplest recompense For life's ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days. For this we honor him, that he could know How sweet the service and how free Of her, God's eldest daughter here below, And choose in meanest raiment which was she.

2.

Placid completeness, life without a fall From faith or highest aims, truth's breachless wall, 300 Surely if any fame can bear the touch, His will say 'Here!' at the last trumpet's call, The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much.

VII

1.

Never to see a nation born Hath been given to mortal man, Unless to those who, on that summer morn, Gazed silent when the great Virginian Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash Shot union through the incoherent clash Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 310 Around a single will's unpliant stem, And making purpose of emotion rash. Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb, Nebulous at first but hardening to a star. Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom, The common faith that made us what we are.

2.

That lifted blade transformed our jangling clans, Till then provincial, to Americans, And made a unity of wildering plans; Here was the doom fixed: here is marked the date 320 When this New World awoke to man's estate, Burnt its last ship and ceased to look behind: Nor thoughtless was the choice; no love or hate Could from its poise move that deliberate mind, Weighing between too early and too late, Those pitfalls of the man refused by Fate: His was the impartial vision of the great Who see not as they wish, but as they find. He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less The incomputable perils of success; 330 The sacred past thrown by, an empty rind; The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets blind; The waste of war, the ignominy of peace; On either hand a sullen rear of woes, Whose garnered lightnings none could guess, Piling its thunder-heads and muttering 'Cease!' Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely chose The seeming-desperate task whence our new nation rose.

3.

A noble choice and of immortal seed! Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance 340 Or easy were as in a boy's romance; The man's whole life preludes the single deed That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Our race's sap and sustenance, Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and feed. Choice seems a thing indifferent: thus or so, What matters it? The Fates with mocking face Look on inexorable, nor seem to know Where the lot lurks that gives life's foremost place. 350 Yet Duty's leaden casket holds it still, And but two ways are offered to our will, Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, The problem still for us and all of human race. He chose, as men choose, where most danger showed, Nor ever faltered 'neath the load Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the most, But kept right on the strenuous up-hill road, Strong to the end, above complaint or boast: The popular tempest on his rock-mailed coast 360 Wasted its wind-borne spray, The noisy marvel of a day; His soul sate still in its unstormed abode.

VIII

Virginia gave us this imperial man Cast in the massive mould Of those high-statured ages old Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran; She gave us this unblemished gentleman: What shall we give her back but love and praise As in the dear old unestrangèd days 370 Before the inevitable wrong began? Mother of States and undiminished men, Thou gavest us a country, giving him, And we owe alway what we owed thee then: The boon thou wouldst have snatched from us agen Shines as before with no abatement dim, A great man's memory is the only thing With influence to outlast the present whim And bind us as when here he knit our golden ring. All of him that was subject to the hours 380 Lies in thy soil and makes it part of ours: Across more recent graves, Where unresentful Nature waves Her pennons o'er the shot-ploughed sod, Proclaiming the sweet Truce of God, We from this consecrated plain stretch out Our hands as free from afterthought or doubt As here the united North Poured her embrownèd manhood forth In welcome of our savior and thy son. 390 Through battle we have better learned thy worth, The long-breathed valor and undaunted will, Which, like his own, the day's disaster done, Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be still. Both thine and ours the victory hardly won; If ever with distempered voice or pen We have misdeemed thee, here we take it back, And for the dead of both don common black. Be to us evermore as thou wast then, As we forget thou hast not always been, 400 Mother of States and unpolluted men, Virginia, fitly named from England's manly queen!

AN ODE

FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876

I

1.

Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the eye, Half chance-evoked by the wind's fantasy In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd: There, 'mid unreal forms that came and went In air-spun robes, of evanescent dye, A woman's semblance shone preeminent; Not armed like Pallas, not like Hera proud, But, as on household diligence intent, 10 Beside her visionary wheel she bent Like Aretë or Bertha, nor than they Less queenly in her port; about her knee Glad children clustered confident in play: Placid her pose, the calm of energy; And over her broad brow in many a round (That loosened would have gilt her garment's hem), Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was wound In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. The cloud changed shape, obsequious to the whim 20 Of some transmuting influence felt in me, And, looking now, a wolf I seemed to see Limned in that vapor, gaunt and hunger-bold, Threatening her charge; resolve in every limb, Erect she flamed in mail of sun-wove gold, Penthesilea's self for battle dight; One arm uplifted braced a flickering spear, And one her adamantine shield made light; Her face, helm-shadowed, grew a thing to fear, And her fierce eyes, by danger challenged, took 30 Her trident-sceptred mother's dauntless look. 'I know thee now, O goddess-born!' I cried, And turned with loftier brow and firmer stride; For in that spectral cloud-work I had seen Her image, bodied forth by love and pride, The fearless, the benign, the mother-eyed, The fairer world's toil-consecrated queen.

2.

What shape by exile dreamed elates the mind Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the poor, No blood in vengeance spilt, though lawful, stains? 40 Who never turned a suppliant from her door? Whose conquests are the gains of all mankind? To-day her thanks shall fly on every wind, Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to shore, One love, one hope, and not a doubt behind! Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise, Banner to banner flap it forth in flame; Her children shall rise up to bless her name, And wish her harmless length of days, The mighty mother of a mighty brood, 50 Blessed in all tongues and dear to every blood, The beautiful, the strong, and, best of all, the good.

3.

Seven years long was the bow Of battle bent, and the heightening Storm-heaps convulsed with the throe Of their uncontainable lightning; Seven years long heard the sea Crash of navies and wave-borne thunder; Then drifted the cloud-rack a-lee, And new stars were seen, a world's wonder; 60 Each by her sisters made bright, All binding all to their stations, Cluster of manifold light Startling the old constellations: Men looked up and grew pale: Was it a comet or star, Omen of blessing or bale. Hung o'er the ocean afar?

4.

Stormy the day of her birth: 69 Was she not born of the strong. She, the last ripeness of earth, Beautiful, prophesied long? Stormy the days of her prime: Hers are the pulses that beat Higher for perils sublime, Making them fawn at her feet. Was she not born of the strong? Was she not born of the wise? Daring and counsel belong Of right to her confident eyes: Human and motherly they, 81 Careless of station or race: Hearken! her children to-day Shout for the joy of her face.

II

1.

No praises of the past are hers, No fanes by hallowing time caressed, No broken arch that ministers To Time's sad instinct in the breast; She has not gathered from the years Grandeur of tragedies and tears, 90 Nor from long leisure the unrest That finds repose in forms of classic grace: These may delight the coming race Who haply shall not count it to our crime That we who fain would sing are here before our time. She also hath her monuments; Not such as stand decrepitly resigned To ruin-mark the path of dead events That left no seed of better days behind, The tourist's pensioners that show their scars 100 And maunder of forgotten wars; She builds not on the ground, but in the mind, Her open-hearted palaces For larger-thoughted men with heaven and earth at ease: Her march the plump mow marks, the sleepless wheel, The golden sheaf, the self-swayed commonweal; The happy homesteads hid in orchard trees Whose sacrificial smokes through peaceful air Rise lost in heaven, the household's silent prayer; What architect hath bettered these? 110 With softened eye the westward traveller sees A thousand miles of neighbors side by side, Holding by toil-won titles fresh from God The lands no serf or seigneur ever trod, With manhood latent in the very sod, Where the long billow of the wheatfield's tide Flows to the sky across the prairie wide, A sweeter vision than the castled Rhine, Kindly with thoughts of Ruth and Bible-days benign.

2.

O ancient commonwealths, that we revere 120 Haply because we could not know you near, Your deeds like statues down the aisles of Time Shine peerless in memorial calm sublime, And Athens is a trumpet still, and Rome; Yet which of your achievements is not foam Weighed with this one of hers (below you far In fame, and born beneath a milder star), That to Earth's orphans, far as curves the dome Of death-deaf sky, the bounteous West means home, With dear precedency of natural ties 130 That stretch from roof to roof and make men gently wise? And if the nobler passions wane, Distorted to base use, if the near goal Of insubstantial gain Tempt from the proper race-course of the soul That crowns their patient breath Whose feet, song-sandalled, are too fleet for Death, Yet may she claim one privilege urbane And haply first upon the civic roll, That none can breathe her air nor grow humane. 140

3.

Oh, better far the briefest hour Of Athens self-consumed, whose plastic power Hid Beauty safe from Death in words or stone; Of Rome, fair quarry where those eagles crowd Whose fulgurous vans about the world had blown Triumphant storm and seeds of polity; Of Venice, fading o'er her shipless sea, Last iridescence of a sunset cloud; Than this inert prosperity, This bovine comfort in the sense alone! 150 Yet art came slowly even to such as those. Whom no past genius cheated of their own With prudence of o'ermastering precedent; Petal by petal spreads the perfect rose, Secure of the divine event; And only children rend the bud half-blown To forestall Nature in her calm intent: Time hath a quiver full of purposes Which miss not of their aim, to us unknown, And brings about the impossible with ease: 160 Haply for us the ideal dawn shall break From where in legend-tinted line The peaks of Hellas drink the morning's wine, To tremble on our lids with mystic sign Till the drowsed ichor in our veins awake And set our pulse in time with moods divine: Long the day lingered in its sea-fringed nest, Then touched the Tuscan hills with golden lance And paused; then on to Spain and France The splendor flew, and Albion's misty crest: 170 Shall Ocean bar him from his destined West? Or are we, then, arrived too late, Doomed with the rest to grope disconsolate, Foreclosed of Beauty by our modern date?

III

1.

Poets, as their heads grow gray, Look from too far behind the eyes, Too long-experienced to be wise In guileless youth's diviner way; Life sings not now, but prophesies; Time's shadows they no more behold, 180 But, under them, the riddle old That mocks, bewilders, and defies: In childhood's face the seed of shame, In the green tree an ambushed flame, In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night, They, though against their will, divine, And dread the care-dispelling wine Stored from the Muse's mintage bright, By age imbued with second-sight. From Faith's own eyelids there peeps out, 190 Even as they look, the leer of doubt; The festal wreath their fancy loads With care that whispers and forebodes: Nor this our triumph-day can blunt Megæra's goads.

2.

Murmur of many voices in the air Denounces us degenerate, Unfaithful guardians of a noble fate, And prompts indifference or despair: Is this the country that we dreamed in youth, Where wisdom and not numbers should have weight, 200 Seed-field of simpler manners, braver truth, Where shams should cease to dominate In household, church, and state? Is this Atlantis? This the unpoisoned soil, Sea-whelmed for ages and recovered late, Where parasitic greed no more should coil Bound Freedom's stem to bend awry and blight What grew so fair, sole plant of love and light? Who sit where once in crowned seclusion sate The long-proved athletes of debate 210 Trained from their youth, as none thinks needful now? Is this debating club where boys dispute, And wrangle o'er their stolen fruit, The Senate, erewhile cloister of the few, Where Clay once flashed and Webster's cloudy brow Brooded those bolts of thought that all the horizon knew?

3.

Oh, as this pensive moonlight blurs my pines, Here while I sit and meditate these lines, To gray-green dreams of what they are by day, So would some light, not reason's sharp-edged ray, 220 Trance me in moonshine as before the flight Of years had won me this unwelcome right To see things as they are, or shall he soon, In the frank prose of undissembling noon!

4.

Back to my breast, ungrateful sigh! Whoever fails, whoever errs, The penalty be ours, not hers! The present still seems vulgar, seen too nigh; The golden age is still the age that's past: I ask no drowsy opiate 230 To dull my vision of that only state Founded on faith in man, and therefore sure to last. For, O my country, touched by thee, The gray hairs gather back their gold; Thy thought sets all my pulses free; The heart refuses to be old; The love is all that I can see. Not to thy natal-day belong Time's prudent doubt or age's wrong, But gifts of gratitude and song: Unsummoned crowd the thankful words, 241 As sap in spring-time floods the tree. Foreboding the return of birds, For all that thou hast been to me!

IV

1.

Flawless his heart and tempered to the core Who, beckoned by the forward-leaning wave, First left behind him the firm-footed shore, And, urged by every nerve of sail and oar, Steered for the Unknown which gods to mortals gave. Of thought and action the mysterious door, 250 Bugbear of fools, a summons to the brave: Strength found he in the unsympathizing sun, And strange stars from beneath the horizon won, And the dumb ocean pitilessly grave: High-hearted surely he; But bolder they who first off-cast Their moorings from the habitable Past And ventured chartless on the sea Of storm-engendering Liberty: For all earth's width of waters is a span, 260 And their convulsed existence mere repose, Matched with the unstable heart of man, Shoreless in wants, mist-girt in all it knows, Open to every wind of sect or clan, And sudden-passionate in ebbs and flows.

2.

They steered by stars the elder shipmen knew, And laid their courses where the currents draw Of ancient wisdom channelled deep in law. The undaunted few Who changed the Old World for the New, 270 And more devoutly prized Than all perfection theorized The more imperfect that had roots and grew. They founded deep and well, Those danger-chosen chiefs of men Who still believed in Heaven and Hell, Nor hoped to find a spell, In some fine flourish of a pen, To make a better man Than long-considering Nature will or can, 280 Secure against his own mistakes, Content with what life gives or takes, And acting still on some fore-ordered plan, A cog of iron in an iron wheel, Too nicely poised to think or feel, Dumb motor in a clock-like commonweal. They wasted not their brain in schemes Of what man might be in some bubble-sphere, As if he must be other than he seems Because he was not what he should be here, 290 Postponing Time's slow proof to petulant dreams: Yet herein they were great Beyond the incredulous lawgivers of yore, And wiser than the wisdom of the shelf, That they conceived a deeper-rooted state, Of hardier growth, alive from rind to core, By making man sole sponsor of himself.

3.

God of our fathers, Thou who wast, Art, and shalt be when those eye-wise who flout Thy secret presence shall be lost In the great light that dazzles them to doubt, 301 We, sprung from loins of stalwart men Whose strength was in their trust That Thou woudst make thy dwelling in their dust And walk with those a fellow-citizen Who build a city of the just, We, who believe Life's bases rest Beyond the probe of chemic test, Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near, Sure that, while lasts the immutable decree, 310 The land to Human Nature dear Shall not be unbeloved of Thee.

HEARTSEASE AND RUE

I. FRIENDSHIP

AGASSIZ

Come Dicesti _egli ebbe?_ non viv' egli ancora? Non fiere gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome?

I

1.

The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill Makes next-door gossips of the antipodes, Confutes poor Hope's last fallacy of ease,-- The distance that divided her from ill: Earth sentient seems again as when of old The horny foot of Pan Stamped, and the conscious horror ran Beneath men's feet through all her fibres cold: Space's blue walls are mined; we feel the throe From underground of our night-mantled foe: 10 The flame-winged feet Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, Are mercilessly fleet, And at a bound annihilate Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve; Surely ill news might wait, And man be patient of delay to grieve: Letters have sympathies And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 To senses finer than the eyes. Their errand's purport ere we break the seal; They wind a sorrow round with circumstance To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace The veil that darkened from our sidelong glance The inexorable face: But now Fate stuns as with a mace; The savage of the skies, that men have caught And some scant use of language taught, Tells only what he must,-- 30 The steel-cold fact in one laconic thrust.

2.

So thought I, as, with vague, mechanic eyes, I scanned the festering news we half despise Yet scramble for no less, And read of public scandal, private fraud, Crime flaunting scot-free while the mob applaud, Office made vile to bribe unworthiness, And all the unwholesome mess The Land of Honest Abraham serves of late To teach the Old World how to wait, 40 When suddenly, As happens if the brain, from overweight Of blood, infect the eye, Three tiny words grew lurid as I read, And reeled commingling: _Agassiz is dead_. As when, beneath the street's familiar jar, An earthquake's alien omen rumbles far, Men listen and forebode, I hung my head, And strove the present to recall, As if the blow that stunned were yet to fall. 50

3.

Uprooted is our mountain oak, That promised long security of shade And brooding-place for many a wingèd thought; Not by Time's softly cadenced stroke With pauses of relenting pity stayed, But ere a root seemed sapt, a bough decayed, From sudden ambush by the whirlwind caught And in his broad maturity betrayed!

4.

Well might I, as of old, appeal to you, O mountains, woods, and streams, 60 To help us mourn him, for ye loved him too; But simpler moods befit our modern themes, And no less perfect birth of nature can, Though they yearn tow'rd him, sympathize with man. Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a wall; Answer ye rather to my call, Strong poets of a more unconscious day, When Nature spake nor sought nice reasons why, Too much for softer arts forgotten since That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, 70 And drown in music the heart's bitter cry! Lead me some steps in your directer way, Teach me those words that strike a solid root Within the ears of men; Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben, For he was masculine from head to heel. Nay, let himself stand undiminished by With those clear parts of him that will not die. Himself from out the recent dark I claim 80 To hear, and, if I flatter him, to blame; To show himself, as still I seem to see, A mortal, built upon the antique plan, Brimful of lusty blood as ever ran, And taking life as simply as a tree! To claim my foiled good-by let him appear, Large-limbed and human as I saw him near, Loosed from the stiffening uniform of fame: And let me treat him largely; I should fear, (If with too prying lens I chanced to err, 90 Mistaking catalogue for character,) His wise forefinger raised in smiling blame. Nor would I scant him with judicial breath And turn mere critic in an epitaph; I choose the wheat, incurious of the chaff That swells fame living, chokes it after death, And would but memorize the shining half Of his large nature that was turned to me: Fain had I joined with those that honored him With eyes that darkened because his were dim, 100 And now been silent: but it might not be.

II

1.

In some the genius is a thing apart, A pillared hermit of the brain, Hoarding with incommunicable art Its intellectual gain; Man's web of circumstance and fate They from their perch of self observe, Indifferent as the figures on a slate Are to the planet's sun-swung curve Whose bright returns they calculate; 110 Their nice adjustment, part to part, Were shaken from its serviceable mood By unpremeditated stirs of heart Or jar of human neighborhood: Some find their natural selves, and only then, In furloughs of divine escape from men, And when, by that brief ecstasy left bare, Driven by some instinct of desire, They wander worldward, 'tis to blink and stare, Like wild things of the wood about a fire, 120 Dazed by the social glow they cannot share; His nature brooked no lonely lair, But basked and bourgeoned in co-partnery, Companionship, and open-windowed glee: He knew, for he had tried, Those speculative heights that lure The unpractised foot, impatient of a guide, Tow'rd ether too attenuately pure For sweet unconscious breath, though dear to pride, But better loved the foothold sure 130 Of paths that wind by old abodes of men Who hope at last the churchyard's peace secure, And follow time-worn rules, that them suffice, Learned from their sires, traditionally wise, Careful of honest custom's how and when; His mind, too brave to look on Truth askance, No more those habitudes of faith could share, But, tinged with sweetness of the old Swiss manse, Lingered around them still and fain would spare. Patient to spy a sullen egg for weeks, 140 The enigma of creation to surprise, His truer instinct sought the life that speaks Without a mystery from kindly eyes; In no self-spun cocoon of prudence wound, He by the touch of men was best inspired, And caught his native greatness at rebound From generosities itself had fired; Then how the heat through every fibre ran, Felt in the gathering presence of the man, While the apt word and gesture came unbid! 150 Virtues and faults it to one metal wrought, Fined all his blood to thought, And ran the molten man in all he said or did. All Tully's rules and all Quintilian's too He by the light of listening faces knew, And his rapt audience all unconscious lent Their own roused force to make him eloquent; Persuasion fondled in his look and tone; Our speech (with strangers prudish) he could bring To find new charm in accents not her own; 160 Her coy constraints and icy hindrances Melted upon his lips to natural ease, As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. Nor yet all sweetness: not in vain he wore, Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled By velvet courtesy or caution cold, That sword of honest anger prized of old, But, with two-handed wrath, If baseness or pretension crossed his path, Struck once nor needed to strike more. 170

2.

His magic was not far to seek.-- He was so human! Whether strong or weak, Far from his kind he neither sank nor soared, But sate an equal guest at every board: No beggar ever felt him condescend, No prince presume; for still himself he bare At manhood's simple level, and where'er He met a stranger, there he left a friend. How large an aspect! nobly un-severe, With freshness round him of Olympian cheer, 180 Like visits of those earthly gods he came; His look, wherever its good-fortune fell, Doubled the feast without a miracle, And on the hearthstone danced a happier flame; Philemon's crabbed vintage grew benign; Amphitryon's gold-juice humanized to wine.

III

1.

The garrulous memories Gather again from all their far-flown nooks, Singly at first, and then by twos and threes, Then in a throng innumerable, as the rooks 190 Thicken their twilight files Tow'rd Tintern's gray repose of roofless aisles: Once more I see him at the table's head When Saturday her monthly banquet spread To scholars, poets, wits, All choice, some famous, loving things, not names, And so without a twinge at others' fames; Such company as wisest moods befits, Yet with no pedant blindness to the worth Of undeliberate mirth, 200

Natures benignly mixed of air and earth, Now with the stars and now with equal zest Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest.

2.

I see in vision the warm-lighted hall, The living and the dead I see again, And but my chair is empty; 'mid them all 'Tis I that seem the dead: they all remain Immortal, changeless creatures of the brain: Wellnigh I doubt which world is real most, Of sense or spirit to the truly sane; 210 In this abstraction it were light to deem Myself the figment of some stronger dream; They are the real things, and I the ghost That glide unhindered through the solid door, Vainly for recognition seek from chair to chair, And strive to speak and am but futile air, As truly most of us are little more.

3.

Him most I see whom we most dearly miss, The latest parted thence, His features poised in genial armistice 220 And armed neutrality of self-defence Beneath the forehead's walled preeminence, While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach, Settles off-hand our human how and whence; The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears The infallible strategy of volunteers Making through Nature's walls its easy breach, And seems to learn where he alone could teach. Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills As he our fireside were, our light and heat, 230 Centre where minds diverse and various skills Find their warm nook and stretch unhampered feet; I see the firm benignity of face, Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet, The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips While Holmes's rockets, curve their long ellipse, And burst in seeds of fire that burst again To drop in scintillating rain.

4.

There too the face half-rustic, half-divine, 240 Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with humor fine, Of him who taught us not to mow and mope About our fancied selves, but seek our scope In Nature's world and Man's, nor fade to hollow trope, Content with our New World and timely bold To challenge the o'ermastery of the Old; Listening with eyes averse I see him sit Pricked with the cider of the Judge's wit (Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again), While the wise nose's firm-built aquiline 250 Curves sharper to restrain The merriment whose most unruly moods Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods Of silence-shedding pine: Hard by is he whose art's consoling spell Hath given both worlds a whiff of asphodel, His look still vernal 'mid the wintry ring Of petals that remember, not foretell, The paler primrose of a second spring.

5.

And more there are: but other forms arise 260 And seen as clear, albeit with dimmer eyes: First he from sympathy still held apart By shrinking over-eagerness of heart, Cloud charged with searching fire, whose shadow's sweep Heightened mean things with sense of brooding ill, And steeped in doom familiar field and hill,-- New England's poet, soul reserved and deep, November nature with a name of May, Whom high o'er Concord plains we laid to sleep, While the orchards mocked us in their white array 270 And building robins wondered at our tears, Snatched in his prime, the shape august That should have stood unbent 'neath fourscore years, The noble head, the eyes of furtive trust, All gone to speechless dust. And he our passing guest, Shy nature, too, and stung with life's unrest, Whom we too briefly had but could not hold, Who brought ripe Oxford's culture to our board, The Past's incalculable hoard, 280 Mellowed by scutcheoned panes in cloisters old, Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements sweet With immemorial lisp of musing feet; Young head time-tonsured smoother than a friar's, Boy face, but grave with answerless desires, Poet in all that poets have of best, But foiled with riddles dark and cloudy aims, Who now hath found sure rest, Not by still Isis or historic Thames, Nor by the Charles he tried to love with me, 290 But, not misplaced, by Arno's hallowed brim, Nor scorned by Santa Croce's neighboring fames, Haply not mindless, wheresoe'er he be, Of violets that to-day I scattered over him, He, too, is there, After the good centurion fitly named, Whom learning dulled not, nor convention tamed, Shaking with burly mirth his hyacinthine hair, Our hearty Grecian of Homeric ways, Still found the surer friend where least he hoped the praise.

6.

Yea truly, as the sallowing years 301 Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days, And that unwakened winter nears, 'Tis the void chair our surest guest receives, 'Tis lips long cold that give the warmest kiss, 'Tis the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears; We count our rosary by the beads we miss: To me, at least, it seemeth so, An exile in the land once found divine, 310 While my starved fire burns low, And homeless winds at the loose casement whine Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apennine.

IV

1.

Now forth into the darkness all are gone, But memory, still unsated, follows on, Retracing step by step our homeward walk, With many a laugh among our serious talk, Across the bridge where, on the dimpling tide, The long red streamers from the windows glide, Or the dim western moon Rocks her skiff's image on the broad lagoon, 321 And Boston shows a soft Venetian side In that Arcadian light when roof and tree, Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy; Or haply in the sky's cold chambers wide Shivered the winter stars, while all below, As if an end were come of human ill, The world was wrapt in innocence of snow And the cast-iron bay was blind and still; These were our poetry; in him perhaps 330 Science had barred the gate that lets in dream, And he would rather count the perch and bream Than with the current's idle fancy lapse; And yet he had the poet's open eye That takes a frank delight in all it sees, Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic sky, To him the life-long friend of fields and trees: Then came the prose of the suburban street, Its silence deepened by our echoing feet, And converse such as rambling hazard finds; 340 Then he who many cities knew and many minds, And men once world-noised, now mere Ossian forms Of misty memory, bade them live anew As when they shared earth's manifold delight, In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture true, And, with an accent heightening as he warms, Would stop forgetful of the shortening night, Drop my confining arm, and pour profuse Much worldly wisdom kept for others' use, Not for his own, for he was rash and free, 350 His purse or knowledge all men's, like the sea. Still can I hear his voice's shrilling might (With pauses broken, while the fitful spark He blew more hotly rounded on the dark To hint his features with a Rembrandt light) Call Oken back, or Humboldt, or Lamarck, Or Cuvier's taller shade, and many more Whom he had seen, or knew from others' sight, And make them men to me as ne'er before: Not seldom, as the undeadened fibre stirred 360 Of noble friendships knit beyond the sea, German or French thrust by the lagging word, For a good leash of mother-tongues had he. At last, arrived at where our paths divide, 'Good night!' and, ere the distance grew too wide, 'Good night!' again; and now with cheated ear I half hear his who mine shall never hear.

2.

Sometimes it seemed as if New England air For his large lungs too parsimonious were, As if those empty rooms of dogma drear 370 Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere Counting the horns o'er of the Beast, Still scaring those whose faith to it is least, As if those snaps o' th' moral atmosphere That sharpen all the needles of the East, Had been to him like death, Accustomed to draw Europe's freer breath In a more stable element; Nay, even our landscape, half the year morose, Our practical horizon, grimly pent, 380 Our air, sincere of ceremonious haze, Forcing hard outlines mercilessly close, Our social monotone of level days, Might make our best seem banishment; But it was nothing so; Haply this instinct might divine, Beneath our drift of puritanic snow, The marvel sensitive and fine Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow And trust its shyness to an air malign; 390 Well might he prize truth's warranty and pledge In the grim outcrop of our granite edge, Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at need In the gaunt sons of Calvin's iron breed, As prompt to give as skilled to win and keep; But, though such intuitions might not cheer, Yet life was good to him, and, there or here, With that sufficing joy, the day was never cheap; Thereto his mind was its own ample sphere, And, like those buildings great that through the year 400 Carry one temperature, his nature large Made its own climate, nor could any marge Traced by convention stay him from his bent: He had a habitude of mountain air; He brought wide outlook where he went, And could on sunny uplands dwell Of prospect sweeter than the pastures fair High-hung of viny Neufchâtel; Nor, surely, did he miss Some pale, imaginary bliss Of earlier sights whose inner landscape still was Swiss. 411

V

1.

I cannot think he wished so soon to die With all his senses full of eager heat, And rosy years that stood expectant by To buckle the winged sandals on their feet, He that was friends with Earth, and all her sweet Took with both hands unsparingly: Truly this life is precious to the root, And good the feel of grass beneath the foot; To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom, 420 Tenants in common with the bees, And watch the white clouds drift through gulfs of trees, Is better than long waiting in the tomb; Only once more to feel the coming spring As the birds feel it, when it bids them sing, Only once more to see the moon Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms Curve her mild sickle in the West Sweet with the breath of haycocks, were a boon Worth any promise of soothsayer realms 430 Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest; To take December by the beard And crush the creaking snow with springy foot, While overhead the North's dumb streamers shoot, Till Winter fawn upon the cheek endeared, Then the long evening-ends Lingered by cosy chimney-nooks, With high companionship of books Or slippered talk of friends And sweet habitual looks, Is better than to stop the ears with dust: 441 Too soon the spectre comes to say, 'Thou must!'

2.

When toil-crooked hands are crost upon the breast, They comfort us with sense of rest; They must be glad to lie forever still; Their work is ended with their day; Another fills their room; 't is the World's ancient way, Whether for good or ill; But the deft spinners of the brain, Who love each added day and find it gain, 450 Them overtakes the doom To snap the half-grown flower upon the loom (Trophy that was to be of life long pain), The thread no other skill can ever knit again. 'Twas so with him, for he was glad to live, 'Twas doubly so, for he left work begun; Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive Till all the allotted flax were spun? It matters not; for, go at night or noon, A friend, whene'er he dies, has died too soon, 460 And, once we hear the hopeless _He is dead,_ So far as flesh hath knowledge, all is said.

VI

1.

I seem to see the black procession go: That crawling prose of death too well I know, The vulgar paraphrase of glorious woe; I see it wind through that unsightly grove, Once beautiful, but long defaced With granite permanence of cockney taste And all those grim disfigurements we love: There, then, we leave him: Him? such costly waste 470 Nature rebels at: and it is not true Of those most precious parts of him we knew: Could we be conscious but as dreamers be, 'Twere sweet to leave this shifting life of tents Sunk in the changeless calm of Deity; Nay, to be mingled with the elements, The fellow-servants of creative powers, Partaker in the solemn year's events, To share the work of busy-fingered hours, To be night's silent almoner of dew, 480 To rise again in plants and breathe and grow, To stream as tides the ocean caverns through, Or with the rapture of great winds to blow About earth's shaken coignes, were not a fate To leave us all-disconsolate; Even endless slumber in the sweetening sod Of charitable earth That takes out all our mortal stains, And makes us cleanlier neighbors of the clod, Methinks were better worth Than the poor fruit of most men's wakeful pains, 491 The heart's insatiable ache: But such was not his faith, Nor mine: it may be he had trod Outside the plain old path of _God thus spake_, But God to him was very God And not a visionary wraith Skulking in murky corners of the mind, And he was sure to be Somehow, somewhere, imperishable as He, 500 Not with His essence mystically combined, As some high spirits long, but whole and free, A perfected and conscious Agassiz. And such I figure him: the wise of old Welcome and own him of their peaceful fold, Not truly with the guild enrolled Of him who seeking inward guessed Diviner riddles than the rest, And groping in the darks of thought Touched the Great Hand and knew it not; 510 Rather he shares the daily light, From reason's charier fountains won, Of his great chief, the slow-paced Stagyrite, And Cuvier clasps once more his long-lost son.

2.

The shape erect is prone: forever stilled The winning tongue; the forehead's high-piled heap, A cairn which every science helped to build, Unvalued will its golden secrets keep: He knows at last if Life or Death be best: Wherever he be flown, whatever vest 520 The being hath put on which lately here So many-friended was, so full of cheer To make men feel the Seeker's noble zest, We have not lost him all; he is not gone To the dumb herd of them that wholly die; The beauty of his better self lives on In minds he touched with fire, in many an eye He trained to Truth's exact severity; He was a Teacher: why be grieved for him Whose living word still stimulates the air? 530 In endless file shall loving scholars come The glow of his transmitted touch to share, And trace his features with an eye less dim Than ours whose sense familiar wont makes dumb.

TO HOLMES

ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY

Dear Wendell, why need count the years Since first your genius made me thrill, If what moved then to smiles or tears, Or both contending, move me still?

What has the Calendar to do With poets? What Time's fruitless tooth With gay immortals such as you Whose years but emphasize your youth?

One air gave both their lease of breath; The same paths lured our boyish feet; One earth will hold us safe in death With dust of saints and scholars sweet.

Our legends from one source were drawn, I scarce distinguish yours from mine, And _don't_ we make the Gentiles yawn With 'You remembers?' o'er our wine!

If I, with too senescent air, Invade your elder memory's pale, You snub me with a pitying 'Where Were you in the September Gale?'

Both stared entranced at Lafayette, Saw Jackson dubbed with LL.D. What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet As scarcely worth one's while to see.

Ten years my senior, when my name In Harvard's entrance-book was writ, Her halls still echoed with the fame Of you, her poet and her wit.

'Tis fifty years from then to now; But your Last Leaf renews its green, Though, for the laurels on your brow (So thick they crowd), 'tis hardly seen.

The oriole's fledglings fifty times Have flown from our familiar elms; As many poets with their rhymes Oblivion's darkling dust o'erwhelms.

The birds are hushed, the poets gone Where no harsh critic's lash can reach, And still your wingèd brood sing on To all who love our English speech.

Nay, let the foolish records he That make believe you're seventy-five: You're the old Wendell still to me,-- And that's the youngest man alive.

The gray-blue eyes, I see them still, The gallant front with brown o'erhung, The shape alert, the wit at will, The phrase that stuck, but never stung.

You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs, Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, Though twilight all the lowland blurs, Hold sunset in their ruddy stems.

_You_ with the elders? Yes, 'tis true, But in no sadly literal sense, With elders and coevals too, Whose verb admits no preterite tense.

Master alike in speech and song Of fame's great antiseptic--Style, You with the classic few belong Who tempered wisdom with a smile.

Outlive us all! Who else like you Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff, And make us with the pen we knew Deathless at least in epitaph?

IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

Fit rosary for a queen, in shape and hue, When Contemplation tells her pensive beads Of mortal thoughts, forever old and new. Fit for a queen? Why, surely then for you!

The moral? Where Doubt's eddies toss and twirl Faith's slender shallop till her footing reel, Plunge: if you find not peace beneath the whirl, Groping, you may like Omar grasp a pearl.

ON RECEIVING A COPY OF MR. AUSTIN DOBSON'S 'OLD WORLD IDYLLS'

I

At length arrived, your book I take To read in for the author's sake; Too gray for new sensations grown, Can charm to Art or Nature known This torpor from my senses shake?

Hush! my parched ears what runnels slake? Is a thrush gurgling from the brake? Has Spring, on all the breezes blown, At length arrived?

Long may you live such songs to make, And I to listen while you wake, With skill of late disused, each tone Of the _Lesboum, barbiton_, At mastery, through long finger-ache, At length arrived.

II

As I read on, what changes steal O'er me and through, from head to heel? A rapier thrusts coat-skirt aside, My rough Tweeds bloom to silken pride,-- Who was it laughed? Your hand, Dick Steele!

Down vistas long of clipt _charmille_ Watteau as Pierrot leads the reel; Tabor and pipe the dancers guide As I read on.

While in and out the verses wheel The wind-caught robes trim feet reveal, Lithe ankles that to music glide, But chastely and by chance descried; Art? Nature? Which do I most feel As I read on?

TO C.F. BRADFORD

ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE

The pipe came safe, and welcome too, As anything must be from you; A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light As she the girls call Amphitrite. Mixture divine of foam and clay, From both it stole the best away: Its foam is such as crowns the glow Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot; Its clay is but congested lymph Jove chose to make some choicer nymph; And here combined,--why, this must be The birth of some enchanted sea, Shaped to immortal form, the type And very Venus of a pipe.

When high I heap it with the weed From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore And cast upon Virginia's shore, I'll think,--So fill the fairer bowl And wise alembic of thy soul, With herbs far-sought that shall distil, Not fumes to slacken thought and will, But bracing essences that nerve To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve.

When curls the smoke in eddies soft, And hangs a shifting dream aloft, That gives and takes, though chance-designed, The impress of the dreamer's mind, I'll think,--So let the vapors bred By Passion, in the heart or head, Pass off and upward into space, Waving farewells of tenderest grace, Remembered in some happier time, To blend their beauty with my rhyme.

While slowly o'er its candid bowl The color deepens (as the soul That burns in mortals leaves its trace Of bale or beauty on the face), I'll think,--So let the essence rare Of years consuming make me fair; So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse, Steep me in some narcotic juice; And if my soul must part with all That whiteness which we greenness call, Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown, And make me beautifully brown!

Dream-forger, I refill thy cup With reverie's wasteful pittance up, And while the fire burns slow away, Hiding itself in ashes gray, I'll think,--As inward Youth retreats, Compelled to spare his wasting heats, When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about, And my head's gray with fires burnt out, While stays one spark to light the eye, With the last flash of memory, 'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B., Who sent my favorite pipe to me.

BANKSIDE

(HOME OF EDMUND QUINCY)

DEDHAM, MAY 21, 1877

I

I christened you in happier days, before These gray forebodings on my brow were seen; You are still lovely in your new-leaved green; The brimming river soothes his grassy shore; The bridge is there; the rock with lichens hoar; And the same shadows on the water lean, Outlasting us. How many graves between That day and this! How many shadows more Darken my heart, their substance from these eyes Hidden forever! So our world is made Of life and death commingled; and the sighs Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance laid: What compensation? None, save that the Allwise So schools us to love things that cannot fade.

II

Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, Ere any leaf had felt the year's regret; Your latest image in his memory set Was fair as when your landscape's peaceful sway Charmed dearer eyes with his to make delay On Hope's long prospect,--as if They forget The happy, They, the unspeakable Three, whose debt, Like the hawk's shadow, blots our brightest day: Better it is that ye should look so fair. Slopes that he loved, and ever-murmuring pines That make a music out of silent air, And bloom-heaped orchard-trees in prosperous lines; In you the heart some sweeter hints divines, And wiser, than in winter's dull despair.

III

Old Friend, farewell! Your kindly door again I enter, but the master's hand in mine No more clasps welcome, and the temperate wine, That cheered our long nights, other lips must stain: All is unchanged, but I expect in vain The face alert, the manners free and fine, The seventy years borne lightly as the pine Wears its first down of snow in green disdain: Much did he, and much well; yet most of all I prized his skill in leisure and the ease Of a life flowing full without a plan; For most are idly busy; him I call Thrice fortunate who knew himself to please, Learned in those arts that make a gentleman.

IV

Nor deem he lived unto himself alone; His was the public spirit of his sire, And in those eyes, soft with domestic fire, A quenchless light of fiercer temper shone What time about, the world our shame was blown On every wind; his soul would not conspire With selfish men to soothe the mob's desire, Veiling with garlands Moloch's bloody stone; The high-bred instincts of a better day Ruled in his blood, when to be citizen Rang Roman yet, and a Free People's sway Was not the exchequer of impoverished men, Nor statesmanship with loaded votes to play, Nor public office a tramps' boosing-ken.

JOSEPH WINLOCK

DIED JUNE 11, 1875

Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will Through years one hair's-breadth on our Dark to gain, Who, from the stars he studied not in vain, Had learned their secret to be strong and still, Careless of fames that earth's tin trumpets fill; Born under Leo, broad of build and brain, While others slept, he watched in that hushed fane Of Science, only witness of his skill: Sudden as falls a shooting-star he fell, But inextinguishable his luminous trace In mind and heart of all that knew him well. Happy man's doom! To him the Fates were known Of orbs dim hovering on the skirts of space, Unprescient, through God's mercy, of his own!

SONNET

TO FANNY ALEXANDER

Unconscious as the sunshine, simply sweet And generous as that, thou dost not close Thyself in art, as life were but a rose To rumple bee-like with luxurious feet; Thy higher mind therein finds sure retreat, But not from care of common hopes and woes; Thee the dark chamber, thee the unfriended, knows, Although no babbling crowds thy praise repeat: Consummate artist, who life's landscape bleak Hast brimmed with sun to many a clouded eye, Touched to a brighter hue the beggar's cheek, Hung over orphaned lives a gracious sky, And traced for eyes, that else would vainly seek, Fair pictures of an angel drawing nigh!

JEFFRIES WYMAN

DIED SEPTEMBER 4, 1874

The wisest man could ask no more of Fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the Many, honored by the Few; To count as naught in World, or Church, or State, But, inwardly in secret to be great; To feel mysterious Nature ever new; To touch, if not to grasp, her endless clue, And learn by each discovery how to wait. He widened knowledge and escaped the praise; He wisely taught, because more wise to learn; He toiled for Science, not to draw men's gaze, But for her lore of self-denial stern. That such a man could spring from our decays Fans the soul's nobler faith until it burn.

TO A FRIEND

WHO GAVE ME A GROUP OF WEEDS AND GRASSES, AFTER A DRAWING OF DÜRER

True as the sun's own work, but more refined, It tells of love behind the artist's eye, Of sweet companionships with earth and sky, And summers stored, the sunshine of the mind. What peace! Sure, ere you breathe, the fickle wind Will break its truce and bend that grass-plume high, Scarcely yet quiet from the gilded fly That flits a more luxurious perch to find. Thanks for a pleasure that can never pall, A serene moment, deftly caught and kept To make immortal summer on my wall. Had he who drew such gladness ever wept? Ask rather could he else have seen at all, Or grown in Nature's mysteries an adept?

WITH AN ARMCHAIR

1.

About the oak that framed this chair, of old The seasons danced their round; delighted wings Brought music to its boughs; shy woodland things Shared its broad roof, 'neath whose green glooms grown bold, Lovers, more shy than they, their secret told; The resurrection of a thousand springs Swelled in its veins, and dim imaginings Teased them, perchance, of life more manifold. Such shall it know when its proud arms enclose My Lady Goshawk, musing here at rest, Careless of him who into exile goes, Yet, while his gift by those fair limbs is prest, Through some fine sympathy of nature knows That, seas between us, she is still his guest.

2.

Yet sometimes, let me dream, the conscious wood A momentary vision may renew Of him who counts it treasure that he knew, Though but in passing, such a priceless good, And, like an elder brother, felt his mood Uplifted by the spell that kept her true, Amid her lightsome compeers, to the few That wear the crown of serious womanhood: Were he so happy, think of him as one Who in the Louvre or Pitti feels his soul Rapt by some dead face which, till then unseen, Moves like a memory, and, till life outrun, Is vexed with vague misgiving past control, Of nameless loss and thwarted might-have-been.

E.G. DE R.

Why should I seek her spell to decompose Or to its source each rill of influence trace That feeds the brimming river of her grace? The petals numbered but degrade to prose Summer's triumphant poem of the rose: Enough for me to watch the wavering chase, Like wind o'er grass, of moods across her face, Fairest in motion, fairer in repose. Steeped in her sunshine, let me, while I may, Partake the bounty; ample 'tis for me That her mirth cheats my temples of their gray, Her charm makes years long spent seem yet to be. Wit, goodness, grace, swift flash from grave to gay,-- All these are good, but better far is she.

BON VOYAGE

Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue, May stormless stars control thy horoscope; In keel and hull, in every spar and rope, Be night and day to thy dear office true! Ocean, men's path and their divider too, No fairer shrine of memory and hope To the underworld adown thy westering slope E'er vanished, or whom such regrets pursue: Smooth all thy surges as when Jove to Crete Swam with less costly burthen, and prepare A pathway meet for her home-coming soon With golden undulations such as greet The printless summer-sandals of the moon And tempt the Nautilus his cruise to dare!

TO WHITTIER

ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY

New England's poet, rich in love as years, Her hills and valleys praise thee, her swift brooks Dance in thy verse; to her grave sylvan nooks Thy steps allure us, which the wood-thrush hears As maids their lovers', and no treason fears; Through thee her Merrimacs and Agiochooks And many a name uncouth win gracious looks, Sweetly familiar to both Englands' ears: Peaceful by birthright, as a virgin lake, The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake That lay in bonds, thou blewst a blast as bold As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake, Far heard across the New World and the Old.

ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H.G. WILD

Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall The sunset stays: that hill in glory rolled, Those trees and clouds in crimson and in gold, Burn on, nor cool when evening's shadows fall. Not round _these_ splendors Midnight wraps her pall; _These_ leaves the flush of Autumn's vintage hold In Winter's spite, nor can the Northwind bold Deface my chapel's western window small: On one, ah me! October struck his frost, But not repaid him with those Tyrian hues; His naked boughs but tell him what is lost, And parting comforts of the sun refuse: His heaven is bare,--ah, were its hollow crost Even with a cloud whose light were yet to lose!

TO MISS D.T.

ON HER GIVING ME A DRAWING OF LITTLE STREET ARABS

As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's slime, Glow Farnesina's vaults with shapes again That dreamed some exiled artist from his pain Back to his Athens and the Muse's clime, So these world-orphaned waifs of Want and Crime, Purged by Art's absolution from the stain Of the polluting city-flood, regain Ideal grace secure from taint of time. An Attic frieze you give, a pictured song; For as with words the poet paints, for you The happy pencil at its labor sings, Stealing his privilege, nor does him wrong, Beneath the false discovering the true, And Beauty's best in unregarded things.

WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE

Leaves fit to have been poor Juliet's cradle-rhyme, With gladness of a heart long quenched in mould They vibrate still, a nest not yet grown cold From its fledged burthen. The numb hand of Time Vainly his glass turns; here is endless prime; Here lips their roses keep and locks their gold; Here Love in pristine innocency bold Speaks what our grosser conscience makes a crime. Because it tells the dream that all have known Once in their lives, and to life's end the few; Because its seeds o'er Memory's desert blown Spring up in heartsease such as Eden knew; Because it hath a beauty all its own, Dear Friend, I plucked this herb of grace for you.

ON PLANTING A TREE AT INVERARAY

Who does his duty is a question Too complex to be solved by me, But he, I venture the suggestion, Does part of his that plants a tree.

For after he is dead and buried, And epitaphed, and well forgot, Nay, even his shade by Charon ferried To--let us not inquire to what,

His deed, its author long outliving, By Nature's mother-care increased, Shall stand, his verdant almoner, giving A kindly dole to man and beast.

The wayfarer, at noon reposing, Shall bless its shadow on the grass, Or sheep beneath it huddle, dozing Until the thundergust o'erpass.

The owl, belated in his plundering, Shall here await the friendly night, Blinking whene'er he wakes, and wondering What fool it was invented light.

Hither the busy birds shall flutter, With the light timber for their nests, And, pausing from their labor, utter The morning sunshine in their breasts.

What though his memory shall have vanished, Since the good deed he did survives? It is not wholly to be banished Thus to be part of many lives.

Grow, then, my foster-child, and strengthen, Bough over bough, a murmurous pile, And, as your stately stem shall lengthen, So may the statelier of Argyll!

AN EPISTLE TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

'De prodome, Des qu'il s'atorne a grant bonte Ja n'iert tot dit ne tot conte, Que leingue ne puet pas retraire Tant d'enor com prodom set faire.'

CRESTIEN DE TROIES, _Li Romans dou Chevalier au Lyon_, 784-788.

1874

Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, Masks half its muscle in its skill to charm, And who so gently can the Wrong expose As sometimes to make converts, never foes, Or only such as good men must expect, Knaves sore with conscience of their own defect, I come with mild remonstrance. Ere I start, A kindlier errand interrupts my heart, And I must utter, though it vex your ears, The love, the honor, felt so many years. 10 Curtis, skilled equally with voice and pen To stir the hearts or mould the minds of men,-- That voice whose music, for I've heard you sing Sweet as Casella, can with passion ring, That pen whose rapid ease ne'er trips with haste, Nor scrapes nor sputters, pointed with good taste, First Steele's, then Goldsmith's, next it came to you, Whom Thackeray rated best of all our crew,-- Had letters kept you, every wreath were yours; Had the World tempted, all its chariest doors 20 Had swung on flattered hinges to admit Such high-bred manners, such good-natured wit; At courts, in senates, who so fit to serve? And both invited, but you would not swerve, All meaner prizes waiving that you might In civic duty spend your heat and light, Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain Refusing posts men grovel to attain. Good Man all own you; what is left me, then, To heighten praise with but Good Citizen? 30

But why this praise to make you blush and stare, And give a backache to your Easy-Chair? Old Crestien rightly says no language can Express the worth of a true Gentleman, And I agree; but other thoughts deride My first intent, and lure my pen aside. Thinking of you, I see my firelight glow On other faces, loved from long ago, Dear to us both, and all these loves combine With this I send and crowd in every line; 40 Fortune with me was in such generous mood That all my friends were yours, and all were good; Three generations come when one I call, And the fair grandame, youngest of them all, In her own Florida who found and sips The fount that fled from Ponce's longing lips. How bright they rise and wreathe my hearthstone round, Divine my thoughts, reply without a sound, And with them many a shape that memory sees, As dear as they, but crowned with aureoles these! 50 What wonder if, with protest in my thought, Arrived, I find 'twas only love I brought? I came with protest; Memory barred the road Till I repaid you half the debt I owed.

No, 'twas not to bring laurels that I came, Nor would you wish it, daily seeing fame, (Or our cheap substitute, unknown of yore,) Dumped like a load of coal at every door, Mime and hetæra getting equal weight With him whose toils heroic saved the State. 60 But praise can harm not who so calmly met Slander's worst word, nor treasured up the debt, Knowing, what all experience serves to show, No mud can soil us but the mud we throw. You have heard harsher voices and more loud, As all must, not sworn liegemen of the crowd, And far aloof your silent mind could keep As when, in heavens with winter-midnight deep, The perfect moon hangs thoughtful, nor can know What hounds her lucent calm drives mad below. 70 But to my business, while you rub your eyes And wonder how you ever thought me wise. Dear friend and old, they say you shake your head And wish some bitter words of mine unsaid: I wish they might be,--there we are agreed; I hate to speak, still more what makes the need; But I must utter what the voice within Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin; I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, That none may need to say them after me. 80 'Twere my felicity could I attain The temperate zeal that balances your brain; But nature still o'erleaps reflection's plan, And one must do his service as he can. Think you it were not pleasanter to speak Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and cheek? To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, unseen In private box, spectator of the scene Where men the comedy of life rehearse, Idly to judge which better and which worse 90 Each hireling actor spoiled his worthless part? Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, In happy commune with the untainted brooks, To dream all day, or, walled with silent books, To hear nor heed the World's unmeaning noise, Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong joys? I love too well the pleasures of retreat Safe from the crowd and cloistered from the street; The fire that whispers its domestic joy, Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy, 100 And knew my saintly father; the full days, Not careworn from the world's soul-squandering ways, Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread, Nor break my commune with the undying dead; Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, That come unbid, and claimless glide away By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past, Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last, Where saint and sage their silent vigil keep, And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to sleep. 110 Dear were my walks, too, gathering fragrant store Of Mother Nature's simple-minded lore: I learned all weather-signs of day or night; No bird but I could name him by his flight, No distant tree but by his shape was known, Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. This learning won by loving looks I hived As sweeter lore than all from books derived. I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood, Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy brood, 120 Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod, But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod, Or succory keeping summer long its trust Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust: These were my earliest friends, and latest too, Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. For years I had these treasures, knew their worth, Estate most real man can have on earth. I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs and woes; 130 Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste, Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste; These still had kept me could I but have quelled The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled. But there were times when silent were my books As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, When verses palled, and even the woodland path, By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath, And I must twist my little gift of words Into a scourge of rough and knotted cords 140 Unmusical, that whistle as they swing To leave on shameless backs their purple sting.

How slow Time comes! Gone who so swift as he? Add but a year, 'tis half a century Since the slave's stifled moaning broke my sleep, Heard 'gainst my will in that seclusion deep, Haply heard louder for the silence there, And so my fancied safeguard made my snare. After that moan had sharpened to a cry, And a cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our sky 150 With its stored vengeance, and such thunders stirred As heaven's and earth's remotest chambers heard, I looked to see an ampler atmosphere By that electric passion-gust blown clear. I looked for this; consider what I see-- But I forbear, 'twould please nor you nor me To check the items in the bitter list Of all I counted on and all I mist. Only three instances I choose from all, And each enough to stir a pigeon's gall: 160 Office a fund for ballot-brokers made To pay the drudges of their gainful trade; Our cities taught what conquered cities feel By ædiles chosen that they might safely steal; And gold, however got, a title fair To such respect as only gold can bear. I seem to see this; how shall I gainsay What all our journals tell me every day? Poured our young martyrs their high-hearted blood That we might trample to congenial mud 170 The soil with such a legacy sublimed? Methinks an angry scorn is here well-timed: Where find retreat? How keep reproach at bay? Where'er I turn some scandal fouls the way.

Dear friend, if any man I wished to please, 'Twere surely you whose humor's honied ease Flows flecked with gold of thought, whose generous mind Sees Paradise regained by all mankind, Whose brave example still to vanward shines, Cheeks the retreat, and spurs our lagging lines. 180 Was I too bitter? Who his phrase can choose That sees the life-blood of his dearest ooze? I loved my Country so as only they Who love a mother fit to die for may; I loved her old renown, her stainless fame,-- What better proof than that I loathed her shame? That many blamed me could not irk me long, But, if you doubted, must I not be wrong? 'Tis not for me to answer; this I know. That man or race so prosperously low 190 Sunk in success that wrath they cannot feel, Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune's heel; For never land long lease of empire won Whose sons sate silent when base deeds were done.

POSTSCRIPT, 1887

Curtis, so wrote I thirteen years ago, Tost it unfinished by, and left it so; Found lately, I have pieced it out, or tried, Since time for callid juncture was denied. Some of the verses pleased me, it is true, And still were pertinent,--those honoring you. 200 These now I offer: take them, if you will, Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady Hill We met, or Staten Island, in the days When life was its own spur, nor needed praise. If once you thought me rash, no longer fear; Past my next milestone waits my seventieth year. I mount no longer when the trumpets call; My battle-harness idles on the wall, The spider's castle, camping-ground of dust, Not without dints, and all in front, I trust. 210 Shivering sometimes it calls me as it hears Afar the charge's tramp and clash of spears; But 'tis such murmur only as might be The sea-shell's lost tradition of the sea, That makes me muse and wonder Where? and When? While from my cliff I watch the waves of men That climb to break midway their seeming gain, And think it triumph if they shake their chain. Little I ask of Fate; will she refuse Some days of reconcilement with the Muse? 220 I take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, 'Sing to me!' And, as its stops my curious touch retries, The stir of earlier instincts I surprise,-- Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong, And happy in the toil that ends with song.

Home am I come: not, as I hoped might be, To the old haunts, too full of ghosts for me, But to the olden dreams that time endears, And the loved books that younger grow with years; 230 To country rambles, timing with my tread Some happier verse that carols in my head, Yet all with sense of something vainly mist, Of something lost, but when I never wist. How empty seems to me the populous street, One figure gone I daily loved to meet,-- The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below! And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide, 240 What sense of diminution in the air Once so inspiring, Emerson not there! But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet, And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey's end; For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied, A nature sloping to the southern side; I thank her for it, though when clouds arise Such natures double-darken gloomy skies. 250 I muse upon the margin of the sea, Our common pathway to the new To Be, Watching the sails, that lessen more and more, Of good and beautiful embarked before; With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall bear Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, Whose friendly-peopled shore I sometimes see, By soft mirage uplifted, beckon me, Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun, My moorings to the past snap one by one. 260

II. SENTIMENT

ENDYMION

A MYSTICAL COMMENT ON TITIAN'S 'SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE'

I

My day began not till the twilight fell, And, lo, in ether from heaven's sweetest well, The New Moon swam divinely isolate In maiden silence, she that makes my fate Haply not knowing it, or only so As I the secrets of my sheep may know; Nor ask I more, entirely blest if she, In letting me adore, ennoble me To height of what the Gods meant making man, As only she and her best beauty can. 10 Mine be the love that in itself can find Seed of white thoughts, the lilies of the mind, Seed of that glad surrender of the will That finds in service self's true purpose still: Love that in outward fairness sees the tent Pitched for an inmate far more excellent; Love with a light irradiate to the core, Lit at her lamp, but fed from inborn store; Love thrice-requited with the single joy Of an immaculate vision naught could cloy, 20 Dearer because, so high beyond my scope, My life grew rich with her, unbribed by hope Of other guerdon save to think she knew One grateful votary paid her all her due; Happy if she, high-radiant there, resigned To his sure trust her image in his mind. O fairer even than Peace is when she comes Hushing War's tumult, and retreating drums Fade to a murmur like the sough of bees Hidden among the noon-stilled linden-trees, 30 Bringer of quiet, thou that canst allay The dust and din and travail of the day, Strewer of Silence, Giver of the dew That doth our pastures and our souls renew, Still dwell remote, still on thy shoreless sea Float unattained in silent empery, Still light my thoughts, nor listen to a prayer Would make thee less imperishably fair!

II

Can, then, my twofold nature find content In vain conceits of airy blandishment? 40 Ask I no more? Since yesterday I task My storm-strewn thoughts to tell me what I ask: Faint premenitions of mutation strange Steal o'er my perfect orb, and, with the change, Myself am changed; the shadow of my earth Darkens the disk of that celestial worth Which only yesterday could still suffice Upwards to waft my thoughts in sacrifice; My heightened fancy with its touches warm Moulds to a woman's that ideal form; 50 Nor yet a woman's wholly, but divine With awe her purer essence bred in mine. Was it long brooding on their own surmise, Which, of the eyes engendered, fools the eyes, Or have I seen through that translucent air A Presence shaped in its seclusions bare, My Goddess looking on me from above As look our russet maidens when they love, But high-uplifted, o'er our human heat And passion-paths too rough for her pearl feet? 60

Slowly the Shape took outline as I gazed At her full-orbed or crescent, till, bedazed With wonder-working light that subtly wrought My brain to its own substance, steeping thought In trances such as poppies give, I saw Things shut from vision by sight's sober law, Amorphous, changeful, but defined at last Into the peerless Shape mine eyes hold fast. This, too, at first I worshipt: soon, like wine, Her eyes, in mine poured, frenzy-philtred mine; 70 Passion put Worship's priestly raiment on And to the woman knelt, the Goddess gone. Was I, then, more than mortal made? or she Less than divine that she might mate with me? If mortal merely, could my nature cope With such o'ermastery of maddening hope? If Goddess, could she feel the blissful woe That women in their self-surrender know?

III

Long she abode aloof there in her heaven, Far as the grape-bunch of the Pleiad seven 80 Beyond my madness' utmost leap; but here Mine eyes have feigned of late her rapture near, Moulded of mind-mist that broad day dispels, Here in these shadowy woods and brook-lulled dells.

Have no heaven-habitants e'er felt a void In hearts sublimed with ichor unalloyed? E'er longed to mingle with a mortal fate Intense with pathos of its briefer date? Could she partake, and live, our human stains? Even with the thought there tingles through my veins 90 Sense of unwarned renewal; I, the dead, Receive and house again the ardor fled, As once Alcestis; to the ruddy brim Feel masculine virtue flooding every limb, And life, like Spring returning, brings the key That sets my senses from their winter free, Dancing like naked fauns too glad for shame. Her passion, purified to palest flame, Can it thus kindle? Is her purpose this? I will not argue, lest I lose a bliss 100 That makes me dream Tithonus' fortune mine, (Or what of it was palpably divine Ere came the fruitlessly immortal gift;) I cannot curb my hope's imperious drift That wings with fire my dull mortality; Though fancy-forged, 'tis all I feel or see.

IV

My Goddess sinks; round Latmos' darkening brow Trembles the parting of her presence now, Faint as the perfume left upon the grass By her limbs' pressure or her feet that pass 110 By me conjectured, but conjectured so As things I touch far fainter substance show. Was it mine eyes' imposture I have seen Flit with the moonbeams on from shade to sheen Through the wood-openings? Nay, I see her now Out of her heaven new-lighted, from her brow The hair breeze-scattered, like loose mists that blow Across her crescent, goldening as they go High-kirtled for the chase, and what was shown, Of maiden rondure, like the rose half-blown. 120 If dream, turn real! If a vision, stay! Take mortal shape, my philtre's spell obey! If hags compel thee from thy secret sky With gruesome incantations, why not I, Whose only magic is that I distil A potion, blent of passion, thought, and will, Deeper in reach, in force of fate more rich, Than e'er was juice wrung by Thessalian witch From moon-enchanted herbs,--a potion brewed Of my best life in each diviner mood? 130 Myself the elixir am, myself the bowl Seething and mantling with my soul of soul. Taste and be humanized: what though the cup, With thy lips frenzied, shatter? Drink it up! If but these arms may clasp, o'erquited so, My world, thy heaven, all life means I shall know.

V

Sure she hath heard my prayer and granted half, As Gods do who at mortal madness laugh. Yet if life's solid things illusion seem, Why may not substance wear the mask of dream? 140 In sleep she comes; she visits me in dreams, And, as her image in a thousand streams, So in my veins, that her obey, she sees, Floating and flaming there, her images Bear to my little world's remotest zone Glad messages of her, and her alone. With silence-sandalled Sleep she comes to me, (But softer-footed, sweeter-browed, than she,) In motion gracious as a seagull's wing, And all her bright limbs, moving, seem to sing. 150 Let me believe so, then, if so I may With the night's bounty feed my beggared day. In dreams I see her lay the goddess down With bow and quiver, and her crescent-crown Flicker and fade away to dull eclipse As down to mine she deigns her longed-for lips; And as her neck my happy arms enfold, Flooded and lustred with her loosened gold, She whispers words each sweeter than a kiss: Then, wakened with the shock of sudden bliss, 160 My arms are empty, my awakener fled, And, silent in the silent sky o'erhead, But coldly as on ice-plated snow, she gleams, Herself the mother and the child of dreams.

VI

Gone is the time when phantasms could appease My quest phantasmal and bring cheated ease; When, if she glorified my dreams, I felt Through all my limbs a change immortal melt At touch of hers illuminate with soul. Not long could I be stilled with Fancy's dole; 170 Too soon the mortal mixture in me caught Red fire from her celestial flame, and fought For tyrannous control in all my veins: My fool's prayer was accepted; what remains? Or was it some eidolon merely, sent By her who rules the shades in banishment, To mock me with her semblance? Were it thus, How 'scape I shame, whose will was traitorous? What shall compensate an ideal dimmed? How blanch again my statue virgin-limbed, 180 Soiled with the incense-smoke her chosen priest Poured more profusely as within decreased The fire unearthly, fed with coals from far Within the soul's shrine? Could my fallen star Be set in heaven again by prayers and tears And quenchless sacrifice of all my years, How would the victim to the flamen leap, And life for life's redemption paid hold cheap!

But what resource when she herself descends From her blue throne, and o'er her vassal bends 190 That shape thrice-deified by love, those eyes Wherein the Lethe of all others lies? When my white queen of heaven's remoteness tires, Herself against her other self conspires, Takes woman's nature, walks in mortal ways, And finds in my remorse her beauty's praise? Yet all would I renounce to dream again The dream in dreams fulfilled that made my pain, My noble pain that heightened all my years With crowns to win and prowess-breeding tears; 200 Nay, would that dream renounce once more to see Her from her sky there looking down at me!

VII

Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once more An inaccessible splendor to adore, A faith, a hope of such transcendent worth As bred ennobling discontent with earth; Give back the longing, back the elated mood That, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good; Give even the spur of impotent despair That, without hope, still bade aspire and dare; 210 Give back the need to worship, that still pours Down to the soul the virtue it adores!

Nay, brightest and most beautiful, deem naught These frantic words, the reckless wind of thought; Still stoop, still grant,--I live but in thy will; Be what thou wilt, but be a woman still! Vainly I cried, nor could myself believe That what I prayed for I would fain receive; My moon is set; my vision set with her; No more can worship vain my pulses stir. 220 Goddess Triform, I own thy triple spell, My heaven's queen,--queen, too, of my earth and hell!

THE BLACK PREACHER

A BRETON LEGEND

At Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, They show you a church, or rather the gray Ribs of a dead one, left there to bleach With the wreck lying near on the crest of the beach, Roofless and splintered with thunder-stone, 'Mid lichen-blurred gravestones all alone; 'Tis the kind of ruin strange sights to see That may have their teaching for you and me.

Something like this, then, my guide had to tell, Perched on a saint cracked across when he fell; 10 But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench, He talking his _patois_ and I English-French, I'll put what he told me, preserving the tone, In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own.

An abbey-church stood here, once on a time, Built as a death-bed atonement for crime: 'Twas for somebody's sins, I know not whose; But sinners are plenty, and you can choose. Though a cloister now of the dusk-winged bat, 'Twas rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, 20 Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, Singing good rest to the founder's lost soul.

But one day came Northmen, and lithe tongues of fire Lapped up the chapter-house, licked off the spire, And left all a rubbish-heap, black and dreary, Where only the wind sings _miserere_.

No priest has kneeled since at the altar's foot, Whose crannies are searched by the nightshade's root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, 30 Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass In midnights unholy his witches' mass, Or shouting 'Ho! ho!' from the belfry high As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by.

But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are traced anew On the baleful nicker of corpse-lights blue, 40 And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, To a preaching of Reverend Doctor Death.

Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair Hear the dull summons and gather there: No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; No knight whispers love in the _châtelaine's_ ear, His next-door neighbor this five-hundred year; No monk has a sleek _benedicite_ For the great lord shadowy now as he; 50 Nor needeth any to hold his breath, Lest he lose the least word of Doctor Death.

He chooses his text in the Book Divine, Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine: '"Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do, That do with thy whole might, or thou shalt rue; For no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave, In that quencher of might-be's and would-be's, the grave." Bid by the Bridegroom, "To-morrow," ye said, And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; 60 Ye said, "God can wait; let us finish our wine;" Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!'

But I can't pretend to give you the sermon, Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German; Whatever he preached in, I give you my word The meaning was easy to all that heard; Famous preachers there have been and be, But never was one so convincing as he; So blunt was never a begging friar, No Jesuit's tongue so barbed with fire, 70 Cameronian never, nor Methodist, Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist.

And would you know who his hearers must be? I tell you just what my guide told me: Excellent teaching men have, day and night, From two earnest friars, a black and a white, The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life; And between these two there is never strife, For each has his separate office and station, And each his own work in the congregation; 80 Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears, And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears, Awake In his coffin must wait and wait, In that blackness of darkness that means _too late_, And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls, As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls, To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine.

ARCADIA REDIVIVA

I, walking the familiar street, While a crammed horse-car jingled through it, Was lifted from my prosy feet And in Arcadia ere I knew it.

Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread, And shepherd's pipes my ear delighted; The riddle may be lightly read: I met two lovers newly plighted.

They murmured by in happy care, New plans for paradise devising, 10 Just as the moon, with pensive stare, O'er Mistress Craigie's pines was rising.

Astarte, known nigh threescore years, Me to no speechless rapture urges; Them in Elysium she enspheres, Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges.

The railings put forth bud and bloom, The house-fronts all with myrtles twine them, And light-winged Loves in every room Make nests, and then with kisses line them. 20

O sweetness of untasted life! O dream, its own supreme fulfillment! O hours with all illusion rife, As ere the heart divined what ill meant!

'_Et ego_', sighed I to myself, And strove some vain regrets to bridle, 'Though now laid dusty on the shelf, Was hero once of such an idyl!

'An idyl ever newly sweet, Although since Adam's day recited, 30 Whose measures time them to Love's feet, Whose sense is every ill requited.'

Maiden, if I may counsel, drain Each drop of this enchanted season, For even our honeymoons must wane, Convicted of green cheese by Reason.

And none will seem so safe from change, Nor in such skies benignant hover, As this, beneath whose witchery strange You tread on rose-leaves with your lover. 40

The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, As round its brim Conjecture dances; For not Mephisto's self hath wit To draw such vintages as Fancy's.

When our pulse beats its minor key, When play-time halves and school-time doubles, Age fills the cup with serious tea, Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles.

'Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise? Is this the moral of a poet, 50 Who, when the plant of Eden dies, Is privileged once more to sow it!

'That herb of clay-disdaining root, From stars secreting what it feeds on, Is burnt-out passion's slag and soot Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on?

'Pray, why, if in Arcadia once, Need one so soon forget the way there? Or why, once there, be such a dunce As not contentedly to stay there?' 60

Dear child, 'twas but a sorry jest, And from my heart I hate the cynic Who makes the Book of Life a nest For comments staler than rabbinic.

If Love his simple spell but keep, Life with ideal eyes to flatter, The Grail itself were crockery cheap To Every-day's communion-platter.

One Darby is to me well known, Who, as the hearth between them blazes, 70 Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, And float her youthward in its hazes.

He rubs his spectacles, he stares,-- 'Tis the same face that witched him early! He gropes for his remaining hairs,-- Is this a fleece that feels so curly?

'Good heavens! but now 'twas winter gray, And I of years had more than plenty; The almanac's a fool! 'Tis May! Hang family Bibles! I am twenty! 80

'Come, Joan, your arm; we'll walk the room-- The lane, I mean--do you remember? How confident the roses bloom, As if it ne'er could be December!

'Nor more it shall, while in your eyes My heart its summer heat recovers, And you, howe'er your mirror lies, Find your old beauty in your lover's.'

THE NEST

MAY

When oaken woods with buds are pink, And new-come birds each morning sing, When fickle May on Summer's brink Pauses, and knows not which to fling, Whether fresh bud and bloom again, Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,

Then from the honeysuckle gray The oriole with experienced quest Twitches the fibrous bark away, The cordage of his hammock-nest. Cheering his labor with a note Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o'er the loud and dusty road The soft gray cup in safety swings, To brim ere August with its load Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy World drags by In the old way, because it must, The bride with heartbreak in her eye, The mourner following hated dust: Thy duty, wingèd flame of Spring, Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

Oh, happy life, to soar and sway Above the life by mortals led, Singing the merry months away, Master, not slave of daily bread, And, when the Autumn comes, to flee Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

PALINODE--DECEMBER

Like some lorn abbey now, the wood Stands roofless in the bitter air; In ruins on its floor is strewed The carven foliage quaint and rare, And homeless winds complain along The columned choir once thrilled with song.

And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise The thankful oriole used to pour, Swing'st empty while the north winds chase Their snowy swarms from Labrador: But, loyal to the happy past, I love thee still for what thou wast.

Ah, when the Summer graces flee From other nests more dear than thou, And, where June crowded once, I see Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; When springs of life that gleamed and gushed Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed;

When our own branches, naked long, The vacant nests of Spring betray, Nurseries of passion, love, and song That vanished as our year grew gray; When Life drones o'er a tale twice told O'er embers pleading with the cold,--

I'll trust, that, like the birds of Spring, Our good goes not without repair, But only flies to soar and sing Far off in some diviner air, Where we shall find it in the calms Of that fair garden 'neath the palms.

A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS

IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER

Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Over his deep mind muses, as when o'er awe-stricken ocean Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder; Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, Seeming to wait till, gradually wid'ning from far-off horizons, Piling the deeps up, heaping the glad-hearted surges before it, Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it, Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, Swaying the listener's fantasy hither and thither like drift-weed.

BIRTHDAY VERSES

WRITTEN IN A CHILD'S ALBUM

'Twas sung of old in hut and hall How once a king in evil hour Hung musing o'er his castle wall, And, lost in idle dreams, let fall Into the sea his ring of power.

Then, let him sorrow as he might, And pledge his daughter and his throne To who restored the jewel bright, The broken spell would ne'er unite; The grim old ocean held its own.

Those awful powers on man that wait, On man, the beggar or the king, To hovel bare or hall of state A magic ring that masters fate With each succeeding birthday bring.

Therein are set four jewels rare: Pearl winter, summer's ruby blaze, Spring's emerald, and, than all more fair, Fall's pensive opal, doomed to bear A heart of fire bedreamed with haze.

To him the simple spell who knows The spirits of the ring to sway, Fresh power with every sunrise flows, And royal pursuivants are those That fly his mandates to obey.

But he that with a slackened will Dreams of things past or things to be, From him the charm is slipping still, And drops, ere he suspect the ill, Into the inexorable sea.

ESTRANGEMENT

The path from me to you that led, Untrodden long, with grass is grown, Mute carpet that his lieges spread Before the Prince Oblivion When he goes visiting the dead.

And who are they but who forget? You, who my coming could surmise Ere any hint of me as yet Warned other ears and other eyes, See the path blurred without regret.

But when I trace its windings sweet With saddened steps, at every spot That feels the memory in my feet, Each grass-blade turns forget-me-not, Where murmuring bees your name repeat.

PHŒBE

Ere pales in Heaven the morning star, A bird, the loneliest of its kind, Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar While all its mates are dumb and blind.

It is a wee sad-colored thing, As shy and secret as a maid, That, ere in choir the robins sing, Pipes its own name like one afraid.

It seems pain-prompted to repeat The story of some ancient ill, But _Phoebe! Phoebe!_ sadly sweet Is all it says, and then is still.

It calls and listens. Earth and sky, Hushed by the pathos of its fate, Listen: no whisper of reply Comes from its doom-dissevered mate.

_Phoebe!_ it calls and calls again, And Ovid, could he but have heard, Had hung a legendary pain About the memory of the bird;

A pain articulate so long, In penance of some mouldered crime Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong Down the waste solitudes of time.

Waif of the young World's wonder-hour, When gods found mortal maidens fair, And will malign was joined with power Love's kindly laws to overbear,

Like Progne, did it feel the stress And coil of the prevailing words Close round its being, and compress Man's ampler nature to a bird's?

One only memory left of all The motley crowd of vanished scenes, Hers, and vain impulse to recall By repetition what it means.

_Phoebe!_ is all it has to say In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er, Like children that have lost their way, And know their names, but nothing more.

Is it a type, since Nature's Lyre Vibrates to every note in man, Of that insatiable desire, Meant to be so since life began?

I, in strange lands at gray of dawn, Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint Through Memory's chambers deep withdrawn Renew its iterations faint.

So nigh! yet from remotest years It summons back its magic, rife With longings unappeased, and tears Drawn from the very source of life.

DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE

How was I worthy so divine a loss, Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns?

And when she came, how earned I such a gift? Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, The hourly mercy, of a woman's soul?

Ah, did we know to give her all her right, What wonders even in our poor clay were done! It is not Woman leaves us to our night, But our brute earth that grovels from her sun.

Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes We whirl too oft from her who still shines on To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone.

Still must this body starve our souls with shade; But when Death makes us what we were before, Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor.

THE RECALL

Come back before the birds are flown, Before the leaves desert the tree, And, through the lonely alleys blown, Whisper their vain regrets to me Who drive before a blast more rude, The plaything of my gusty mood, In vain pursuing and pursued!

Nay, come although the boughs be bare, Though snowflakes fledge the summer's nest, And in some far Ausonian air The thrush, your minstrel, warm his breast. Come, sunshine's treasurer, and bring To doubting flowers their faith in spring, To birds and me the need to sing!

ABSENCE

Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so; But Absence is the bitter self of Death, And, you away, Life's lips their red forego, Parched in an air unfreshened by your breath.

Light of those eyes that made the light of mine, Where shine you? On what happier fields and flowers? Heaven's lamps renew their lustre less divine, But only serve to count my darkened hours.

If with your presence went your image too, That brain-born ghost my path would never cross Which meets me now where'er I once met you, Then vanishes, to multiply my loss.

MONNA LISA

She gave me all that woman can, Nor her soul's nunnery forego, A confidence that man to man Without remorse can never show.

Rare art, that can the sense refine Till not a pulse rebellious stirs, And, since she never can be mine, Makes it seem sweeter to be hers!

THE OPTIMIST

Turbid from London's noise and smoke, Here I find air and quiet too; Air filtered through the beech and oak, Quiet by nothing harsher broke Than wood-dove's meditative coo.

The Truce of God is here; the breeze Sighs as men sigh relieved from care, Or tilts as lightly in the trees As might a robin: all is ease, With pledge of ampler ease to spare.

Time, leaning on his scythe, forgets To turn the hour-glass in his hand, And all life's petty cares and frets, Its teasing hopes and weak regrets, Are still as that oblivious sand.

Repose fills all the generous space Of undulant plain; the rook and crow Hush; 'tis as if a silent grace, By Nature murmured, calmed the face Of Heaven above and Earth below.

From past and future toils I rest, One Sabbath pacifies my year; I am the halcyon, this my nest; And all is safely for the best While the World's there and I am here.

So I turn tory for the nonce, And think the radical a bore, Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce, That what was good for people once Must be as good forevermore.

Sun, sink no deeper down the sky; Earth, never change this summer mood; Breeze, loiter thus forever by, Stir the dead leaf or let it lie; Since I am happy, all is good.

ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS

With what odorous woods and spices Spared for royal sacrifices, With what costly gums seld-seen, Hoarded to embalm a queen, With what frankincense and myrrh, Burn these precious parts of her, Full of life and light and sweetness As a summer day's completeness, Joy of sun and song of bird Running wild in every word, Full of all the superhuman Grace and winsomeness of woman?

O'er these leaves her wrist has slid, Thrilled with veins where fire is hid 'Neath the skin's pellucid veil, Like the opal's passion pale; This her breath has sweetened; this Still seems trembling with the kiss She half-ventured on my name, Brow and cheek and throat aflame; Over all caressing lies Sunshine left there by her eyes; From them all an effluence rare With her nearness fills the air, Till the murmur I half-hear Of her light feet drawing near.

Rarest woods were coarse and rough, Sweetest spice not sweet enough, Too impure all earthly fire For this sacred funeral-pyre; These rich relics must suffice For their own dear sacrifice.

Seek we first an altar fit For such victims laid on it: It shall be this slab brought home In old happy days from Rome,-- Lazuli, once blest to line Dian's inmost cell and shrine. Gently now I lay them there. Pure as Dian's forehead bare, Yet suffused with warmer hue, Such as only Latmos knew.

Fire I gather from the sun In a virgin lens; 'tis done! Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue, As her moods were shining through, Of the moment's impulse born,-- Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, Half defiance, half surrender, More than cruel, more than tender, Flouts, caresses, sunshine, shade, Gracious doublings of a maid Infinite in guileless art, Playing hide-seek with her heart.

On the altar now, alas, There they lie a crinkling mass, Writhing still, as if with grief Went the life from every leaf; Then (heart-breaking palimpsest!) Vanishing ere wholly guessed, Suddenly some lines flash back, Traced in lightning on the black, And confess, till now denied, All the fire they strove to hide. What they told me, sacred trust, Stays to glorify my dust, There to burn through dust and damp Like a mage's deathless lamp, While an atom of this frame Lasts to feed the dainty flame.

All is ashes now, but they In my soul are laid away, And their radiance round me hovers Soft as moonlight over lovers, Shutting her and me alone In dream-Edens of our own; First of lovers to invent Love, and teach men what it meant.

THE PROTEST

I could not bear to see those eyes On all with wasteful largess shine, And that delight of welcome rise Like sunshine strained through amber wine, But that a glow from deeper skies, From conscious fountains more divine, Is (is it?) mine.

Be beautiful to all mankind, As Nature fashioned thee to be; 'Twould anger me did all not find The sweet perfection that's in thee: Yet keep one charm of charms behind,-- Nay, thou'rt so rich, keep two or three For (is it?) me!

THE PETITION

Oh, tell me less or tell me more, Soft eyes with mystery at the core, That always seem to melt my own Frankly as pansies fully grown, Yet waver still 'tween no and yes!

So swift to cavil and deny, Then parley with concessions shy, Dear eyes, that make their youth be mine And through my inmost shadows shine, Oh, tell me more or tell me less!

FACT OR FANCY?

In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, My neighbor's clock behind the wall Record the day's increasing debt, And _Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ faintly call.

Our senses run in deepening grooves, Thrown out of which they lose their tact, And consciousness with effort moves From habit past to present fact.

So, in the country waked to-day, I hear, unwitting of the change, A cuckoo's throb from far away Begin to strike, nor think it strange.

The sound creates its wonted frame: My bed at home, the songster hid Behind the wainscoting,--all came As long association bid.

Then, half aroused, ere yet Sleep's mist From the mind's uplands furl away, To the familiar sound I list, Disputed for by Night and Day.

I count to learn how late it is, Until, arrived at thirty-four, I question, 'What strange world is this Whose lavish hours would make me poor?'

_Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ Still on it went, With hints of mockery in its tone; How could such hoards of time be spent By one poor mortal's wit alone?

I have it! Grant, ye kindly Powers, I from this spot may never stir, If only these uncounted hours May pass, and seem too short, with Her!

But who She is, her form and face, These to the world of dream belong; She moves through fancy's visioned space, Unbodied, like the cuckoo's song.

AGRO-DOLCE

One kiss from all others prevents me, And sets all my pulses astir, And burns on my lips and torments me: 'Tis the kiss that I fain would give her.

One kiss for all others requites me, Although it is never to be, And sweetens my dreams and invites me: 'Tis the kiss that she dare not give me.

Ah, could it he mine, it were sweeter Than honey bees garner in dream, Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter Than a swallow's dip to the stream.

And yet, thus denied, it can never In the prose of life vanish away; O'er my lips it must hover forever, The sunshine and shade of my day.

THE BROKEN TRYST

Walking alone where we walked together, When June was breezy and blue, I watch in the gray autumnal weather The leaves fall inconstant as you.

If a dead leaf startle behind me, I think 'tis your garment's hem, And, oh, where no memory could find me, Might I whirl away with them!

CASA SIN ALMA

RECUERDO DE MADRID

Silencioso por la puerta Voy de su casa desierta Do siempre feliz entré, Y la encuentro en vano abierta Cual la boca de una muerta Despues que el alma se fué.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES

'What means this glory round our feet,' The Magi mused, 'more bright than morn?' And voices chanted clear and sweet, 'To-day the Prince of Peace is born!'

'What means that star,' the Shepherds said, 'That brightens through the rocky glen?' And angels, answering overhead, Sang, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men!'

'Tis eighteen hundred years and more Since those sweet oracles were dumb; We wait for Him, like them of yore; Alas, He seems so slow to come!

But it was said, in words of gold No time or sorrow e'er shall dim, That little children might be bold In perfect trust to come to Him.

All round about our feet shall shine A light like that the wise men saw, If we our loving wills incline To that sweet Life which is the Law.

So shall we learn to understand The simple faith of shepherds then, And, clasping kindly hand in hand, Sing, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men!'

And they who do their souls no wrong, But keep at eve the faith of morn, Shall daily hear the angel-song, 'To-day the Prince of Peace is born!'

MY PORTRAIT GALLERY

Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly, The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden, Now for the first time seen in flawless truth. Ah, never master that drew mortal breath Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! Thou paintest that which struggled here below Half understood, or understood for woe, And with a sweet forewarning Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning.

PAOLO TO FRANCESCA

I was with thee in Heaven: I cannot tell If years or moments, so the sudden bliss, When first we found, then lost, us in a kiss. Abolished Time, abolished Earth and Hell, Left only Heaven. Then from our blue there fell The dagger's flash, and did not fall amiss, For nothing now can rob my life of this,-- That once with thee in Heaven, all else is well. Us, undivided when man's vengeance came, God's half-forgives that doth not here divide; And, were this bitter whirl-blast fanged with flame, To me 'twere summer, we being side by side: This granted, I God's mercy will not blame, For, given thy nearness, nothing is denied.

SONNET

SCOTTISH BORDER

As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills Whose heather-purple slopes, in glory rolled, Flush all my thought with momentary gold, What pang of vague regret my fancy thrills? Here 'tis enchanted ground the peasant tills, Where the shy ballad dared its blooms unfold, And memory's glamour makes new sights seem old, As when our life some vanished dream fulfils. Yet not to thee belong these painless tears, Land loved ere seen: before my darkened eyes, From far beyond the waters and the years, Horizons mute that wait their poet rise; The stream before me fades and disappears, And in the Charles the western splendor dies.

SONNET

ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE

Amid these fragments of heroic days When thought met deed with mutual passion's leap, There sits a Fame whose silent trump makes cheap What short-lived rumor of ourselves we raise. They had far other estimate of praise Who stamped the signet of their souls so deep In art and action, and whose memories keep Their height like stars above our misty ways: In this grave presence to record my name Something within me hangs the head and shrinks. Dull were the soul without some joy in fame; Yet here to claim remembrance were, methinks, Like him who, in the desert's awful frame, Notches his cockney initials on the Sphinx.

THE DANCING BEAR

Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, And win their dearest crowns beyond the goal Of their own conscious purpose; they control With gossamer threads wide-flown our fancy's play, And so our action. On my walk to-day, A wallowing bear begged clumsily his toll, When straight a vision rose of Atta Troll, And scenes ideal witched mine eyes away. '_Merci, Mossieu!_' the astonished bear-ward cried, Grateful for thrice his hope to me, the slave Of partial memory, seeing at his side A bear immortal. The glad dole I gave Was none of mine; poor Heine o'er the wide Atlantic welter stretched it from his grave.

THE MAPLE

The Maple puts her corals on in May, While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, To be in tune with what the robins sing, Plastering new log-huts 'mid her branches gray; But when the Autumn southward turns away, Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring. And every leaf, intensely blossoming, Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day. O Youth unprescient, were it only so With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined, Thinking their drifting blooms Fate's coldest snow, You carve dear names upon the faithful rind, Nor in that vernal stem the cross foreknow That Age shall bear, silent, yet unresigned!

NIGHTWATCHES

While the slow clock, as they were miser's gold, Counts and recounts the mornward steps of Time, The darkness thrills with conscience of each crime By Death committed, daily grown more bold. Once more the list of all my wrongs is told, And ghostly hands stretch to me from my prime Helpless farewells, as from an alien clime; For each new loss redoubles all the old. This morn 'twas May; the blossoms were astir With southern wind; but now the boughs are bent With snow instead of birds, and all things freeze. How much of all my past is dumb with her, And of my future, too, for with her went Half of that world I ever cared to please!

DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES

Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow,-- Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beckoning years, Lids never wet, unless with joyous tears, A life remote from every sordid woe, And by a nation's swelled to lordlier flow. What lurking-place, thought we, for doubts or fears, When, the day's swan, she swam along the cheers Of the Alcalá, five happy months ago? The guns were shouting Io Hymen then That, on her birthday, now denounce her doom; The same white steeds that tossed their scorn of men To-day as proudly drag her to the tomb. Grim jest of fate! Yet who dare call it blind, Knowing what life is, what our human-kind?

PRISON OF CERVANTES

Seat of all woes? Though Nature's firm decree The narrowing soul with narrowing dungeon bind, Yet was his free of motion as the wind, And held both worlds, of spirit and sense, in fee. In charmed communion with his dual mind He wandered Spain, himself both knight and hind, Redressing wrongs he knew must ever be. His humor wise could see life's long deceit, Man's baffled aims, nor therefore both despise; His knightly nature could ill fortune greet Like an old friend. Whose ever such kind eyes That pierced so deep, such scope, save his whose feet By Avon ceased 'neath the same April's skies?

TO A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITHERN

So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon Blow their faint Hunt's-up from the good-time gone; Or, on a morning of long-withered May, Larks tinkle unseen o'er Claudian arches gray, That Romeward crawl from Dreamland; and anon My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness on, To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. In happier times and scenes I seem to be, And, as her fingers flutter o'er the strings, The days return when I was young as she, And my fledged thoughts began to feel their wings With all Heaven's blue before them: Memory Or Music is it such enchantment sings?

THE EYE'S TREASURY

Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown In largess on my tall paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear didst never tease His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown From him whose life no fairer boon hath known Than that what pleased him earliest still should please: And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, Gone in a moment, yet for life his own? All other gold is slave of earthward laws; This to the deeps of ether takes its flight, And on the topmost leaves makes glorious pause Of parting pathos ere it yield to night: So linger, as from me earth's light withdraws, Dear touch of Nature, tremulously bright!

PESSIMOPTIMISM

Ye little think what toil it was to build A world of men imperfect even as this, Where we conceive of Good by what we miss, Of ill by that wherewith best days are filled; A world whose every atom is self-willed, Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice, Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman's kiss, Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be spilled. Yet this is better than a life of caves, Whose highest art was scratching on a bone, Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint; Better, though doomed to hear while Cleon raves, To see wit's want eterned in paint or stone, And wade the drain-drenched shoals of daily print.

THE BRAKES

What countless years and wealth of brain were spent To bring us hither from our caves and huts, And trace through pathless wilds the deep-worn ruts Of faith and habit, by whose deep indent Prudence may guide if genius be not lent, Genius, not always happy when it shuts Its ears against the plodder's ifs and buts, Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the event. The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of flame Consume morn's misty threshold, are exact As bankers' clerks, and all this star-poised frame, One swerve allowed, were with convulsion rackt; This world were doomed, should Dulness fail, to tame Wit's feathered heels in the stern stocks of fact.

A FOREBODING

What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, Whose briefest absence can eclipse my day, And make the hours that danced with Time away Drag their funereal steps with muffled head? Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red, From thee the violet steals its breath in May, From thee draw life all things that grow not gray, And by thy force the happy stars are sped. Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow Fills all my earth and heaven, as when in Spring, Ere April come, the birds and blossoms know, And grasses brighten round her feet to cling; Nay, and this hope delights all nature so That the dumb turf I tread on seems to sing.

III. FANCY

UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES

What mean these banners spread, These paths with royal red So gaily carpeted? Comes there a prince to-day? Such footing were too fine For feet less argentine Than Dian's own or thine, Queen whom my tides obey.

Surely for thee are meant These hues so orient That with a sultan's tent Each tree invites the sun; Our Earth such homage pays, So decks her dusty ways, And keeps such holidays, For one and only one.

My brain shapes form and face, Throbs with the rhythmic grace And cadence of her pace To all fine instincts true; Her footsteps, as they pass, Than moonbeams over grass Fall lighter,--but, alas, More insubstantial too!

LOVE'S CLOCK

A PASTORAL

DAPHNIS _waiting_

'O Dryad feet, Be doubly fleet, Timed to my heart's expectant beat While I await her! "At four," vowed she; 'Tis scarcely three, Yet by _my_ time it seems to be A good hour later!'

CHLOE

'Bid me not stay! Hear reason, pray! 'Tis striking six! Sure never day Was short as this is!'

DAPHNIS

'Reason nor rhyme Is in the chime! It can't be five; I've scarce had time To beg two kisses!'

BOTH

'Early or late, When lovers wait, And Love's watch gains, if Time a gait So snail-like chooses, Why should his feet Become more fleet Than cowards' are, when lovers meet And Love's watch loses?'

ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS

Light of triumph in her eyes, Eleanor her apron ties; As she pushes back her sleeves, High resolve her bosom heaves. Hasten, cook! impel the fire To the pace of her desire; As you hope to save your soul, Bring a virgin casserole, Brightest bring of silver spoons,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Almond-blossoms, now adance In the smile of Southern France, Leave your sport with sun and breeze, Think of duty, not of ease; Fashion, 'neath their jerkins brown, Kernels white as thistle-down, Tiny cheeses made with cream From the Galaxy's mid-stream, Blanched in light of honeymoons,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Now for sugar,--nay, our plan Tolerates no work of man. Hurry, then, ye golden bees; Fetch your clearest honey, please, Garnered on a Yorkshire moor, While the last larks sing and soar, From the heather-blossoms sweet Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet, And the Augusts mask as Junes,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Next the pestle and mortar find. Pure rock-crystal,--these to grind Into paste more smooth than silk, Whiter than the milkweed's milk: Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus, Cate to please Theocritus; Then the fire with spices swell, While, for her completer spell, Mystic canticles she croons,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Perfect! and all this to waste On a graybeard's palsied taste! Poets so their verses write, Heap them full of life and light, And then fling them to the rude Mumbling of the multitude. Not so dire her fate as theirs, Since her friend this gift declares Choicest of his birthday boons,-- Eleanor's dear macaroons!

_February_ 22, 1884.

TELEPATHY

'And how could you dream of meeting?' Nay, how can you ask me, sweet? All day my pulse had been beating The tune of your coming feet.

And as nearer and ever nearer I felt the throb of your tread, To be in the world grew clearer, And my blood ran rosier red.

Love called, and I could not linger, But sought the forbidden tryst, As music follows the finger Of the dreaming lutanist

And though you had said it and said it, 'We must not be happy to-day,' Was I not wiser to credit The fire in my feet than your Nay?

SCHERZO

When the down is on the chin And the gold-gleam in the hair, When the birds their sweethearts win And champagne is in the air, Love is here, and Love is there, Love is welcome everywhere.

Summer's cheek too soon turns thin, Days grow briefer, sunshine rare; Autumn from his cannekin Blows the froth to chase Despair: Love is met with frosty stare, Cannot house 'neath branches bare.

When new life is in the leaf And new red is in the rose, Though Love's Maytlme be as brief As a dragon-fly's repose, Never moments come like those, Be they Heaven or Hell: who knows?

All too soon comes Winter's grief, Spendthrift Love's false friends turn foes; Softly comes Old Age, the thief, Steals the rapture, leaves the throes: Love his mantle round him throws,-- 'Time to say Good-by; it snows.'

'FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT'

That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon, For, indeed, is't so easy to know Just how much we from others have taken, And how much our own natural flow?

Since your mind bubbled up at its fountain, How many streams made it elate, While it calmed to the plain from the mountain, As every mind must that grows great?

While you thought 'twas You thinking as newly As Adam still wet with God's dew, You forgot in your self-pride that truly The whole Past was thinking through you.

Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old Roger, With Truth's nameless delvers who wrought In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your Fine brain with the goad of their thought.

As mummy was prized for a rich hue The painter no elsewhere could find, So 'twas buried men's thinking with which you Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind.

I heard the proud strawberry saying, 'Only look what a ruby I've made!' It forgot how the bees in their maying Had brought it the stuff for its trade.

And yet there's the half of a truth in it, And my Lord might his copyright sue; For a thought's his who kindles new youth in it, Or so puts it as makes it more true.

The birds but repeat without ending The same old traditional notes, Which some, by more happily blending, Seem to make over new in their throats;

And we men through our old bit of song run, Until one just improves on the rest, And we call a thing his, in the long run, Who utters it clearest and best.

AUSPEX

My heart, I cannot still it, Nest that had song-birds in it; And when the last shall go, The dreary days, to fill it, Instead of lark or linnet, Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only, Without the passion stronger That skyward longs and sings,-- Woe's me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion, Like birds the brown leaves hover; But it will not be long Before their wild confusion Fall wavering down to cover The poet and his song.

THE PREGNANT COMMENT

Opening one day a book of mine, I absent, Hester found a line Praised with a pencil-mark, and this She left transfigured with a kiss.

When next upon the page I chance, Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance, And whirl my fancy where it sees Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees, Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse, Still young and glad as Homer's verse. 'What mean,' I ask, 'these sudden joys? This feeling fresher than a boy's? What makes this line, familiar long, New as the first bird's April song? I could, with sense illumined thus, Clear doubtful texts in Æeschylus!'

Laughing, one day she gave the key, My riddle's open-sesame; Then added, with a smile demure, Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure, 'If what I left there give you pain, You--you--can take it off again; 'Twas for _my_ poet, not for him, Your Doctor Donne there!'

Earth grew dim And wavered in a golden mist, As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed. Donne, you forgive? I let you keep Her precious comment, poet deep.

THE LESSON

I sat and watched the walls of night With cracks of sudden lightning glow, And listened while with clumsy might The thunder wallowed to and fro.

The rain fell softly now; the squall, That to a torrent drove the trees, Had whirled beyond us to let fall Its tumult on the whitening seas.

But still the lightning crinkled keen, Or fluttered fitful from behind The leaden drifts, then only seen, That rumbled eastward on the wind.

Still as gloom followed after glare, While bated breath the pine-trees drew, Tiny Salmoneus of the air, His mimic bolts the firefly threw.

He thought, no doubt, 'Those flashes grand, That light for leagues the shuddering sky, Are made, a fool could understand, By some superior kind of fly.

'He's of our race's elder branch, His family-arms the same as ours. Both born the twy-forked flame to launch, Of kindred, if unequal, powers.'

And is man wiser? Man who takes His consciousness the law to be Of all beyond his ken, and makes God but a bigger kind of Me?

SCIENCE AND POETRY

He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire Over the land and through the sea-depths still, Thought only of the flame-winged messenger As a dull drudge that should encircle earth With sordid messages of Trade, and tame Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse Not long will be defrauded. From her foe Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch, The Age of Wonder is renewed again, And to our disenchanted day restores The Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to Thought, The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these I glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore, Or from my Cambridge whisper to Cathay.

A NEW YEAR'S GREETING

The century numbers fourscore years; You, fortressed in your teens, To Time's alarums close your ears, And, while he devastates your peers, Conceive not what he means.

If e'er life's winter fleck with snow Your hair's deep shadowed bowers, That winsome head an art would know To make it charm, and wear it so As 'twere a wreath of flowers.

If to such fairies years must come, May yours fall soft and slow As, shaken by a bee's low hum, The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb, Down to their mates below!

THE DISCOVERY

I watched a moorland torrent run Down through the rift itself had made, Golden as honey in the sun, Of darkest amber in the shade.

In this wild glen at last, methought, The magic's secret I surprise; Here Celia's guardian fairy caught The changeful splendors of her eyes.

All else grows tame, the sky's one blue, The one long languish of the rose, But these, beyond prevision new, Shall charm and startle to the close.

WITH A SEASHELL

Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold, Might with Dian's ear make bold, Seek my Lady's; if thou win To that portal, shut from sin, Where commissioned angels' swords Startle back unholy words, Thou a miracle shalt see Wrought by it and wrought in thee; Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover Speech of poet, speech of lover. If she deign to lift you there, Murmur what I may not dare; In that archway, pearly-pink As the Dawn's untrodden brink, Murmur, 'Excellent and good, Beauty's best in every mood, Never common, never tame, Changeful fair as windwaved flame'-- Nay, I maunder; this she hears Every day with mocking ears, With a brow not sudden-stained With the flush of bliss restrained, With no tremor of the pulse More than feels the dreaming dulse In the midmost ocean's caves, When a tempest heaps the waves. Thou must woo her in a phrase Mystic as the opal's blaze, Which pure maids alone can see When their lovers constant be. I with thee a secret share, Half a hope, and half a prayer, Though no reach of mortal skill Ever told it all, or will; Say, 'He bids me--nothing more-- Tell you what you guessed before!'

THE SECRET

I have a fancy: how shall I bring it Home to all mortals wherever they be? Say it or sing it? Shoe it or wing it, So it may outrun or outfly ME, Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free?

Only one secret can save from disaster, Only one magic is that of the Master: Set it to music; give it a tune,-- Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you, Tune the wild columbines nod to in June!

This is the secret: so simple, you see! Easy as loving, easy as kissing, Easy as--well, let me ponder--as missing, Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three.

IV. HUMOR AND SATIRE

FITZ ADAM'S STORY

The next whose fortune 'twas a tale to tell Was one whom men, before they thought, loved well, And after thinking wondered why they did, For half he seemed to let them, half forbid, And wrapped him so in humors, sheath on sheath, 'Twas hard to guess the mellow soul beneath: But, once divined, you took him to your heart, While he appeared to bear with you as part Of life's impertinence, and once a year Betrayed his true self by a smile or tear, 10 Or rather something sweetly shy and loath, Withdrawn ere fully shown, and mixed of both. A cynic? Not precisely: one who thrust Against a heart too prone to love and trust, Who so despised false sentiment he knew Scarce in himself to part the false and true, And strove to hide, by roughening-o'er the skin, Those cobweb nerves he could not dull within. Gentle by birth, but of a stem decayed, He shunned life's rivalries and hated trade; 20 On a small patrimony and larger pride, He lived uneaseful on the Other Side (So he called Europe), only coming West To give his Old-World appetite new zest; Yet still the New World spooked it in his veins, A ghost he could not lay with all his pains; For never Pilgrims' offshoot scapes control Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul. A radical in thought, he puffed away With shrewd contempt the dust of usage gray, 30 Yet loathed democracy as one who saw, In what he longed to love, some vulgar flaw, And, shocked through all his delicate reserves, Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves, His fancy's thrall, he drew all ergoes thence, And thought himself the type of common sense; Misliking women, not from cross or whim, But that his mother shared too much in him, And he half felt that what in them was grace Made the unlucky weakness of his race. 40 What powers he had he hardly cared to know, But sauntered through the world as through a show; A critic fine in his haphazard way, A sort of mild La Bruyère on half-pay. For comic weaknesses he had an eye Keen as an acid for an alkali, Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone, He loved them all, unless they were his own. You might have called him, with his humorous twist, A kind of human entomologist; 50 As these bring home, from every walk they take, Their hat-crowns stuck with bugs of curious make, So he filled all the lining of his head With characters impaled and ticketed, And had a cabinet behind his eyes For all they caught of mortal oddities. He might have been a poet--many worse-- But that he had, or feigned, contempt of verse; Called it tattooing language, and held rhymes The young world's lullaby of ruder times. 60 Bitter in words, too indolent for gall, He satirized himself the first of all, In men and their affairs could find no law, And was the ill logic that he thought he saw.

Scratching a match to light his pipe anew, With eyes half shut some musing whiffs he drew And thus began: 'I give you all my word, I think this mock-Decameron absurd; Boccaccio's garden! how bring that to pass In our bleak clime save under double glass? 70 The moral east-wind of New England life Would snip its gay luxuriance like a knife; Mile-deep the glaciers brooded here, they say, Through æons numb; we feel their chill to-day. These foreign plants are but half-hardy still, Die on a south, and on a north wall chill. Had we stayed Puritans! _They_ had some heat, (Though whence derived I have my own conceit,) But you have long ago raked up their fires; Where they had faith, you've ten sham-Gothic spires. 80 Why more exotics? Try your native vines, And in some thousand years you _may_ have wines; Your present grapes are harsh, all pulps and skins, And want traditions of ancestral bins That saved for evenings round the polished board Old lava fires, the sun-steeped hillside's hoard. Without a Past, you lack that southern wall O'er which the vines of Poesy should crawl; Still they're your only hope: no midnight oil Makes up for virtue wanting in the soil; 90 Manure them well and prune them; 'twon't be France, Nor Spain, nor Italy, but there's your chance. You have one story-teller worth a score Of dead Boccaccios,--nay, add twenty more,-- A hawthorn asking spring's most dainty breath, And him you're freezing pretty well to death. However, since you say so, I will tease My memory to a story by degrees, Though you will cry, "Enough!" I'm wellnigh sure, Ere I have dreamed through half my overture. 100 Stories were good for men who had no books, (Fortunate race!) and built their nests like rooks In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur brought His pedler's-box of cheap and tawdry thought, With here and there a fancy fit to see Wrought in quaint grace in golden filigree,-- Some ring that with the Muse's finger yet Is warm, like Aucassin and Nicolete; The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade, (For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,) 110 And stories now, to suit a public nice, Must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.

'All tourists know Shebagog County: there The summer idlers take their yearly stare, Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way, As 'twere Italian opera, or play, Encore the sunrise (if they're out of bed). And pat the Mighty Mother on the head: These have I seen,--all things are good to see.-- And wondered much at their complacency. 120 This world's great show, that took in getting-up Millions of years, they finish ere they sup; Sights that God gleams through with soul-tingling force They glance approvingly as things of course. Say, "That's a grand rock," "This a pretty fall." Not thinking, "Are we worthy?" What if all The scornful landscape should turn round and say, "This is a fool, and that a popinjay"? I often wonder what the Mountain thinks Of French boots creaking o'er his breathless brinks, 130 Or how the Sun would scare the chattering crowd, If some fine day he chanced to think aloud. I, who love Nature much as sinners can, Love her where she most grandeur shows,--in man: Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and sun, River and sea, and glows when day is done; Nay, where she makes grotesques, and moulds in jest The clown's cheap clay, I find unfading zest. The natural instincts year by year retire, As deer shrink northward from the settler's fire, 140 And he who loves the wild game-flavor more Than city-feasts, where every man's a bore To every other man, must seek it where The steamer's throb and railway's iron blare Have not yet startled with their punctual stir The shy, wood-wandering brood of Character.

'There is a village, once the county town, Through which the weekly mail rolled dustily down, Where the courts sat, it may be, twice a year, And the one tavern reeked with rustic cheer; 150 Cheeshogquesumscot erst, now Jethro hight, Red-man and pale-face bore it equal spite. The railway ruined it, the natives say, That passed unwisely fifteen miles away, And made a drain to which, with steady ooze, Filtered away law, stage-coach, trade, and news. The railway saved it: so at least think those Who love old ways, old houses, old repose. Of course the Tavern stayed: its genial host Thought not of flitting more than did the post 160 On which high-hung the fading signboard creaks, Inscribed, "The Eagle Inn, by Ezra Weeks."

'If in life's journey you should ever find An inn medicinal for body and mind, 'Tis sure to be some drowsy-looking house Whose easy landlord has a bustling spouse: He, if he like you, will not long forego Some bottle deep in cobwebbed dust laid low, That, since the War we used to call the "Last," Has dozed and held its lang-syne memories fast: 170 From him exhales that Indian-summer air Of hazy, lazy welcome everywhere, While with her toil the napery is white, The china dustless, the keen knife-blades bright, Salt dry as sand, and bread that seems as though 'Twere rather sea-foam baked than vulgar dough.

'In our swift country, houses trim and white Are pitched like tents, the lodging of a night; Each on its bank of baked turf mounted high Perches impatient o'er the roadside dry, 180 While the wronged landscape coldly stands aloof, Refusing friendship with the upstart roof. Not so the Eagle; on a grass-green swell That toward the south with sweet concessions fell It dwelt retired, and half had grown to be As aboriginal as rock or tree. It nestled close to earth, and seemed to brood O'er homely thoughts in a half-conscious mood, As by the peat that rather fades than burns The smouldering grandam nods and knits by turns, 190 Happy, although her newest news were old Ere the first hostile drum at Concord rolled. If paint it e'er had known, it knew no more Than yellow lichens spattered thickly o'er That soft lead-gray, less dark beneath the eaves Which the slow brush of wind and weather leaves. The ample roof sloped backward to the ground, And vassal lean-tos gathered thickly round, Patched on, as sire or son had felt the need, Like chance growths sprouting from the old roofs seed, 200 Just as about a yellow-pine-tree spring Its rough-barked darlings in a filial ring. But the great chimney was the central thought Whose gravitation through the cluster wrought; For 'tis not styles far-fetched from Greece or Rome, But just the Fireside, that can make a home; None of your spindling things of modern style, Like pins stuck through to stay the card-built pile, It rose broad-shouldered, kindly, debonair, Its warm breath whitening in the October air, 210 While on its front a heart in outline showed The place it filled in that serene abode.

'When first I chanced the Eagle to explore. Ezra sat listless by the open door; One chair careened him at an angle meet, Another nursed his hugely slippered feet; Upon a third reposed a shirt-sleeved arm, And the whole man diffused tobacco's charm. "Are you the landlord?" "Wahl, I guess I be," Watching the smoke he answered leisurely. 220 He was a stoutish man, and through the breast Of his loose shirt there showed a brambly chest; Streaked redly as a wind-foreboding morn, His tanned cheeks curved to temples closely shorn; Clean-shaved he was, save where a hedge of gray Upon his brawny throat leaned every way About an Adam's-apple, that beneath Bulged like a boulder from a brambly heath. The Western World's true child and nursling he, Equipt with aptitudes enough for three: 230 No eye like his to value horse or cow, Or gauge the contents of a stack or mow; He could foretell the weather at a word, He knew the haunt of every beast and bird, Or where a two-pound trout was sure to lie, Waiting the flutter of his homemade fly; Nay, once in autumns five, he had the luck To drop at fair-play range a ten-tined buck; Of sportsmen true he favored every whim, But never cockney found a guide in him; 240 A natural man, with all his instincts fresh, Not buzzing helpless in Reflection's mesh, Firm on its feet stood his broad-shouldered mind, As bluffly honest as a northwest wind; Hard-headed and soft-hearted, you'd scarce meet A kindlier mixture of the shrewd and sweet; Generous by birth, and ill at saying "No," Yet in a bargain he was all men's foe, Would yield no inch of vantage in a trade, And give away ere nightfall all he made. 250

"Can I have lodging here?" once more I said. He blew a whiff, and, leaning back his head, "You come a piece through Bailey's woods, I s'pose, Acrost a bridge where a big swamp-oak grows? It don't grow, neither; it's ben dead ten year, Nor th' ain't a livin' creetur, fur nor near, Can tell wut killed it; but I some misdoubt 'Twas borers, there's sech heaps on 'em about. You didn' chance to run ag'inst my son, A long, slab-sided youngster with a gun? 260 He'd oughto ben back more 'n an hour ago, An' brought some birds to dress for supper--sho! There he comes now. 'Say, Obed, wut ye got? (He'll hev some upland plover like as not.) Wal, them's real nice uns, an'll eat A 1, Ef I can stop their bein' overdone; Nothin' riles _me_ (I pledge my fastin' word) Like cookin' out the natur' of a bird; (Obed, you pick 'em out o' sight an' sound, Your ma'am don't love no feathers cluttrin' round;) 270 Jes' scare 'em with the coals,--thet's _my_ idee." Then, turning suddenly about on me, "Wal, Square, I guess so. Callilate to stay? I'll ask Mis' Weeks; 'bout _thet_ it's hern to say."

'Well, there I lingered all October through, In that sweet atmosphere of hazy blue, So leisurely, so soothing, so forgiving, That sometimes makes New England fit for living. I watched the landscape, erst so granite glum, Bloom like the south side of a ripening plum, 280 And each rock-maple on the hillside make His ten days' sunset doubled in the lake; The very stone walls draggling up the hills Seemed touched, and wavered in their roundhead wills. Ah! there's a deal of sugar in the sun! Tap me in Indian summer, I should run A juice to make rock-candy of,--but then We get such weather scarce one year in ten.

'There was a parlor in the house, a room To make you shudder with its prudish gloom. 290 The furniture stood round with such an air, There seemed an old maid's ghost in every chair, Which looked as it had scuttled to its place And pulled extempore a Sunday face, Too smugly proper for a world of sin, Like boys on whom the minister comes in. The table, fronting you with icy stare, Strove to look witless that its legs were bare, While the black sofa with its horse-hair pall Gloomed like a bier for Comfort's funeral. 300 Each piece appeared to do its chilly best To seem an utter stranger to the rest, As if acquaintanceship were deadly sin, Like Britons meeting in a foreign inn. Two portraits graced the wall in grimmest truth, Mister and Mistress W. in their youth,-- New England youth, that seems a sort of pill, Half wish-I-dared, half Edwards on the Will, Bitter to swallow, and which leaves a trace Of Calvinistic colic on the face. 310 Between them, o'er the mantel, hung in state Solomon's temple, done in copperplate; Invention pure, but meant, we may presume, To give some Scripture sanction to the room. Facing this last, two samplers you might see, Each, with its urn and stiffly weeping tree, Devoted to some memory long ago More faded than their lines of worsted woe; Cut paper decked their frames against the flies, Though none e'er dared an entrance who were wise, 320 And bushed asparagus in fading green Added its shiver to the franklin clean.

'When first arrived, I chilled a half-hour there, Nor dared deflower with use a single chair; I caught no cold, yet flying pains could find For weeks in me,--a rheumatism of mind. One thing alone imprisoned there had power To hold me in the place that long half-hour: A scutcheon this, a helm-surmounted shield, Three griffins argent on a sable field; 330 A relic of the shipwrecked past was here, And Ezra held some Old-World lumber dear. Nay, do not smile; I love this kind of thing, These cooped traditions with a broken wing, This freehold nook in Fancy's pipe-blown ball, This less than nothing that is more than all! Have I not seen sweet natures kept alive Amid the humdrum of your business hive, Undowered spinsters shielded from all harms, By airy incomes from a coat of arms?' 340

He paused a moment, and his features took The flitting sweetness of that inward look I hinted at before; but, scarcely seen, It shrank for shelter 'neath his harder mien, And, rapping his black pipe of ashes clear, He went on with a self-derisive sneer: 'No doubt we make a part of God's design, And break the forest-path for feet divine; To furnish foothold for this grand prevision Is good, and yet--to be the mere transition, 350 That, you will say, is also good, though I Scarce like to feed the ogre By-and-By. Raw edges rasp my nerves; my taste is wooed By things that are, not going to be, good, Though were I what I dreamed two lustres gone, I'd stay to help the Consummation on, Whether a new Rome than the old more fair, Or a deadflat of rascal-ruled despair; But _my_ skull somehow never closed the suture That seems to knit yours firmly with the future, 360 So you'll excuse me if I'm sometimes fain To tie the Past's warm nightcap o'er my brain; I'm quite aware 'tis not in fashion here, But then your northeast winds are _so_ severe!

'But to my story: though 'tis truly naught But a few hints in Memory's sketchbook caught, And which may claim a value on the score Of calling back some scenery now no more. Shall I confess? The tavern's only Lar Seemed (be not shocked!) its homely-featured bar. 370 Here dozed a fire of beechen logs, that bred Strange fancies in its embers golden-red, And nursed the loggerhead whose hissing dip, Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug of flip That made from mouth to mouth its genial round, Nor left one nature wholly winter-bound; Hence dropt the tinkling coal all mellow-ripe For Uncle Reuben's talk-extinguished pipe; Hence rayed the heat, as from an indoor sun, That wooed forth many a shoot of rustic fun. 380 Here Ezra ruled as king by right divine; No other face had such a wholesome shine, No laugh like his so full of honest cheer; Above the rest it crowed like Chanticleer.

'In this one room his dame you never saw, Where reigned by custom old a Salic law; Here coatless lolled he on his throne of oak, And every tongue paused midway if he spoke. Due mirth he loved, yet was his sway severe; No blear-eyed driveller got his stagger here; 390 "Measure was happiness; who wanted more, Must buy his ruin at the Deacon's store;" None but his lodgers after ten could stay, Nor after nine on eves of Sabbath-day. He had his favorites and his pensioners, The same that gypsy Nature owns for hers: Loose-ended souls, whose skills bring scanty gold, And whom the poor-house catches when they're old; Rude country-minstrels, men who doctor kine, Or graft, and, out of scions ten, save nine; 400 Creatures of genius they, but never meant To keep step with the civic regiment, These Ezra welcomed, feeling in his mind Perhaps some motions of the vagrant kind; These paid no money, yet for them he drew Special Jamaica from a tap they knew, And, for their feelings, chalked behind the door With solemn face a visionary score. This thawed to life in Uncle Reuben's throat A torpid shoal of jest and anecdote, 410 Like those queer fish that doze the droughts away, And wait for moisture, wrapped in sun-baked clay; This warmed the one-eyed fiddler to his task, Perched in the corner on an empty cask, By whose shrill art rapt suddenly, some boor Rattled a double-shuffle on the floor; "Hull's Victory" was, indeed, the favorite air, Though "Yankee Doodle" claimed its proper share.

''Twas there I caught from Uncle Reuben's lips, In dribbling monologue 'twixt whiffs and sips, 420 The story I so long have tried to tell; The humor coarse, the persons common,--well, From Nature only do I love to paint, Whether she send a satyr or a saint; To me Sincerity's the one thing good, Soiled though she be and lost to maidenhood. Quompegan is a town some ten miles south From Jethro, at Nagumscot river-mouth, A seaport town, and makes its title good With lumber and dried fish and eastern wood. 430 Here Deacon Bitters dwelt and kept the Store, The richest man for many a mile of shore; In little less than everything dealt he, From meeting-houses to a chest of tea; So dextrous therewithal a flint to skin, He could make profit on a single pin; In business strict, to bring the balance true He had been known to bite a fig in two, And change a board-nail for a shingle-nail. All that he had he ready held for sale, 440 His house, his tomb, whate'er the law allows, And he had gladly parted with his spouse. His one ambition still to get and get, He would arrest your very ghost for debt. His store looked righteous, should the Parson come, But in a dark back-room he peddled rum, And eased Ma'am Conscience, if she e'er would scold, By christening it with water ere he sold. A small, dry man he was, who wore a queue, And one white neckcloth all the week-days through,-- 450 On Monday white, by Saturday as dun As that worn homeward by the prodigal son. His frosted earlocks, striped with foxy brown, Were braided up to hide a desert crown; His coat was brownish, black perhaps of yore; In summer-time a banyan loose he wore; His trousers short, through many a season true, Made no pretence to hide his stockings blue; A waistcoat buff his chief adornment was, Its porcelain buttons rimmed with dusky brass. 460 A deacon he, you saw it in each limb, And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn, Or lead the choir through all its wandering woes With voice that gathered unction in his nose, Wherein a constant snuffle you might hear, As if with him 'twere winter all the year. At pew-head sat he with decorous pains, In sermon-time could foot his weekly gains, Or, with closed eyes and heaven-abstracted air, Could plan a new investment in long-prayer. 470 A pious man, and thrifty too, he made The psalms and prophets partners in his trade, And in his orthodoxy straitened more As it enlarged the business at his store; He honored Moses, but, when gain he planned, Had his own notion of the Promised Land.

'Soon as the winter made the sledding good, From far around the farmers hauled him wood, For all the trade had gathered 'neath his thumb. He paid in groceries and New England rum, 480 Making two profits with a conscience clear,-- Cheap all he bought, and all he paid with dear. With his own mete-wand measuring every load, Each somehow had diminished on the road; An honest cord in Jethro still would fail By a good foot upon the Deacon's scale, And, more to abate the price, his gimlet eye Would pierce to cat-sticks that none else could spy; Yet none dared grumble, for no farmer yet But New Year found him in the Deacon's debt. 490

'While the first snow was mealy under feet, A team drawled creaking down Quompegan street. Two cords of oak weighed down the grinding sled, And cornstalk fodder rustled overhead; The oxen's muzzles, as they shouldered through, Were silver-fringed; the driver's own was blue As the coarse frock that swung below his knee. Behind his load for shelter waded he; His mittened hands now on his chest he beat, Now stamped the stiffened cowhides of his feet, 500 Hushed as a ghost's; his armpit scarce could hold The walnut whipstock slippery-bright with cold. What wonder if, the tavern as he past, He looked and longed, and stayed his beasts at last, Who patient stood and veiled themselves in steam While he explored the bar-room's ruddy gleam?

'Before the fire, in want of thought profound, There sat a brother-townsman weather-bound: A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly-eared, Red as a pepper; 'twixt coarse brows and beard 510 His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for fools, Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay-edged pools; A shifty creature, with a turn for fun, Could swap a poor horse for a better one,-- He'd a high-stepper always in his stall; Liked far and near, and dreaded therewithal. To him the in-comer, "Perez, how d' ye do?" "Jest as I'm mind to, Obed; how do you?" Then, his eyes twinkling such swift gleams as run Along the levelled barrel of a gun 520 Brought to his shoulder by a man you know Will bring his game down, he continued, "So, I s'pose you're haulin' wood? But you're too late; The Deacon's off; Old Splitfoot couldn't wait; He made a bee-line las' night in the storm To where he won't need wood to keep him warm. 'Fore this he's treasurer of a fund to train Young imps as missionaries; hopes to gain That way a contract that he has in view For fireproof pitchforks of a pattern new, 530 It must have tickled him, all drawbacks weighed, To think he stuck the Old One in a trade; His soul, to start with, wasn't worth a carrot. And all he'd left 'ould hardly serve to swear at."

'By this time Obed had his wits thawed out, And, looking at the other half in doubt, Took off his fox-skin cap to scratch his head, Donned it again, and drawled forth, "Mean he's dead?" "Jesso; he's dead and t'other _d_ that follers With folks that never love a thing but dollars. 540 He pulled up stakes last evening, fair and square, And ever since there's been a row Down There. The minute the old chap arrived, you see, Comes the Boss-devil to him, and says he, 'What are you good at? Little enough, I fear; We callilate to make folks useful here.' 'Well,' says old Bitters, 'I expect I can Scale a fair load of wood with e'er a man.' 'Wood we don't deal in; but perhaps you'll suit, Because we buy our brimstone by the foot: 550 Here, take this measurin'-rod, as smooth as sin, And keep a reckonin' of what loads comes in. You'll not want business, for we need a lot To keep the Yankees that you send us hot; At firin' up they're barely half as spry As Spaniards or Italians, though they're dry; At first we have to let the draught on stronger, But, heat 'em through, they seem to hold it longer.'

'"Bitters he took the rod, and pretty soon A teamster comes, whistling an ex-psalm tune. 560 A likelier chap you wouldn't ask to see, No different, but his limp, from you or me"-- "No different, Perez! Don't your memory fail? Why, where in thunder was his horns and tail?" "They're only worn by some old-fashioned pokes; They mostly aim at looking just like folks. Sech things are scarce as queues and top-boots here; 'Twould spoil their usefulness to look too queer. Ef you could always know 'em when they come, They'd get no purchase on you: now be mum. 570 On come the teamster, smart as Davy Crockett, Jinglin' the red-hot coppers in his pocket, And clost behind, ('twas gold-dust, you'd ha' sworn,) A load of sulphur yallower 'n seed-corn; To see it wasted as it is Down There Would make a Friction-Match Co. tear its hair! 'Hold on!' says Bitters, 'stop right where you be; You can't go in athout a pass from me.' 'All right,' says t'other, 'only step round smart; I must be home by noon-time with the cart.' 580 Bitters goes round it sharp-eyed as a rat, Then with a scrap of paper on his hat Pretends to cipher. 'By the public staff, That load scarce rises twelve foot and a half.' 'There's fourteen foot and over,' says the driver, 'Worth twenty dollars, ef it's worth a stiver; Good fourth-proof brimstone, that'll make 'em squirm,-- I leave it to the Headman of the Firm; After we masure it, we always lay Some on to allow for settlin' by the way. 590 Imp and full-grown, I've carted sulphur here, And gi'n fair satisfaction, thirty year.' With that they fell to quarrellin' so loud That in five minutes they had drawed a crowd, And afore long the Boss, who heard the row, Comes elbowin' in with 'What's to pay here now?' Both parties heard, the measurin'-rod he takes, And of the load a careful survey makes. 'Sence I have bossed the business here,' says he, 'No fairer load was ever seen by me.' 600 Then, turnin' to the Deacon, 'You mean cus. None of your old Quompegan tricks with us! They won't do here: we're plain old-fashioned folks, And don't quite understand that kind o' jokes. I know this teamster, and his pa afore him, And the hard-working Mrs. D. that bore him; He wouldn't soil his conscience with a lie, Though he might get the custom-house thereby. Here, constable, take Bitters by the queue. And clap him into furnace ninety-two, 610 And try this brimstone on him; if he's bright, He'll find the masure honest afore night. He isn't worth his fuel, and I'll bet The parish oven has to take him yet!'"

'This is my tale, heard twenty years ago From Uncle Reuben, as the logs burned low, Touching the walls and ceiling with that bloom That makes a rose's calyx of a room. I could not give his language, wherethrough ran The gamy flavor of the bookless man 620 Who shapes a word before the fancy cools, As lonely Crusoe improvised his tools. I liked the tale,--'twas like so many told By Rutebeuf and his Brother Trouvères bold; Nor were the hearers much unlike to theirs, Men unsophisticate, rude-nerved as bears. Ezra is gone and his large-hearted kind, The landlords of the hospitable mind; Good Warriner of Springfield was the last; An inn is now a vision of the past; 630 One yet-surviving host my mind recalls,-- You'll find him if you go to Trenton Falls.'

THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY

When wise Minerva still was young And just the least romantic, Soon after from Jove's head she flung That preternatural antic, 'Tis said, to keep from idleness Or flirting, those twin curses, She spent her leisure, more or less, In writing po----, no, verses.

How nice they were! to rhyme with _far_ A kind _star_ did not tarry; The metre, too, was regular As schoolboy's dot and carry; And full they were of pious plums, So extra-super-moral,-- For sucking Virtue's tender gums Most tooth-enticing coral.

A clean, fair copy she prepares, Makes sure of moods and tenses, With her own hand,--for prudence spares A man-(or woman-)-uensis; Complete, and tied with ribbons proud, She hinted soon how cosy a Treat it would be to read them loud After next day's Ambrosia.

The Gods thought not it would amuse So much as Homer's Odyssees, But could not very well refuse The properest of Goddesses; So all sat round in attitudes Of various dejection, As with a _hem!_ the queen of prudes Began her grave prelection.

At the first pause Zeus said, 'Well sung!-- I mean--ask Phoebus,--_he_ knows.' Says Phoebus, 'Zounds! a wolf's among Admetus's merinos! Fine! very fine! but I must go; They stand in need of me there; Excuse me!' snatched his stick, and so Plunged down the gladdened ether.

With the next gap, Mars said, 'For me Don't wait,--naught could be finer, But I'm engaged at half past three,-- A fight in Asia Minor!' Then Venus lisped, 'I'm sorely tried, These duty-calls are vip'rous; But I _must_ go; I have a bride To see about in Cyprus.'

Then Bacchus,--'I must say good-by, Although my peace it jeopards; I meet a man at four, to try A well-broke pair of leopards.' His words woke Hermes. 'Ah!' he said, 'I _so_ love moral theses!' Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, And smoothed her apron's creases.

Just then Zeus snored,--the Eagle drew His head the wing from under; Zeus snored,--o'er startled Greece there flew The many-volumed thunder. Some augurs counted nine, some, ten; Some said 'twas war, some, famine; And all, that other-minded men Would get a precious----.

Proud Pallas sighed, 'It will not do; Against the Muse I've sinned, oh!' And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus's back window. Then, packing up a peplus clean, She took the shortest path thence, And opened, with a mind serene, A Sunday-school in Athens.

The verses? Some in ocean swilled, Killed every fish that bit to 'em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, Found morphine the residuum; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth, Didactic verse and poppies.

Years after, when a poet asked The Goddess's opinion, As one whose soul its wings had tasked In Art's clear-aired dominion, 'Discriminate,' she said, 'betimes; The Muse is unforgiving; Put all your beauty in your rhymes, Your morals in your living.'

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman? I've known the fellow for years; My button I've wrenched from his clutch, man: I shudder whenever he nears!

He's a Rip van Winkle skipper, A Wandering Jew of the sea, Who sails his bedevilled old clipper In the wind's eye, straight as a bee.

Back topsails! you can't escape him; The man-ropes stretch with his weight, And the queerest old toggeries drape him, The Lord knows how long out of date!

Like a long-disembodied idea, (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) He stands there; you fancy you see a Coeval of Teniers or Douw.

He greets you; would have you take letters: You scan the addresses with dread, While he mutters his _donners_ and _wetters_,-- They're all from the dead to the dead!

You seem taking time for reflection, But the heart fills your throat with a jam, As you spell in each faded direction An ominous ending in _dam_.

Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend? That were changing green turtle to mock: No, thank you! I've found out which wedge-end Is meant for the head of a block.

The fellow I have in my mind's eye Plays the old Skipper's part here on shore, And sticks like a burr, till he finds I Have got just the gauge of his bore.

This postman 'twist one ghost and t'other, With last dates that smell of the mould, I have met him (O man and brother, Forgive me!) in azure and gold.

In the pulpit I've known of his preaching, Out of hearing behind the time, Some statement of Balaam's impeaching, Giving Eve a due sense of her crime.

I have seen him some poor ancient thrashing Into something (God save us!) more dry, With the Water of Life itself washing The life out of earth, sea, and sky.

O dread fellow-mortal, get newer Despatches to carry, or none! We're as quick as the Greek and the Jew were At knowing a loaf from a stone.

Till the couriers of God fail in duty, We sha'n't ask a mummy for news, Nor sate the soul's hunger for beauty With your drawings from casts of a Muse.

CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE

O days endeared to every Muse, When nobody had any Views, Nor, while the cloudscape of his mind By every breeze was new designed, Insisted all the world should see Camels or whales where none there be! O happy days, when men received From sire to son what all believed, And left the other world in bliss, Too busy with bedevilling this! 10

Beset by doubts of every breed In the last bastion of my creed, With shot and shell for Sabbath-chime, I watch the storming-party climb, Panting (their prey in easy reach), To pour triumphant through the breach In walls that shed like snowflakes tons Of missiles from old-fashioned guns, But crumble 'neath the storm that pours All day and night from bigger bores. 20 There, as I hopeless watch and wait The last life-crushing coil of Fate, Despair finds solace in the praise Of those serene dawn-rosy days Ere microscopes had made us heirs To large estates of doubts and snares, By proving that the title-deeds, Once all-sufficient for men's needs, Are palimpsests that scarce disguise The tracings of still earlier lies, 30 Themselves as surely written o'er An older fib erased before.

So from these days I fly to those That in the landlocked Past repose, Where no rude wind of doctrine shakes From bloom-flushed boughs untimely flakes; Where morning's eyes see nothing strange, No crude perplexity of change, And morrows trip along their ways Secure as happy yesterdays. 40 Then there were rulers who could trace Through heroes up to gods their race, Pledged to fair fame and noble use By veins from Odin filled or Zeus, And under bonds to keep divine The praise of a celestial line. Then priests could pile the altar's sods, With whom gods spake as they with gods, And everywhere from haunted earth Broke springs of wonder, that had birth 50 In depths divine beyond the ken And fatal scrutiny of men; Then hills and groves and streams and seas Thrilled with immortal presences, Not too ethereal for the scope Of human passion's dream or hope.

Now Pan at last is surely dead, And King No-Credit reigns instead, Whose officers, morosely strict, Poor Fancy's tenantry evict, 60 Chase the last Genius from the door, And nothing dances any more. Nothing? Ah, yes, our tables do, Dramming the Old One's own tattoo, And, if the oracles are dumb, Have we not mediums! Why be glum?

Fly thither? Why, the very air Is full of hindrance and despair! Fly thither? But I cannot fly; My doubts enmesh me if I try, 70 Each Liliputian, but, combined, Potent a giant's limbs to bind. This world and that are growing dark; A huge interrogation mark, The Devil's crook episcopal. Still borne before him since the Fall, Blackens with its ill-omened sign The old blue heaven of faith benign. Whence? Whither? Wherefore? How? Which? Why? All ask at once, all wait reply. 80 Men feel old systems cracking under 'em; Life saddens to a mere conundrum Which once Religion solved, but she Has lost--has Science found?--the key.

What was snow-bearded Odin, trow, The mighty hunter long ago, Whose horn and hounds the peasant hears Still when the Northlights shake their spears? Science hath answers twain, I've heard; Choose which you will, nor hope a third; 90 Whichever box the truth be stowed in, There's not a sliver left of Odin. Either he was a pinchbrowed thing, With scarcely wit a stone to fling, A creature both in size and shape Nearer than we are to the ape, Who hung sublime with brat and spouse By tail prehensile from the boughs, And, happier than his maimed descendants, The culture-curtailed _in_dependents, 100 Could pluck his cherries with both paws, And stuff with both his big-boned jaws; Or else the core his name enveloped Was from a solar myth developed, Which, hunted to its primal shoot, Takes refuge in a Sanskrit root, Thereby to instant death explaining The little poetry remaining.

Try it with Zeus, 'tis just the same; The thing evades, we hug a name; 110 Nay, scarcely that,--perhaps a vapor Born of some atmospheric caper. All Lempriere's fables blur together In cloudy symbols of the weather, And Aphrodite rose from frothy seas But to illustrate such hypotheses. With years enough behind his back, Lincoln will take the selfsame track, And prove, hulled fairly to the cob, A mere vagary of Old Prob. 120 Give the right man a solar myth, And he'll confute the sun therewith.

They make things admirably plain, But one hard question _will_ remain: If one hypothesis you lose, Another in its place you choose, But, your faith gone, O man and brother, Whose shop shall furnish you another? One that will wash, I mean, and wear, And wrap us warmly from despair? 130 While they are clearing up our puzzles, And clapping prophylactic muzzles On the Actæon's hounds that sniff Our devious track through But and If, Would they'd explain away the Devil And other facts that won't keep level, But rise beneath our feet or fail, A reeling ship's deck in a gale! God vanished long ago, iwis, A mere subjective synthesis; 140 A doll, stuffed out with hopes and fears, Too homely for us pretty dears, Who want one that conviction carries, Last make of London or of Paris. He gone, I felt a moment's spasm, But calmed myself, with Protoplasm, A finer name, and, what is more, As enigmatic as before; Greek, too, and sure to fill with ease Minds caught in the Symplegades 150 Of soul and sense, life's two conditions, Each baffled with its own omniscience. The men who labor to revise Our Bibles will, I hope, be wise, And print it without foolish qualms Instead of God in David's psalms: Noll had been more effective far Could he have shouted at Dunbar, 'Rise, Protoplasm!' No dourest Scot Had waited for another shot. 160

And yet I frankly must confess A secret unforgivingness, And shudder at the saving chrism Whose best New Birth is Pessimism; My soul--I mean the bit of phosphorus That fills the place of what that was for us-- Can't bid its inward bores defiance With the new nursery-tales of science. What profits me, though doubt by doubt, As nail by nail, be driven out, 170 When every new one, like the last, Still holds my coffin-lid as fast? Would I find thought a moment's truce, Give me the young world's Mother Goose With life and joy in every limb, The chimney-corner tales of Grimm!

Our dear and admirable Huxley Cannot explain to me why ducks lay, Or, rather, how into their eggs Blunder potential wings and legs 180 With will to move them and decide Whether in air or lymph to glide. Who gets a hair's-breadth on by showing That Something Else set all agoing? Farther and farther back we push From Moses and his burning bush; Cry, 'Art Thou there?' Above, below, All Nature mutters _yes_ and _no!_ 'Tis the old answer: we're agreed Being from Being must proceed, 190 Life be Life's source. I might as well Obey the meeting-house's bell, And listen while Old Hundred pours Forth through the summer-opened doors, From old and young. I hear it yet, Swelled by bass-viol and clarinet, While the gray minister, with face Radiant, let loose his noble bass. If Heaven it reached not, yet its roll Waked all the echoes of the soul, 200 And in it many a life found wings To soar away from sordid things. Church gone and singers too, the song Sings to me voiceless all night long, Till my soul beckons me afar, Glowing and trembling like a star. Will any scientific touch With my worn strings achieve as much?

I don't object, not I, to know My sires were monkeys, if 'twas so; 210 I touch my ear's collusive tip And own the poor-relationship. That apes of various shapes and sizes Contained their germs that all the prizes Of senate, pulpit, camp, and bar win May give us hopes that sweeten Darwin. Who knows but from our loins may spring (Long hence) some winged sweet-throated thing As much superior to us As we to Cynocephalus? 220

This is consoling, but, alas, It wipes no dimness from the glass Where I am flattening my poor nose, In hope to see beyond my toes, Though I accept my pedigree, Yet where, pray tell me, is the key That should unlock a private door To the Great Mystery, such no more? Each offers his, but one nor all Are much persuasive with the wall 230 That rises now as long ago, Between I wonder and I know, Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peep At the veiled Isis in its keep. Where is no door, I but produce My key to find it of no use. Yet better keep it, after all, Since Nature's economical, And who can tell but some fine day (If it occur to her) she may, 240 In her good-will to you and me, _Make_ door and lock to match the key?

TEMPORA MUTANTUR

The world turns mild; democracy, they say, Rounds the sharp knobs of character away, And no great harm, unless at grave expense Of what needs edge of proof, the moral sense; For man or race is on the downward path Whose fibre grows too soft for honest wrath, And there's a subtle influence that springs From words to modify our sense of things. A plain distinction grows obscure of late: Man, if he will, may pardon; but the State 10 Forgets its function if not fixed as Fate. So thought our sires: a hundred years ago, If men were knaves, why, people called them so, And crime could see the prison-portal bend Its brow severe at no long vista's end. In those days for plain things plain words would serve; Men had not learned to admire the graceful swerve Wherewith the Æsthetic Nature's genial mood Makes public duty slope to private good; No muddled conscience raised the saving doubt; 20 A soldier proved unworthy was drummed out, An officer cashiered, a civil servant (No matter though his piety were fervent) Disgracefully dismissed, and through the land Each bore for life a stigma from the brand Whose far-heard hiss made others more averse To take the facile step from bad to worse. The Ten Commandments had a meaning then, Felt in their bones by least considerate men, Because behind them Public Conscience stood, 30 And without wincing made their mandates good. But now that 'Statesmanship' is just a way To dodge the primal curse and make it pay, Since office means a kind of patent drill To force an entrance to the Nation's till, And peculation something rather less Risky than if you spelt it with an _s_; Now that to steal by law is grown an art, Whom rogues the sires, their milder sons call smart, And 'slightly irregular' dilutes the shame 40 Of what had once a somewhat blunter name. With generous curve we draw the moral line: Our swindlers are permitted to resign; Their guilt is wrapped in deferential names, And twenty sympathize for one that blames. Add national disgrace to private crime, Confront mankind with brazen front sublime, Steal but enough, the world is un-severe,-- Tweed is a statesman, Fisk a financier; Invent a mine, and he--the Lord knows what; 50 Secure, at any rate, with what you've got. The public servant who has stolen or lied, If called on, may resign with honest pride: As unjust favor put him in, why doubt Disfavor as unjust has turned him out? Even it indicted, what is that but fudge To him who counted-in the elective judge? Whitewashed, he quits the politician's strife At ease in mind, with pockets filled for life; His 'lady' glares with gems whose vulgar blaze 60 The poor man through his heightened taxes pays, Himself content if one huge Kohinoor Bulge from a shirt-front ampler than before, But not too candid, lest it haply tend To rouse suspicion of the People's Friend. A public meeting, treated at his cost, Resolves him back more virtue than he lost; With character regilt he counts his gains; What's gone was air, the solid good remains; For what is good, except what friend and foe 70 Seem quite unanimous in thinking so, The stocks and bonds which, in our age of loans, Replace the stupid pagan's stocks and stones? With choker white, wherein no cynic eye Dares see idealized a hempen tie, At parish-meetings he conducts in prayer, And pays for missions to be sent elsewhere; On 'Change respected, to his friends endeared, Add but a Sunday-school class, he's revered, And his too early tomb will not be dumb 80 To point a moral for our youth to come.

IN THE HALF-WAY HOUSE

I

At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages A spirited cross of romantic and grand, All templars and minstrels and ladies and pages, And love and adventure in Outre-Mer land; But ah, where the youth dreamed of building a minster, The man takes a pew and sits reckoning his pelf, And the Graces wear fronts, the Muse thins to a spinster, When Middle-Age stares from one's glass at oneself!

II

Do you twit me with days when I had an Ideal, And saw the sear future through spectacles green? Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all These fat friends of forty, shall keep me nineteen; Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel Who've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch, Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our Fate pick a quarrel, If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she sent a dear scratch?

III

We called it our Eden, that small patent-baker, When life was half moonshine and half Mary Jane; But the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker!-- Did Adam have duns and slip down a back-lane? Nay, after the Fall did the modiste keep coming With the last styles of fig-leaf to Madam Eve's bower? Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls thrumming, Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar the hour?

IV

As I think what I was, I sigh _Desunt nonnulla!_ Years are creditors Sheridan's self could not bilk; But then, as my boy says, 'What right has a fullah To ask for the cream, when himself spilt the milk?' Perhaps when you're older, my lad, you'll discover The secret with which Auld Lang Syne there is gilt,-- Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and lover,-- That cream rises thickest on milk that was spilt!

V

We sailed for the moon, but, in sad disillusion, Snug under Point Comfort are glad to make fast, And strive (sans our glasses) to make a confusion 'Twixt our rind of green cheese and the moon of the past. Ah, Might-have-been, Could-have-been, Would-have-been! rascals, He's a genius or fool whom ye cheat at two-score, And the man whose boy-promise was likened to Pascal's Is thankful at forty they don't call him bore!

VI

With what fumes of fame was each confident pate full! How rates of insurance should rise on the Charles! And which of us now would not feel wisely grateful, If his rhymes sold as fast as the Emblems of Quarles? E'en if won, what's the good of Life's medals and prizes? The rapture's in what never was or is gone; That we missed them makes Helens of plain Ann Elizys, For the goose of To-day still is Memory's swan.

VII

And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure? Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life? Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife? Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.'s upon trust, Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, And still climb the dream-tree for--ashes and dust!

AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL

JANUARY, 1859

I

A hundred years! they're quickly fled, With all their joy and sorrow; Their dead leaves shed upon the dead, Their fresh ones sprung by morrow! And still the patient seasons bring Their change of sun and shadow; New birds still sing with every spring, New violets spot the meadow.

II

A hundred years! and Nature's powers No greater grown nor lessened! 10 They saw no flowers more sweet than ours, No fairer new moon's crescent. Would she but treat us poets so, So from our winter free us, And set our slow old sap aflow To sprout in fresh ideas!

III

Alas, think I, what worth or parts Have brought me here competing, To speak what starts in myriad hearts With Burns's memory beating! 20 Himself had loved a theme like this; Must I be its entomber? No pen save his but's sure to miss Its pathos or its humor.

IV

As I sat musing what to say, And how my verse to number, Some elf in play passed by that way, And sank my lids in slumber; And on my sleep a vision stole. Which I will put in metre, 30 Of Burns's soul at the wicket-hole Where sits the good Saint Peter.

V

The saint, methought, had left his post That day to Holy Willie, Who swore, 'Each ghost that comes shall toast In brunstane, will he, nill he; There's nane need hope with phrases fine Their score to wipe a sin frae; I'll chalk a sign, to save their tryin',-- A hand ([Illustration of a hand]) and "_Vide infra!_"' 40

VI

Alas! no soil's too cold or dry For spiritual small potatoes, Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply Of _diaboli advocatus_; Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool Where Mercy plumps a cushion, Who've just one rule for knave and fool, It saves so much confusion!

VII

So when Burns knocked, Will knit his brows, His window gap made scanter, 50 And said, 'Go rouse the other house; We lodge no Tam O'Shanter!' '_We_ lodge!' laughed Burns. 'Now well I see Death cannot kill old nature; No human flea but thinks that he May speak for his Creator!

VIII

'But, Willie, friend, don't turn me forth, Auld Clootie needs no gauger; And if on earth I had small worth, You've let in worse I'se wager!' 60 'Na, nane has knockit at the yett But found me hard as whunstane; There's chances yet your bread to get Wi Auld Nick, gaugin' brunstane.'

IX

Meanwhile, the Unco' Guid had ta'en Their place to watch the process, Flattening in vain on many a pane Their disembodied noses. Remember, please, 'tis all a dream; One can't control the fancies 70 Through sleep that stream with wayward gleam, Like midnight's boreal dances.

X

Old Willie's tone grew sharp 's a knife: '_In primis_, I indite ye, For makin' strife wi' the water o' life, And preferrin' _aqua vitæ!_' Then roared a voice with lusty din, Like a skipper's when 'tis blowy, 'If _that's_ a sin, _I_'d ne'er got in, As sure as my name's Noah!' 80

XI

Baulked, Willie turned another leaf,-- 'There's many here have heard ye, To the pain and grief o' true belief, Say hard things o' the clergy!' Then rang a clear tone over all,-- 'One plea for him allow me: I once heard call from o'er me, "Saul, Why persecutest thou me?"'

XII

To the next charge vexed Willie turned, And, sighing, wiped his glasses: 90 'I'm much concerned to find ye yearned O'er-warmly tow'rd the lasses!' Here David sighed; poor Willie's face Lost all its self-possession: 'I leave this case to God's own grace; It baffles _my_ discretion!'

XIII

Then sudden glory round me broke, And low melodious surges Of wings whose stroke to splendor woke Creation's farthest verges; 100 A cross stretched, ladder-like, secure From earth to heaven's own portal, Whereby God's poor, with footing sure, Climbed up to peace immortal.

XIV

I heard a voice serene and low (With my heart I seemed to hear it,) Fall soft and slow as snow on snow, Like grace of the heavenly spirit; As sweet as over new-born son The croon of new-made mother, 110 The voice begun, 'Sore tempted one!' Then, pausing, sighed, 'Our brother!

XV

'If not a sparrow fall, unless The Father sees and knows it, Think! recks He less his form express, The soul his own deposit? If only dear to Him the strong, That never trip nor wander, Where were the throng whose morning song Thrills his blue arches yonder? 120

XVI

'Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed, To Him true service render, And they who need his hand to lead, Find they his heart untender? Through all your various ranks and fates He opens doors to duty, And he that waits there at your gates Was servant of his Beauty.

XVII

'The Earth must richer sap secrete, (Could ye in time but know it!) 130 Must juice concrete with fiercer heat, Ere she can make her poet; Long generations go and come, At last she bears a singer, For ages dumb of senses numb The compensation-bringer!

XVIII

'Her cheaper broods in palaces She raises under glasses, But souls like these, heav'n's hostages, Spring shelterless as grasses: 140 They share Earth's blessing and her bane, The common sun and shower; What makes your pain to them is gain, Your weakness is their power.

XIX

'These larger hearts must feel the rolls Of stormier-waved temptation; These star-wide souls between their poles Bear zones of tropic passion. He loved much!--that is gospel good, Howe'er the text you handle; 150 From common wood the cross was hewed, By love turned priceless sandal.

XX

'If scant his service at the kirk, He _paters_ heard and _aves_ From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk, From blackbird and from mavis; The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing, In him found Mercy's angel; The daisy's ring brought every spring To him love's fresh evangel! 160

XXI

'Not he the threatening texts who deals Is highest 'mong the preachers, But he who feels the woes and weals Of all God's wandering creatures. He doth good work whose heart can find The spirit 'neath the letter; Who makes his kind of happier mind, Leaves wiser men and better.

XXII

'They make Religion be abhorred Who round with darkness gulf her, 170 And think no word can please the Lord Unless it smell of sulphur, Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed The Father's loving kindness, Come now to rest! Thou didst his hest, If haply 'twas in blindness!'

XXIII

Then leapt heaven's portals wide apart, And at their golden thunder With sudden start I woke, my heart Still throbbing-full of wonder. 180 'Father,' I said, ''tis known to Thee How Thou thy Saints preparest; But this I see,--Saint Charity Is still the first and fairest!'

XXIV

Dear Bard and Brother! let who may Against thy faults be railing, (Though far, I pray, from us be they That never had a failing!) One toast I'll give, and that not long, Which thou wouldst pledge if present, 190 To him whose song, in nature strong, Makes man of prince and peasant!

IN AN ALBUM

The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall By some Pompeian idler traced, In ashes packed (ironic fact!) Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced, While many a page of bard and sage, Deemed once mankind's immortal gain, Lost from Time's ark, leaves no more mark Than a keel's furrow through the main.

O Chance and Change! our buzz's range Is scarcely wider than a fly's; Then let us play at fame to-day, To-morrow be unknown and wise; And while the fair beg locks of hair, And autographs, and Lord knows what, Quick! let us scratch our moment's match, Make our brief blaze, and be forgot!

Too pressed to wait, upon her slate Fame writes a name or two in doubt; Scarce written, these no longer please, And her own finger rubs them out: It may ensue, fair girl, that you Years hence this yellowing leaf may see, And put to task, your memory ask In vain, 'This Lowell, who was he?'

AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866

IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR

I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago, Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane, To do what I vowed I'd do never again: And I feel like your good honest dough when possest By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast. 'You must rise,' says the leaven. 'I can't,' says the dough; 'Just examine my bumps, and you'll see it's no go.' 'But you must,' the tormentor insists, ''tis all right; You must rise when I bid you, and, what's more, be light.' 10

'Tis a dreadful oppression, this making men speak What they're sure to be sorry for all the next week; Some poor stick requesting, like Aaron's, to bud Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood, As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton.

They say it is wholesome to rise with the sun, And I dare say it may be if not overdone; (I think it was Thomson who made the remark 'Twas an excellent thing in its way--for a lark;) 20 But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating, With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for Apollo, Undercontract to raise anerithmon gelasma With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma, And jokes not much younger than Jethro's phylacteries, Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize.

I've a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech, Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, 30 Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim's foam on 't, And leaving on memory's rim just a sense Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense; Not poetry,--no, not quite that, but as good, A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would. 'Tis a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh-poured champagne, Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed For manoeuvring the heavy dragoons of the mind. 40 When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop, Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop, With a vague apprehension from popular rumor There used to be something by mortals called humor, Beginning again when you thought they were done, Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton, And as near to the present occasions of men As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten, I--well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother, For am I not also a bore and a brother? 50

And a toast,--what should that, be? Light, airy, and free, The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus's sea, A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow-stain, That floats for an instant 'twixt goblet and brain; A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught, And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought. Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple; Ask Apelles to paint you the ravishing dimple Whose shifting enchantment lights Venus's cheek, And the artist will tell you his skill is to seek; 60 Once fix it, 'tis naught, for the charm of it rises From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises.

I've tried to define it, but what mother's son Could ever yet do what he knows should be done? My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air Its fast-fading heart's-blood drop back in despair; Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick, I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick.

Now since I've succeeded--I pray do not frown-- To Ticknor's and Longfellow's classical gown, 70 And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf, I speak like a native (of Cambridge) myself, Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose A sentiment treading on nobody's toes, And give, in such ale as with pump-handles _we_ brew, Their memory who saved us from all talking Hebrew,-- A toast that to deluge with water is good, For in Scripture they come in just after the flood: I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir, Modern languages ne'er could have had a professor, 80 The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues; And a name all-embracing I couple therewith, Which is that of my founder--the late Mr. Smith.

A PARABLE

An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale From passion's fountain flooded all the vale. 'Hee-haw!' cried he, 'I hearken,' as who knew For such ear-largess humble thanks were due. 'Friend,' said the wingèd pain, 'in vain you bray, Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay; None but his peers the poet rightly hear, Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear.'

V. EPIGRAMS

SAYINGS

1.

In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, 'I find thee worthy; do this deed for me'?

2.

A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind Thus spake a dervish: 'Friend, the Eternal Judge Dooms not his work, but ours, the crooked mind.'

3.

Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern; Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars.

4.

'Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?' 'Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged.'

INSCRIPTIONS

FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY

I call as fly the irrevocable hours, Futile as air or strong as fate to make Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers, Even as men choose, they either give or take.

FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS

The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came; Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name.

PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON

To those who died for her on land and sea, That she might have a country great and free, Boston builds this: build ye her monument In lives like theirs, at duty's summons spent.

A MISCONCEPTION

B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, 'Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling, In office placed to serve the Commonwealth, Does himself all the good he can by stealing.

THE BOSS

Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope, Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.

SUN-WORSHIP

If I were the rose at your window, Happiest rose of its crew, Every blossom I bore would bend inward, _They'd_ know where the sunshine grew.

CHANGED PERSPECTIVE

Full oft the pathway to her door I've measured by the selfsame track, Yet doubt the distance more and more, 'Tis so much longer coming back!

WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER

We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, And I should hint sharp practice if I dared; For was not she beforehand sure to gain Who made the sunshine we together shared?

SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, 'Neath every one a friend.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.

LAST POEMS

HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES

What know we of the world immense Beyond the narrow ring of sense? What should we know, who lounge about The house we dwell in, nor find out, Masked by a wall, the secret cell Where the soul's priests in hiding dwell? The winding stair that steals aloof To chapel-mysteries 'neath the roof?

It lies about us, yet as far From sense sequestered as a star 10 New launched its wake of fire to trace In secrecies of unprobed space, Whose beacon's lightning-pinioned spears Might earthward haste a thousand years Nor reach it. So remote seems this World undiscovered, yet it is A neighbor near and dumb as death, So near, we seem to feel the breath Of its hushed habitants as they Pass us unchallenged, night and day. 20

Never could mortal ear nor eye By sound or sign suspect them nigh, Yet why may not some subtler sense Than those poor two give evidence? Transfuse the ferment of their being Into our own, past hearing, seeing, As men, if once attempered so, Far off each other's thought can know? As horses with an instant thrill Measure their rider's strength of will? 30 Comes not to all some glimpse that brings Strange sense of sense-escaping things? Wraiths some transfigured nerve divines? Approaches, premonitions, signs, Voices of Ariel that die out In the dim No Man's Land of Doubt?

Are these Night's dusky birds? Are these Phantasmas of the silences Outer or inner?--rude heirlooms From grovellers in the cavern-glooms, 40 Who in unhuman Nature saw Misshapen foes with tusk and claw, And with those night-fears brute and blind Peopled the chaos of their mind, Which, in ungovernable hours, Still make their bestial lair in ours?

Were they, or were they not? Yes; no; Uncalled they come, unbid they go, And leave us fumbling in a doubt Whether within us or without 50 The spell of this illusion be That witches us to hear and see As in a twi-life what it will, And hath such wonder-working skill That what we deemed most solid-wrought Turns a mere figment of our thought, Which when we grasp at in despair Our fingers find vain semblance there, For Psyche seeks a corner-stone Firmer than aught to matter known. 60

Is it illusion? Dream-stuff? Show Made of the wish to have it so? 'Twere something, even though this were all: So the poor prisoner, on his wall Long gazing, from the chance designs Of crack, mould, weather-stain, refines New and new pictures without cease, Landscape, or saint, or altar-piece: But these are Fancy's common brood Hatched in the nest of solitude; 70 This is Dame Wish's hourly trade, By our rude sires a goddess made. Could longing, though its heart broke, give Trances in which we chiefly live? Moments that darken all beside, Tearfully radiant as a bride? Beckonings of bright escape, of wings Purchased with loss of baser things? Blithe truancies from all control Of Hylë, outings of the soul? 80

The worm, by trustful instinct led, Draws from its womb a slender thread, And drops, confiding that the breeze Will waft it to unpastured trees: So the brain spins itself, and so Swings boldly off in hope to blow Across some tree of knowledge, fair With fruitage new, none else shall share: Sated with wavering in the Void, It backward climbs, so best employed, 90 And, where no proof is nor can be, Seeks refuge with Analogy; Truth's soft half-sister, she may tell Where lurks, seld-sought, the other's well, With metaphysic midges sore, My Thought seeks comfort at her door, And, at her feet a suppliant cast, Evokes a spectre of the past. Not such as shook the knees of Saul, But winsome, golden-gay withal,-- 100 Two fishes in a globe of glass, That pass, and waver, and re-pass, And lighten that way, and then this, Silent as meditation is. With a half-humorous smile I see In this their aimless industry, These errands nowhere and returns Grave as a pair of funeral urns, This ever-seek and never-find, A mocking image of my mind. 110 But not for this I bade you climb Up from the darkening deeps of time: Help me to tame these wild day-mares That sudden on me unawares. Fish, do your duty, as did they Of the Black Island far away In life's safe places,--far as you From all that now I see or do. You come, embodied flames, as when I knew you first, nor yet knew men; 120 Your gold renews my golden days, Your splendor all my loss repays. 'Tis more than sixty years ago Since first I watched your to-and-fro; Two generations come and gone From silence to oblivion, With all their noisy strife and stress Lulled in the grave's forgivingness, While you unquenchably survive Immortal, almost more alive. 130 I watched you then a curious boy, Who in your beauty found full joy, And, by no problem-debts distrest, Sate at life's board a welcome guest. You were my sister's pets, not mine; But Property's dividing line No hint of dispossession drew On any map my simplesse knew; O golden age, not yet dethroned! What made me happy, that I owned; 140 You were my wonders, you my Lars, In darkling days my sun and stars, And over you entranced I hung, Too young to know that I was young. Gazing with still unsated bliss, My fancies took some shape like this: 'I have my world, and so have you, A tiny universe for two, A bubble by the artist blown, Scarcely more fragile than our own, 150 Where you have all a whale could wish, Happy as Eden's primal fish. Manna is dropt you thrice a day From some kind heaven not far away, And still you snatch its softening crumbs, Nor, more than we, think whence it comes. No toil seems yours but to explore Your cloistered realm from shore to shore; Sometimes you trace its limits round, Sometimes its limpid depths you sound, 160 Or hover motionless midway, Like gold-red clouds at set of day; Erelong you whirl with sudden whim Off to your globe's most distant rim, Where, greatened by the watery lens, Methinks no dragon of the fens Flashed huger scales against the sky, Roused by Sir Bevis or Sir Guy, And the one eye that meets my view, Lidless and strangely largening, too, 170 Like that of conscience in the dark, Seems to make me its single mark. What a benignant lot is yours That have an own All-out-of-doors, No words to spell, no sums to do, No Nepos and no parlyvoo! How happy you without a thought Of such cross things as Must and Ought,-- I too the happiest of boys To see and share your golden joys!' 180

So thought the child, in simpler words, Of you his finny flocks and herds; Now, an old man, I bid you rise To the fine sight behind the eyes, And, lo, you float and flash again In the dark cistern of my brain. But o'er your visioned flames I brood With other mien, in other mood; You are no longer there to please, But to stir argument, and tease 190 My thought with all the ghostly shapes From which no moody man escapes. Diminished creature, I no more Find Fairyland beside my door, But for each moment's pleasure pay With the _quart d'heure_ of Rabelais!

I watch you in your crystal sphere, And wonder if you see and hear Those shapes and sounds that stir the wide Conjecture of the world outside; 200 In your pent lives, as we in ours, Have you surmises dim of powers, Of presences obscurely shown, Of lives a riddle to your own, Just on the senses' outer verge, Where sense-nerves into soul-nerves merge, Where we conspire our own deceit Confederate in deft Fancy's feat, And the fooled brain befools the eyes With pageants woven of its own lies? 210 But _are_ they lies? Why more than those Phantoms that startle your repose, Half seen, half heard, then flit away, And leave you your prose-bounded day?

The things ye see as shadows I Know to be substance; tell me why My visions, like those haunting you, May not be as substantial too. Alas, who ever answer heard From fish, and dream-fish too? Absurd! 220 Your consciousness I half divine, But you are wholly deaf to mine. Go, I dismiss you; ye have done All that ye could; our silk is spun: Dive back into the deep of dreams, Where what is real is what, seems! Yet I shall fancy till my grave Your lives to mine a lesson gave; If lesson none, an image, then, Impeaching self-conceit in men 230 Who put their confidence alone In what they call the Seen and Known. How seen? How known? As through your glass Our wavering apparitions pass Perplexingly, then subtly wrought To some quite other thing by thought. Here shall my resolution be: The shadow of the mystery Is haply wholesomer for eyes That cheat us to be overwise, 240 And I am happy in my right To love God's darkness as His light.

TURNER'S OLD TÉMÉRAIRE

UNDER A FIGURE SYMBOLIZING THE CHURCH

Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things; The breath of heaven bore up thy cloudy wings, And, patient in their triple rank, The thunders crouched about thy flank, Their black lips silent with the doom of kings.

The storm-wind loved to rock him in thy pines, And swell thy vans with breath of great designs; Long-wildered pilgrims of the main By thee relaid their course again, Whose prow was guided by celestial signs.

How didst thou trample on tumultuous seas, Or, like some basking sea-beast stretched at ease, Let the bull-fronted surges glide Caressingly along thy side, Like glad hounds leaping by the huntsman's knees!

Heroic feet, with fire of genius shod, In battle's ecstasy thy deck have trod, While from their touch a fulgor ran Through plank and spar, from man to man, Welding thee to a thunderbolt of God.

Now a black demon, belching fire and steam, Drags thee away, a pale, dismantled dream, And all thy desecrated bulk Must landlocked lie, a helpless hulk, To gather weeds in the regardless stream.

Woe's me, from Ocean's sky-horizoned air To this! Better, the flame-cross still aflare, Shot-shattered to have met thy doom Where thy last lightnings cheered the gloom, Than here be safe in dangerless despair.

Thy drooping symbol to the flag-staff clings, Thy rudder soothes the tide to lazy rings, Thy thunders now but birthdays greet, Thy planks forget the martyrs' feet, Thy masts what challenges the sea-wind brings.

Thou a mere hospital, where human wrecks, Like winter-flies, crawl, those renowned decks, Ne'er trodden save by captive foes, And wonted sternly to impose God's will and thine on bowed imperial necks!

Shall nevermore, engendered of thy fame, A new sea-eagle heir thy conqueror name. And with commissioned talons wrench From thy supplanter's grimy clench His sheath of steel, his wings of smoke and flame?

This shall the pleased eyes of our children see; For this the stars of God long even as we; Earth listens for his wings; the Fates Expectant lean; Faith cross-propt waits, And the tired waves of Thought's insurgent sea.

ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHER

Stood the tall Archangel weighing All man's dreaming, doing, saying, All the failure and the pain, All the triumph and the gain, In the unimagined years, Full of hopes, more full of tears, Since old Adam's hopeless eyes Backward searched for Paradise, And, instead, the flame-blade saw Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there, With his fire-gold, flickering hair, In his blinding armor stand, And the scales were in his hand: Mighty were they, and full well They could poise both heaven and hell. 'Angel,' asked I humbly then, 'Weighest thou the souls of men? That thine office is, I know.' 'Nay,' he answered me, 'not so; But I weigh the hope of Man Since the power of choice began, In the world, of good or ill.' Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place All the glories of our race, Cups that lit Belsbazzar's feast, Gems, the lightning of the East, Kublai's sceptre, Cæsar's sword, Many a poet's golden word, Many a skill of science, vain To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw Things regardless, outcast, few, Martyr-ash, arena sand, Of St Francis' cord a strand, Beechen cups of men whose need Fasted that the poor might feed, Disillusions and despairs Of young saints with, grief-grayed hairs, Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran Seeing then the beam divine Swiftly on this hand decline, While Earth's splendor and renown Mounted light as thistle-down.

A VALENTINE

Let others wonder what fair face Upon their path shall shine, And, fancying half, half hoping, trace Some maiden shape of tenderest grace To be their Valentine.

Let other hearts with tremor sweet One secret wish enshrine That Fate may lead their happy feet Fair Julia in the lane to meet To be their Valentine.

But I, far happier, am secure; I know the eyes benign, The face more beautiful and pure Than fancy's fairest portraiture That mark my Valentine.

More than when first I singled, thee, This only prayer is mine,-- That, in the years I yet shall see. As, darling, in the past, thou'll be My happy Valentine.

AN APRIL BIRTHDAY--AT SEA

On this wild waste, where never blossom came, Save the white wind-flower to the billow's cap, Or those pale disks of momentary flame, Loose petals dropped from Dian's careless lap, What far fetched influence all my fancy fills, With singing birds and dancing daffodils?

Why, 'tis her day whom jocund April brought, And who brings April with her in her eyes; It is her vision lights my lonely thought, Even as a rose that opes its hushed surprise In sick men's chambers, with its glowing breath Plants Summer at the glacier edge of Death.

Gray sky, sea gray as mossy stones on graves;-- Anon comes April in her jollity; And dancing down the bleak vales 'tween the waves, Makes them green glades for all her flowers and me. The gulls turn thrushes, charmed are sea and sky By magic of my thought, and know not why.

Ah, but I know, for never April's shine, Nor passion gust of rain, nor all her flowers Scattered in haste, were seen so sudden fine As she in various mood, on whom the powers Of happiest stars in fair conjunction smiled To bless the birth, of April's darling child.

LOVE AND THOUGHT

What hath Love with Thought to do? Still at variance are the two. Love is sudden, Love is rash, Love is like the levin flash, Comes as swift, as swiftly goes, And his mark as surely knows.

Thought is lumpish, Thought is slow, Weighing long 'tween yes and no; When dear Love is dead and gone, Thought comes creeping in anon, And, in his deserted nest, Sits to hold the crowner's quest.

Since we love, what need to think? Happiness stands on a brink Whence too easy 'tis to fall Whither's no return at all; Have a care, half-hearted lover, Thought would only push her over!

THE NOBLER LOVER

If he be a nobler lover, take him! You in you I seek, and not myself; Love with men's what women choose to make him, Seraph strong to soar, or fawn-eyed elf: All I am or can, your beauty gave it, Lifting me a moment nigh to you, And my bit of heaven, I fain would save it-- Mine I thought it was, I never knew.

What you take of me is yours to serve you, All I give, you gave to me before; Let him win you! If I but deserve you, I keep all you grant to him and more: You shall make me dare what others dare not, You shall keep my nature pure as snow, And a light from you that others share not Shall transfigure me where'er I go.

Let me be your thrall! However lowly Be the bondsman's service I can do, Loyalty shall make it high and holy; Naught can be unworthy, done for you. Men shall say, 'A lover of this fashion Such an icy mistress well beseems.' Women say, 'Could we deserve such passion, We might be the marvel that he dreams.'

ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEETHOVEN'S PLAYED IN THE NEXT ROOM

Unseen Musician, thou art sure to please, For those same notes in happier days I heard Poured by dear hands that long have never stirred Yet now again for me delight the keys: Ah me, to strong illusions such as these What are Life's solid things? The walls that gird Our senses, lo, a casual scent or word Levels, and it is the soul that hears and sees! Play on, dear girl, and many be the years Ere some grayhaired survivor sit like me And, for thy largess pay a meed of tears Unto another who, beyond the sea Of Time and Change, perhaps not sadly hears A music in this verse undreamed by thee!

VERSES

INTENDED TO GO WITH A POSSET DISH TO MY DEAR LITTLE GODDAUGHTER, 1882

In good old times, which means, you know, The time men wasted long ago, And we must blame our brains or mood If that we squander seems less good, In those blest days when wish was act And fancy dreamed itself to fact, Godfathers used to fill with guineas The cups they gave their pickaninnies, Performing functions at the chrism Not mentioned in the Catechism. No millioner, poor I fill up With wishes my more modest cup, Though had I Amalthea's horn It should be hers the newly born. Nay, shudder not! I should bestow it So brimming full she couldn't blow it. Wishes aren't horses: true, but still There are worse roadsters than goodwill. And so I wish my darling health, And just to round my couplet, wealth, With faith enough to bridge the chasm 'Twixt Genesis and Protoplasm, And bear her o'er life's current vext From this world to a better next, Where the full glow of God puts out Poor reason's farthing candle, Doubt. I've wished her healthy, wealthy, wise, What more can godfather devise? But since there's room for countless wishes In these old-fashioned posset dishes, I'll wish her from my plenteous store Of those commodities two more, Her father's wit, veined through and through With tenderness that Watts (but whew! Celia's aflame, I mean no stricture On his Sir Josh-surpassing picture)-- I wish her next, and 'tis the soul Of all I've dropt into the bowl, Her mother's beauty--nay, but two So fair at once would never do. Then let her but the half possess, Troy was besieged ten years for less. Now if there's any truth in Darwin, And we from what was, all we are win, I simply wish the child to be A sample of Heredity, Enjoying to the full extent Life's best, the Unearned Increment Which Fate her Godfather to flout Gave _him_ in legacies of gout. Thus, then, the cup is duly filled; Walk steady, dear, lest all be spilled.

ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT

Strong, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws That sway this universe, of none withstood, Unconscious of man's outcries or applause, Or what man deems his evil or his good; And when the Fates ally them with a cause That wallows in the sea-trough and seems lost, Drifting in danger of the reefs and sands Of shallow counsels, this way, that way, tost, Strength, silence, simpleness, of these three strands They twist the cable shall the world hold fast To where its anchors clutch the bed-rock of the Past.

Strong, simple, silent, therefore such was he Who helped us in our need; the eternal law That who can saddle Opportunity Is God's elect, though many a mortal flaw May minish him in eyes that closely see, Was verified in him: what need we say Of one who made success where others failed, Who, with no light save that of common day, Struck hard, and still struck on till Fortune quailed, But that (so sift the Norns) a desperate van Ne'er fell at last to one who was not wholly man.

A face all prose where Time's [benignant] haze Softens no raw edge yet, nor makes all fair With the beguiling light of vanished days; This is relentless granite, bleak and bare, Roughhewn, and scornful of æsthetic phrase; Nothing is here for fancy, naught for dreams, The Present's hard uncompromising light Accents all vulgar outlines, flaws, and seams, Yet vindicates some pristine natural right O'ertopping that hereditary grace Which marks the gain or loss of some time-fondled race.

So Marius looked, methinks, and Cromwell so, Not in the purple born, to those they led Nearer for that and costlier to the foe, New moulders of old forms, by nature bred The exhaustless life of manhood's seeds to show, Let but the ploughshare of portentous times Strike deep enough to reach them where they lie; Despair and danger are their fostering climes, And their best sun bursts from a stormy sky: He was our man of men, nor would abate The utmost due manhood could claim of fate.

Nothing Ideal, a plain-people's man At the first glance, a more deliberate ken Finds type primeval, theirs in whose veins ran Such blood as quelled the dragon In his den, Made harmless fields, and better worlds began: He came grim-silent, saw and did the deed That was to do; in his master-grip Our sword flashed joy; no skill of words could breed Such sure conviction as that close-clamped lip; He slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, knew He had done more than any simplest man might do. Yet did this man, war-tempered, stern as steel Where steel opposed, prove soft in civil sway; The hand hilt-hardened had lost tact to feel The world's base coin, and glozing knaves made prey Of him and of the entrusted Commonweal; So Truth insists and will not be denied. We turn our eyes away, and so will Fame, As if in his last battle he had died Victor for us and spotless of all blame, Doer of hopeless tasks which praters shirk, One of those still plain men that do the world's rough work.

APPENDIX

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES OF BIGLOW PAPERS

[Lowell took occasion, when collecting in a book the several numbers of the second series of 'Biglow Papers,' which had appeared In the 'Atlantic Monthly,' to prefix an essay which not only gave a personal narrative of the origin of the whole scheme, but particularly dwelt upon the use in literature of the homely dialect in which the poems were couched. In this Cabinet Edition it has seemed expedient to print the Introduction here rather than in immediate connection with the poems themselves.]

Though prefaces seem of late to have fallen under some reproach, they have at least this advantage, that they set us again on the feet of our personal consciousness and rescue us from the gregarious mock-modesty or cowardice of that _we_ which shrills feebly throughout modern literature like the shrieking of mice in the walls of a house that has passed its prime. Having a few words to say to the many friends whom the 'Biglow Papers' have won me, I shall accordingly take the freedom of the first person singular of the personal pronoun. Let each of the good-natured unknown who have cheered me by the written communication of their sympathy look upon this Introduction as a private letter to himself.

When, more than twenty years ago, I wrote the first of the series, I had no definite plan and no intention of ever writing another. Thinking the Mexican war, as I think it still, a national crime committed in behoof of Slavery, our common sin, and wishing to put the feeling of those who thought as I did in a way that would tell, I imagined to myself such an up-country man as I had often seen at antislavery gatherings capable of district-school English, but always instinctively falling back into the natural stronghold of his homely dialect when heated to the point of self-forgetfulness. When I began to carry out my conception and to write in my assumed character, I found myself in a strait between two perils. On the one hand, I was in danger of being carried beyond the limit of my own opinions, or at least of that temper with which every man should speak his mind in print, and on the other I feared the risk of seeming to vulgarize a deep and sacred conviction. I needed on occasion to rise above the level of mere _patois_, and for this purpose conceived the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, who should express the more cautious element of the New England character and its pedantry, as Mr. Biglow should serve for its homely common-sense vivified and heated by conscience. The parson was to be the complement rather than the antithesis of his parishioner, and I felt or fancied a certain humorous element in the real identity of the two under a seeming incongruity. Mr. Wilbur's fondness for scraps of Latin, though drawn from the life, I adopted deliberately to heighten the contrast. Finding soon after that I needed some one as a mouth-piece of the mere drollery, for I conceive that true humor is never divorced from moral conviction, I invented Mr. Sawin for the clown of my little puppet-show. I meant to embody in him that half-conscious _un_morality which I had noticed as the recoil in gross natures from a puritanism that still strove to keep in its creed the intense savor which had long gone out of its faith and life. In the three I thought I should find room enough to express, as it was my plan to do, the popular feeling and opinion of the time. For the names of two of my characters, since I have received some remonstrances from very worthy persons who happen to bear them, I would say that they were purely fortuitous, probably mere unconscious memories of sign-boards or directories. Mr. Sawin's sprang from the accident of a rhyme at the end of his first epistle, and I purposely christened him by the impossible surname of Birdofredum not more to stigmatize him as the incarnation of 'Manifest Destiny,' in other words, of national recklessness as to right and wrong, than to avoid the chance of wounding any private sensitiveness.

The success of my experiment soon began not only to astonish me, but to make me feel the responsibility of knowing that I held in my hand a weapon instead of the mere fencing-stick I had supposed. Very far from being a popular author under my own name, so far, indeed, as to be almost unread, I found the verses of my pseudonym copied everywhere; saw them pinned up in workshops; I heard them quoted and their authorship debated; I once even, when rumor had at length caught up my name in one of its eddies, had the satisfaction of overhearing it demonstrated, in the pauses of a concert, that _I_ was utterly incompetent to have written anything of the kind. I had read too much not to know the utter worthlessness of contemporary reputation, especially as regards satire, but I knew also that by giving a certain amount of influence it also had its worth, if that influence were used on the right side. I had learned, too, that the first requisite of good writing is to have an earnest and definite purpose, whether æsthetic or moral, and that even good writing, to please long, must have more than an average amount either of imagination or common-sense. The first of these falls to the lot of scarcely one in several generations; the last is within the reach of many in every one that passes; and of this an author may fairly hope to become in part the mouthpiece. If I put on the cap and bells and made myself one of the court-fools of King Demos, it was less to make his majesty laugh than to win a passage to his royal ears for certain serious things which I had deeply at heart. I say this because there is no imputation that could be more galling to any man's self-respect than that of being a mere jester. I endeavored, by generalising my satire, to give it what value _I_ could beyond the passing moment and the immediate application. How far I have succeeded I cannot tell, but I have had better luck than I ever looked for in seeing my verses survive to pass beyond their nonage.

In choosing the Yankee dialect, I did not act without forethought. It had long seemed to me that the great vice of American writing and speaking was a studied want of simplicity, that we were in danger of coming to look on our mother-tongue as a dead language, to be sought in the grammar and dictionary rather than in the heart, and that our only chance of escape was by seeking it at its living sources among those who were, as Scottowe says of Major-General Gibbons, 'divinely illiterate.' President Lincoln, the only really great public man whom these latter days have seen, was great also in this, that he was master--witness his speech at Gettysburg--of a truly masculine English, classic, because it was of no special period, and level at once to the highest and lowest of his countrymen. I learn from the highest authority that his favorite reading was in Shakespeare and Milton, to which, of course, the Bible should be added. But whoever should read the debates in Congress might fancy himself present at a meeting of the city council of some city of Southern Gaul in the decline of the Empire, where barbarians with a Latin varnish emulated each other in being more than Ciceronian. Whether it be want of culture, for the highest outcome of that is simplicity, or for whatever reason, it is certain that very few American writers or speakers wield their native language with the directness, precision, and force that are common as the day in the mother country. We use it like Scotsmen, not as if it belonged to us, but as if we wished to prove that we belonged to it, by showing our intimacy with its written rather than with its spoken dialect. And yet all the while our popular idiom is racy with life and vigor and originality, bucksome (as Milton used the word) to our new occasions, and proves itself no mere graft by sending up new suckers from the old root in spite of us. It is only from its roots in the living generations of men that a language can be reinforced with fresh vigor for its needs; what may be called a literate dialect grows ever more and more pedantic and foreign, till it becomes at last as unfitting a vehicle for living thought as monkish Latin. That we should all be made to talk like books is the danger with which we are threatened by the Universal Schoolmaster, who does his best to enslave the minds and memories of his victims to what he esteems the best models of English composition, that is to say, to the writers whose style is faultily correct and has no blood-warmth in it. No language after it has faded into _diction_, none that cannot suck up the feeding juices secreted for it in the rich mother-earth of common folk, can bring forth a sound and lusty book. True vigor and heartiness of phrase do not pass from page to page, but from man to man, where the brain is kindled and the lips suppled by downright living interests and by passion in its very throe. Language is the soil of thought, and our own especially is a rich leaf-mould, the slow deposit of ages, the shed foliage of feeling, fancy, and imagination, which has suffered an earth-change, that the vocal forest, as Howell called it, may clothe itself anew with living green. There is death in the dictionary; and, where language is too strictly limited by convention, the ground for expression to grow in is limited also; and we get a _potted_ literature, Chinese dwarfs instead of healthy trees.

But while the schoolmaster has been busy starching our language and smoothing it flat with the mangle of a supposed classical authority, the newspaper reporter has been doing even more harm by stretching and swelling it to suit his occasions. A dozen years ago I began a list, which I have added to from time to time, of some of the changes which may be fairly laid at his door. I give a few of them as showing their tendency, all the more dangerous that their effect, like that of some poisons, is insensibly cumulative, and that they are sure at last of effect among a people whose chief reading is the daily paper. I give in two columns the old style and its modern equivalent.

_Old Style._ _New Style._

Was hanged. Was launched into eternity.

When the halter When the fatal was put round noose was adjusted his neck. about the neck of the unfortunate victim of his own unbridled passions.

A great crowd A vast concourse came to see. was assembled to witness.

Great fire. Disastrous conflagration.

The fire spread. The conflagration extended its devastating career.

House burned. Edifice consumed.

The fire was got The progress of under. the devouring element was arrested.

Man fell. Individual was precipitated.

A horse and wagon A valuable horse ran against. attached to a vehicle driven by J.S., in the employment of J.B., collided with.

The frightened The infuriated animal. horse.

Sent for the doctor. Called into requisition the services of the family physician.

The mayor of the The chief magistrate city in a short of the metropolis, in well- speech welcomed. chosen and eloquent language, frequently interrupted by the plaudits of the surging multitude, officially tendered the hospitalities.

I shall say a few I shall, with your words. permission, beg leave to offer some brief observations.

Began his answer. Commenced his rejoinder.

Asked him to dine. Tendered him a banquet.

A bystander advised. One of those omnipresent characters who, as if in pursuance of some previous arrangement, are certain to be encountered in the vicinity when an accident occurs, ventured the suggestion.

He died. He deceased, he passed out of existence, his spirit quitted its earthly habitation, winged its way to eternity, shook off its burden, etc.

In one sense this is nothing new. The school of Pope in verse ended by wire-drawing its phrase to such thinness that it could bear no weight of meaning whatever. Nor is fine writing by any means confined to America. All writers without imagination fall into it of necessity whenever they attempt the figurative. I take two examples from Mr. Merivale's 'History of the Romans under the Empire,' which, indeed, is full of such. 'The last years of the age familiarly styled the Augustan were singularly barren of the literary glories from which its celebrity was chiefly derived. One by one the stars in its firmament had been lost to the world; Virgil and Horace, etc., had long since died; the charm which the imagination of Livy had thrown over the earlier annals of Rome had ceased to shine on the details of almost contemporary history; and if the flood of his eloquence still continued flowing, we can hardly suppose that the stream was as rapid, as fresh, and as clear as ever.' I will not waste time in criticising the bad English or the mixture of metaphor in these sentences, but will simply cite another from the same author which is even worse. 'The shadowy phantom of the Republic continued to flit before the eyes of the Cæsar. There was still, he apprehended, a germ of sentiment existing, on which a scion of his own house, or even a stranger, might boldly throw himself and raise the standard of patrician independence.' Now a ghost may haunt a murderer, but hardly, I should think, to scare him with the threat of taking a new lease of its old tenement. And fancy the _scion_ of a _house_ in the act of _throwing itself_ upon a _germ of sentiment_ to _raise a standard!_ I am glad, since we have so much in the same kind to answer for, that this bit of horticultural rhetoric is from beyond sea. I would not be supposed to condemn truly imaginative prose. There is a simplicity of splendor, no less than of plainness, and prose would be poor indeed if it could not find a tongue for that meaning of the mind which is behind the meaning of the words. It has sometimes seemed to me that in England there was a growing tendency to curtail language into a mere convenience, and to defecate it of all emotion as thoroughly as algebraic signs. This has arisen, no doubt, in part from that healthy national contempt of humbug which is characteristic of Englishmen, in part from that sensitiveness to the ludicrous which makes them so shy of expressing feeling, but in part also, it is to be feared, from a growing distrust, one might almost say hatred, of whatever is super-material. There is something sad in the scorn with which their journalists treat the notion of there being such a thing as a national ideal, seeming utterly to have forgotten that even in the affairs of this world the imagination is as much matter-of-fact as the understanding. If we were to trust the impression made on us by some of the cleverest and most characteristic of their periodical literature, we should think England hopelessly stranded on the good-humored cynicism of well-to-do middle-age, and should fancy it an enchanted nation, doomed to sit forever with its feet under the mahogany in that after-dinner mood which follows conscientious repletion, and which it is ill-manners to disturb with any topics more exciting than the quality of the wines. But there are already symptoms that a large class of Englishmen are getting weary of the dominion of consols and divine common-sense, and to believe that eternal three per cent. is not the chief end of man, nor the highest and only kind of interest to which the powers and opportunities of England are entitled.

The quality of exaggeration has often been remarked on as typical of American character, and especially o£ American humor. In Dr. Petri's _Gedrängtes Handbuch der Fremdwörter_, we are told that the word _humbug_ is commonly used for the exaggerations of the North-Americans. To be sure, one would be tempted to think the dream of Columbus half fulfilled, and that Europe had found in the West a nearer way to Orientalism, at least in diction. But it seems to me that a great deal of what is set down as mere extravagance is more fitly to be called intensity and picturesqueness, symptoms ol the imaginative faculty in full health and strength, though producing, as yet, only the raw and formless material in which poetry is to work. By and by, perhaps, the world will see it fashioned into poem and picture, and Europe, which will be hard pushed for originality erelong, may have to thank us for a new sensation. The French continue to find Shakespeare exaggerated because he treated English just as our country-folk do when they speak of a 'steep price,' or say that they 'freeze to' a thing. The first postulate of an original literature is that a people should use their language instinctively and unconsciously, as if it were a lively part of their growth and personality, not as the mere torpid boon of education or inheritance. Even Burns contrived to write very poor verse and prose in English. Vulgarisms are often only poetry in the egg. The late Mr. Horace Mann, in one of his public addresses, commented at some length on the beauty and moral significance ol the French phrase _s'orienter_ and called on his young friends to practise upon it in life. There was not a Yankee in his audience whose problem had not always been to find out what was _about east_, and to shape his course accordingly. This charm which a familiar expression gains by being commented, as it were, and. set in a new light by a foreign language, is curious and instructive. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Matthew Arnold forgets this a little too much sometimes when he writes of the beauties of French style. It would not be hard to find in the works of French Academicians phrases as coarse as those he cites from Burke, only they are veiled by the unfamiliarity of the language. But, however this may be, it is certain that poets and peasants please us in the same way by translating words back again to their primal freshness, and infusing them with a delightful strangeness which is anything but alienation. What, for example, is Milton's '_edge_ of battle' but a doing into English of the Latin _acies? Was die Gans gedacht das der Schwan vollbracht_, what the goose but thought, that the swan full brought (or, to de-Saxonize it a little, what the goose conceived, that the swan achieved), and it may well be that the life, invention, and vigor shown by our popular speech, and the freedom with which it is shaped to the instant want of those who use it, are of the best omen for our having a swan at last. The part I have taken on myself is that of the humbler bird.

But it is affirmed that there is something innately vulgar in the Yankee dialect. M. Sainte-Beuve says, with his usual neatness: '_Je définis un patois une ancienne langue qui a eu des malheurs, ou encore une langue toute jeune st qui n'a pas fait fortune._' The first part of his definition applies to a dialect like the Provençal, the last to the Tuscan before Dante had lifted it into a classic, and neither, it seems to me, will quite fit a _patois/_, which is not properly a dialect, but rather certain archaisms, proverbial phrases, and modes of pronunciation, which maintain themselves among the uneducated side by side with the finished and universally accepted language. Norman French, for example, or Scotch down to the time of James VI., could hardly be called _patois_, while I should be half inclined to name the Yankee a _lingo_ rather than a dialect. It has retained a few words now fallen into disuse in the mother country, like to _tarry_, to _progress_, _fleshy_, _fall_, and some others; it has changed the meaning of some, as in _freshet_; and it has clung to what I suspect to have been the broad Norman pronunciation of _e_ (which Molière puts into the mouth of his rustics) in such words as _sarvant_, _parfect_, _vartoo_, and the like. It maintains something of the French sound of _a_ also in words like _chămber_, _dănger_ (though the latter had certainly begun to take its present sound so early as 1636, when I find it sometimes spelt _dainger_). But in general it may be said that nothing can be found in it which does not still survive in some one or other of the English provincial dialects. There is, perhaps, a single exception in the verb to _sleeve_. To _sleeve_ silk means to divide or ravel out a thread of silk with the point of a needle till it becomes _floss_. (A.S. _sléfan_, to _cleave_=divide.) This, I think, explains the '_sleeveless_ errand' in 'Troilus and Cressida' so inadequately, sometimes so ludicrously darkened by the commentators. Is not a 'sleeveless errand' one that cannot be unravelled, incomprehensible, and therefore bootless?

I am not speaking now of Americanisms properly so called, that is, of words or phrases which have grown into use here either through necessity, invention, or accident, such as a _carry_, a _one-horse affair_, a _prairie_, to _vamose_. Even these are fewer than is sometimes taken for granted. But I think some fair defence may be made against the charge of vulgarity. Properly speaking, vulgarity is in the thought, and not in the word or the way of pronouncing it. Modern French, the most polite of languages, is barbarously vulgar if compared with the Latin out of which it has been corrupted, or even with Italian. There is a wider gap, and one implying greater boorishness, between _ministerium_ and _métier_, or _sapiens_ and _sachant_, than between _druv_ and _drove_ or _agin_ and _against_, which last is plainly an arrant superlative. Our rustic _coverlid_ is nearer its French original than the diminutive cover_let_, into which it has been ignorantly corrupted in politer speech. I obtained from three cultivated Englishmen at different times three diverse pronunciations of a single word,--_cowcumber_, _coocumber_, and _cucumber_. Of these the first, which is Yankee also, comes nearest to the nasality of _concombre_. Lord Ossory assures us that Voltaire saw the best society in England, and Voltaire tells his countrymen that _handkerchief_ was pronounced _hankercher_. I find it so spelt in Hakluyt and elsewhere. This enormity the Yankee still persists in, and as there is always a reason for such deviations from the sound as represented by the spelling, may we not suspect two sources of derivation, and find an ancestor for _kercher_ in _couverture_ rather than in _couvrechef_? And what greater phonetic vagary (which Dryden, by the way, called _fegary_) in our _lingua rustica_ than this _ker_ for _couvre_? I copy from the fly-leaves of my books, where I have noted them from time to time, a few examples of pronunciation and phrase which will show that the Yankee often has antiquity and very respectable literary authority on his side. My list might be largely increased by referring to glossaries, but to them every one can go for himself, and I have gathered enough for my purpose.

I will take first those cases in which something like the French sound has been preserved in certain single letters and diphthongs. And this opens a curious question as to how long this Gallicism maintained itself in England. Sometimes a divergence in pronunciation has given as two words with different meanings, as in _genteel_ and _jaunty_, which I find coming in toward the close of the seventeenth century, and wavering between _genteel_ and _jantee_. It is usual in America to drop the _u_ in words ending in _our_--a very proper change recommended by Howell two centuries ago, and carried out by him so far as his printers would allow. This and the corresponding changes in _musique_, _musick_, and the like, which he also advocated, show that in his time the French accent indicated by the superfluous letters (for French had once nearly as strong an accent as Italian) had gone out of use. There is plenty of French accent down to the end of Elizabeth's reign. In Daniel we have _riches'_ and _counsel'_, in Bishop Hall _comet'_, _chapëlain_, in Donne _pictures'_, _virtue'_, _presence'_, _mortal'_, _merit'_, _hainous'_, _giant'_, with many more, and Marston's satires are full of them. The two latter, however, are not to be relied on, as they may be suspected of Chaucerizing. Herrick writes _baptime_. The tendency to throw the accent backward began early. But the incongruities are perplexing, and perhaps mark the period of transition. In Warner's 'Albion's England' we have _creator'_ and _crëature'_ side by side with the modern _creator_ and _creature_. _E'nvy_ and _e'nvying_ occur in Campion (1602), and yet _envy'_ survived Milton. In some cases we have gone back again nearer to the French, as in _rev'enue_ for _reven'ue_, I had been so used to hearing _imbecile_ pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, which is in accordance with the general tendency in such matters, that I was surprised to find _imbec'ile_ in a verse of Wordsworth. The dictionaries all give it so. I asked a highly cultivated Englishman, and he declared for _imbeceel'_. In general it may be assumed that accent will finally settle on the syllable dictated by greater ease and therefore quickness of utterance. _Blas'-phemous_, for example, is more rapidly pronounced than _blasphem'ous_, to which our Yankee clings, following in this the usage of many of the older poets. _Amer'ican_ is easier than _Ameri'can_, and therefore the false quantity has carried the day, though the true one may be found in George Herbert, and even so late as Cowley.

To come back to the matter in hand. Our 'uplandish man' retains the soft or thin sound of the _u_ in some words, such as _rule_, _truth_ (sometimes also pronounced _trŭth_, not _trooth_), while he says _noo_ for _new_, and gives to _view_ and _few_ so indescribable a mixture of the two sounds with a slight nasal tincture that it may be called the Yankee shibboleth. Voltaire says that the English pronounce _true_ as if it rhymed with _view_, and this is the sound our rustics give to it. Spenser writes _deow_ (_dew_) which can only be pronounced with the Yankee nasality. In _rule_ the least sound of _a_ precedes the _u_. I find _reule_ in Pecock's 'Repressor.' He probably pronounced it _rayoolë_, as the old French word from which it is derived was very likely to be sounded at first, with a reminiscence of its original _regula_. Tindal has _reuler_, and the Coventry Plays have _preudent_. In the 'Parlyament of Byrdes' I find _reule_. As for _noo_, may it not claim some sanction in its derivation, whether from _nouveau_ or _neuf_, the ancient sound of which may very well have been _noof_, as nearer _novus_? _Beef_ would seem more like to have come from _buffe_ than from _boeuf_, unless the two were mere varieties of spelling. The Saxon _few_ may have caught enough from its French cousin _peu_ to claim the benefit of the same doubt as to sound; and our slang phrase _a few_ (as 'I licked him a few') may well appeal to _un peu_ for sense and authority. Nay, might not _lick_ itself turn out to be the good old word _lam_ in an English disguise, it the latter should claim descent as, perhaps, he fairly might, from the Latin _lambere_? The New England _ferce_ for _fierce_, and _perce_ for _pierce_ (sometimes heard as _fairce_ and _pairce_), are also Norman. For its antiquity I cite the rhyme of _verse and pierce_ in Chapman and Donne, and in some commendatory verses by a Mr. Berkenhead before the poems of Francis Beaumont. Our _pairlous_ for _perilous_ is of the same kind, and is nearer Shakespeare's _parlous_ than the modern pronunciation. One other Gallicism survives in our pronunciation. Perhaps I should rather call it a semi-Gallicism, for it is the result of a futile effort to reproduce a French sound with English lips. Thus for _joint_, _employ_, _royal_, we have _jynt_, _emply_, _r[)y]le_, the last differing only from _rile_ (_roil_) in a prolongation of the _y_ sound. I find _royal_ so pronounced in the 'Mirror for Magistrates.' In Walter de Biblesworth I find _solives_ Englished by _gistes_. This, it is true, may have been pronounced _jeests_, but the pronunciation _jystes_ must have preceded the present spelling, which was no doubt adopted after the radical meaning was forgotten, as analogical with other words in _oi_. In the same way after Norman-French influence had softened the _l_ out of _would_ (we already find _woud_ for _veut_ in N.F. poems), _should_ followed the example, and then an _l_ was foisted into _could_, where it does not belong, to satisfy the logic of the eye, which has affected the pronunciation and even the spelling of English more than is commonly supposed. I meet with _eyster_ for _oyster_ as early as the fourteenth century. I find _viage_ in Bishop Hall and Middleton the dramatist, _bile_ for _boil_ in Donne and Chrononhotonthologos, _line_ for _loin_ in Hall, _ryall_ and _chyse_ (for choice) _dystrye_ for _destroy_, in the Coventry Plays. In Chapman's 'All Fools' is the misprint of _employ_ for _imply_, fairly inferring an identity of sound in the last syllable. Indeed, this pronunciation was habitual till after Pope, and Rogers tells us that the elegant Gray said _naise_ for _noise_ just as our rustics still do. Our _cornish_ (which I find also in Herrick) remembers the French better than _cornice_ does. While clinging more closely to the Anglo-Saxon in dropping the _g_ from the end of the present participle, the Yankee now and then pleases himself with an experiment in French nasality in words ending in _n_. It is not, so far as my experience goes, very common, though it may formerly have been more so. _Capting_, for instance, I never heard save in jest, the habitual form being _kepp'n_. But at any rate it is no invention of ours. In that delightful old volume, 'Ane Compendious Buke of Godly and Spirituall Songs,' in which I know not whether the piety itself or the simplicity of its expression be more charming, I find _burding_, _garding_, and _cousing_, and in the State Trials _uncerting_ used by a gentleman. I confess that I like the _n_ better than _ng_.

Of Yankee preterites I find _risse_ and _rize_ for _rose_ in Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton and Dryden, _clim_ in Spenser, _chees_ (_chose_) in Sir John Mandevil, _give_ (_gave_) in the Coventry Plays, _shet_ (_shut_) in Golding's Ovid, _het_ in Chapman and in Weever's Epitaphs, _thriv_ and _smit_ in Drayton, _quit_ in Ben Jonson and Henry More, and _pled_ in the Paston Letters, nay, even in the fastidious Landor. _Rid_ for _rode_ was anciently common. So likewise was _see_ for _saw_, but I find it in no writer of authority (except Golding), unless Chaucer's _seie_ and Gower's _sigh_ were, as I am inclined to think, so sounded. _Shew_ is used by Hector Boece, Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthornden, and in the Paston Letters. Similar strong preterites, like _snew_, _thew_, and even _mew_, are not without example. I find _sew_ for _sewed_ in 'Piers Ploughman.' Indeed, the anomalies in English preterites are perplexing. We have probably transferred _flew_ from _flow_ (as the preterite of which I have heard it) to _fly_ because we had another preterite in _fled_. Of weak preterites the Yankee retains _growed_, _blowed_, for which he has good authority, and less often _knowed_. His _sot_ is merely a broad sounding of _sat_, no more inelegant than the common _got_ for _gat_, which he further degrades into _gut_. When he says _darst_, he uses a form as old as Chaucer.

The Yankee has retained something of the long sound of the _a_ in such words as _axe_, _wax_, pronouncing them _exe_, _wex_ (shortened from _aix_, _waix_). He also says _hev_ and _hed_ (_hāve_, _hād_ for _have_ and _had_). In most cases he follows an Anglo-Saxon usage. In _aix_ for _axle_ he certainly does. I find _wex_ and _aisches_ (_ashes_) in Pecock, and _exe_ in the Paston Letters. Golding rhymes _wax_ with _wexe_ and spells _challenge_ _chelenge_. Chaucer wrote _hendy_. Dryden rhymes _can_ with _men_, as Mr. Biglow would. Alexander Gill, Milton's teacher, in his 'Logonomia' cites _hez_ for _hath_ as peculiar to Lincolnshire. I find _hayth_ in Collier's 'Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature' under the date 1584, and Lord Cromwell so wrote it. Sir Christopher Wren wrote _belcony_. Our _fect_ is only the O.F. _faict_. _Thaim_ for _them_ was common in the sixteenth century. We have an example of the same thing in the double form of the verb _thrash_, _thresh_. While the New Englander cannot be brought to say _instead_ for _instid_ (commonly _'stid_ where not the last word in a sentence), he changes the _i_ into _e_ in _red_ for _rid_, _tell_ for _till_, _hender_ for _hinder_, _rense_ for _rinse_. I find _red_ in the old interlude of 'Thersytes,' _tell_ in a letter of Daborne to Henslowe, and also, I shudder to mention it, in a letter of the great Duchess of Marlborough, Atossa herself! It occurs twice in a single verse of the Chester Plays,

'_Tell_ the day of dome, _tell_ the beames blow.'

From the word _blow_ (in another sense) is formed _blowth_, which I heard again this summer after a long interval. Mr. Wright[24] explains it as meaning 'a blossom.' With us a single blossom is a _blow_, while _blowth_ means the blossoming in general. A farmer would say that there was a good blowth on his fruit-trees. The word retreats farther inland and away from the railways, year by year. Wither rhymes _hinder_ with _slender_, and Shakespeare and Lovelace have _renched_ for _rinsed_. In 'Gammer Gurton' and 'Mirror for Magistrates' is _sence_ for _since_; Marlborough's Duchess so writes it, and Donne rhymes _since_ with _Amiens_ and _patïence_, Bishop Hall and Otway with _pretence_, Chapman with _citizens_, Dryden with _providence_. Indeed, why should not _sithence_ take that form? Dryden's wife (an earl's daughter) has _tell_ for _till_, Margaret, mother of Henry VII., writes _seche_ for _such_, and our _ef_ finds authority in the old form _yeffe_.

_E_ sometimes takes the place of _u_, as _jedge, tredge, bresh_. I find _tredge_ in the interlude of 'Jack Jugler,' _bresh_ in a citation by Collier from 'London Cries' of the middle of the seventeenth century, and _resche_ for _rush_ (fifteenth century) in the very valuable 'Volume of Vocabularies' edited by Mr. Wright. _Resce_ is one of the Anglo-Saxon forms of the word in Bosworth's A.-S. Dictionary. Golding has _shet_. The Yankee always shortens the _u_ in the ending _ture_, making _ventur, natur, pictur_, and so on. This was common, also, among the educated of the last generation. I am inclined to think it may have been once universal, and I certainly think it more elegant than the vile _vencher, naycher, pickcher_, that have taken its place, sounding like the invention of a lexicographer to mitigate a sneeze. Nash in his 'Pierce Penniless' has _ventur_, and so spells it, and I meet it also in Spenser, Drayton, Ben Jonson, Herrick, and Prior. Spenser has _tort'rest_, which can be contracted only from _tortur_ and not from _torcher_. Quarles rhymes _nature_ with _creator_, and Dryden with _satire_, which he doubtless pronounced according to its older form of _satyr_. Quarles has also _torture_ and _mortar_. Mary Boleyn writes _kreatur_. I find _pikter_ in Izaak Walton's autograph will.

I shall now give some examples which cannot so easily be ranked under any special head. Gill charges the Eastern counties with _kiver_ for _cover_, and _ta_, for _to_. The Yankee pronounces both _too_ and _to_ like _ta_ (like the _tou_ in _touch_) where they are not emphatic. When they are, both become _tu_. In old spelling, _to_ is the common (and indeed correct) form of _too_, which is only _to_ with the sense of _in addition_. I suspect that the sound of our _too_ has caught something from the French _tout_, and it is possible that the old _too too_ is not a reduplication, but a reminiscence of the feminine form of the same word (_toute_) as anciently pronounced, with the _e_ not yet silenced. Gill gives a Northern origin to _geaun_ for _gown_ and _waund_ for _wound_ (_vulnus_). Lovelace has _waund_, but there is something too dreadful in suspecting Spenser (who _borealised_ in his pastorals) of having ever been guilty of _geaun!_ And yet some delicate mouths even now are careful to observe the Hibernicism of _ge-ard_ for _guard_, and _ge-url_ for _girl_. Sir Philip Sidney (_credite posteri!_) wrote _furr_ for _far_. I would hardly have believed it had I not seen it in _facsimile_. As some consolation, I find _furder_ in Lord Bacon and Donne, and Wittier rhymes _far_ with _cur_. The Yankee, who omits the final _d_ in many words, as do the Scotch, makes up for it by adding one in _geound_. The purist does not feel the loss of the _d_ sensibly in _lawn_ and _yon_, from the former of which it has dropped again after a wrongful adoption (retained in _laundry_), while it properly belongs to the latter. But what shall we make of _git, yit_, and _yis_? I find _yis_ and _git_ in Warner's 'Albion's England,' _yet_ rhyming with _wit, admit_, and _fit_ in Donne, with _wit_ in the 'Revenger's Tragedy,' Beaumont, and Suckling, with _writ_ in Dryden, and latest of all with _wit_ in Sir Hanbury Williams. Prior rhymes _fitting_ and _begetting_. Worse is to come. Among others, Donne rhymes _again_ with _sin_, and Quarles repeatedly with _in_. _Ben_ for _been_, of which our dear Whittier is so fond, has the authority of Sackville, 'Gammer Gurton' (the work of a bishop), Chapman, Dryden, and many more, though _bin_ seems to have been the common form. Whittier's accenting the first syllable of _rom'ance_ finds an accomplice in Drayton among others, and, though manifestly wrong, is analogous with _Rom'ans_. Of other Yankeeisms, whether of form or pronunciation, which I have met with I add a few at random. Pecock writes _sowdiers (sogers, soudoyers)_, and Chapman and Gill _sodder_. This absorption of the _l_ is common in various dialects, especially in the Scottish. Pecock writes also _biyende_, and the authors of 'Jack Jugler' and 'Gammer Gurton' _yender_. The Yankee includes '_yon_' in the same catagory, and says 'hither an' yen,' for 'to and fro.' (Cf. German _jenseits_.) Pecock and plenty more have _wrastle_. Tindal has _agynste, gretter, shett, ondone, debyte_, and _scace_. 'Jack Jugler' has _scacely_ (which I have often heard, though _skurce_ is the common form), and Donne and Dryden make _great_ rhyme with _set_. In the inscription on Caxton's tomb I find _ynd_ for _end_, which the Yankee more often makes _eend_, still using familiarly the old phrase 'right anend' for 'continuously.' His 'stret (straight) along' in the same sense, which I thought peculiar to him, I find in Pecock. Tindal's _debytë_ for _deputy_ is so perfectly Yankee that I could almost fancy the brave martyr to have been deacon of the First Parish at Jaalam Centre. 'Jack Jugler' further gives us _playsent_ and _sartayne_. Dryden rhymes _certain_ with _parting_, and Chapman and Ben Jonson use _certain_, as the Yankee always does, for _certainly_. The 'Coventry Mysteries' have _occapied, massage, nateralle, materal (material),_ and _meracles_,--all excellent Yankeeisms. In the 'Quatre fils, Aymon' (1504),[25] is _vertus_ for _virtuous_. Thomas Fuller called _volume vollum_, I suspect, for he spells it _volumne_. However, _per contra_, Yankees habitually say _colume_ for _column_. Indeed, to prove that our ancestors brought their pronunciation with them from the Old Country, and have not wantonly debased their mother tongue, I need only to cite the words _scriptur_, _Israll_, _athists_, and _cherfulness_ from Governor Bradford's 'History.' So the good man wrote them, and so the good descendants of his fellow-exiles still pronounce them. Brampton Gurdon writes _shet_ in a letter to Winthrop. _Purtend_ (_pretend_) has crept like a serpent into the 'Paradise Of Dainty Devices;' _purvide_, which is not so bad, is in Chaucer. These, of course, are universal vulgarisms, and not peculiar to the Yankee. Butler has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation too, in 'To which these _carr'ings-on_ did tend.' Langham or Laneham, who wrote an account of the festivities at Kenilworth in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently tried to spell phonetically, makes _sorrows_ into _sororz_. Herrick writes _hollow_ for _halloo_, and perhaps pronounced it (_horresco suggerens_!) _holló_, as Yankees do. Why not, when it comes from _holà_? I find _ffelaschyppe_ (fellowship) in the Coventry Plays. Spenser and his queen neither of them scrupled to write _afore_, and the former feels no inelegance even in _chaw_ and _idee_. _'Fore_ was common till after Herrick. Dryden has _do's_ for _does_, and his wife spells _worse_ _wosce_. _Afeared_ was once universal. Warner has _ery_ for _ever a_; nay, he also has illy, with which we were once ignorantly reproached by persons more familiar with Murray's Grammar than with English literature. And why not _illy_? Mr. Bartlett says it is 'a word used by writers of an inferior class, who do not seem to perceive that _ill_ is itself an adverb, without the termination _ly_,' and quotes Dr. Mosser, President of Brown University, as asking triumphantly, 'Why don't you say '_welly_?' I should like to have had Dr. Messer answer his own question. It would be truer to say that it was used by people who still remembered that _ill_ was an adjective, the shortened form of _evil_, out of which Shakespeare and the translators of the Bible ventured to make _evilly_. This slurred _evil_ is 'the dram of _eale_' in 'Hamlet.' I find, _illy_ in Warner. The objection to _illy_ is not an etymological one, but simply that it is contrary to good usage,--a very sufficient reason. _Ill_ as an adverb was at first a vulgarism, precisely like the rustic's when he says, 'I was treated _bad_.' May not the reason of this exceptional form be looked for in that tendency to dodge what is hard to pronounce, to which I have already alluded? If the letters were distinctly uttered, as they should be, it would take too much time to say _ill-ly_, _well-ly_, and it is to be observed that we have avoided _smally_[26] and _tally_ in the same way, though we add _ish_ to them without hesitation in _smallish_ and _tallish_. We have, to be sure, _dully_ and _fully_, but for the one we prefer _stupidly_, and the other (though this may have come from eliding the _y_ before _a_s) is giving way to _full_. The uneducated, whose utterance is slower, still make adverbs when they will by adding _like_ to all manner of adjectives. We have had _big_ charged upon us, because we use it where an Englishman would now use _great_. I fully admit that it were better to distinguish between them, allowing to _big_ a certain contemptuous quality; but as for authority, I want none better than that of Jeremy Taylor, who, in his noble sermon 'On the Return of Prayer,' speaks of 'Jesus, whose spirit was meek and gentle up to the greatness of the _biggest_ example.' As for our double negative, I shall waste no time in quoting instances of it, because it was once as universal in English as it still is in the neo-Latin languages, where it does not strike us as vulgar. I am not sure that the loss of it is not to be regretted. But surely I shall admit the vulgarity of slurring or altogether eliding certain terminal consonants? I admit that a clear and sharp-cut enunciation is one of the crowning charms and elegances of speech. Words so uttered are like coins fresh from the mint, compared with the worn and dingy drudges of long service,--I do not mean American coins, for those look less badly the more they lose of their original ugliness. No one is more painfully conscious than I of the contrast between the rifle-crack of an Englishman's _yes_ and _no_, and the wet-fuse drawl of the same monosyllables in the mouths of my countrymen. But I do not find the dropping of final consonants disagreeable in Allan Ramsay or Burns, nor do I believe that our literary ancestors were sensible of that inelegance in the fusing them together of which we are conscious. How many educated men pronounce the _t_ in _chestnut_? how many say _pentise_ for _penthouse_, as they should. When a Yankee skipper says that he is "boun' for Gloster" (not Gloucester, with the leave of the Universal Schoolmaster),[27] he but speaks like Chaucer or an old ballad-singer, though they would have pronounced it _boon_. This is one of the cases where the _d_ is surreptitious, and has been added in compliment to the verb _bind_, with which it has nothing to do. If we consider the root of the word (though of course I grant that every race has a right to do what it will with what is so peculiarly its own as its speech), the _d_ has no more right there than at the end of _gone_, where it is often put by children, who are our best guides to the sources of linguistic corruption, and the best teachers of its processes. Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII., writes _worle_ for world. Chapman has _wan_ for _wand_, and _lawn_ has rightfully displaced _laund_, though with no thought, I suspect, of etymology. Rogers tells us that Lady Bathurst sent him some letters written to William III. by Queen Mary, in which she addresses him as '_Dear Husban_.' The old form _expoun'_, which our farmers use, is more correct than the form with a barbarous _d_ tacked on which has taken its place. Of the kind opposite to this, like our _gownd_ for _gown_, and the London cockney's _wind_ for _wine_, I find _drownd_ for _drown_ in the 'Misfortunes of Arthur' (1584) and in Swift. And, by the way, whence came the long sound of wind which our poets still retain, and which survives in 'winding' a horn, a totally different word from 'winding' a kite-string? We say _behīnd_ and _hīnder_ (comparative) and yet to _hĭnder_. Shakespeare pronounced _kind_ _kĭnd_, or what becomes of his play on that word and _kin_ in 'Hamlet'? Nay, did he not even (shall I dare to hint it?) drop the final _d_ as the Yankee still does? John Lilly plays in the same way on _kindred_ and _kindness_.

But to come to some other ancient instances. Warner rhymes _bounds_ with _crowns_, _grounds_ with _towns_, _text_ with _sex_, _worst_ with _crust_, _interrupts_ with _cups_; Drayton, _defects_ with _sex_; Chapman, _amends_ with _cleanse_; Webster, _defects_ with _checks_; Ben Jonson, _minds_ with _combines_; Marston, _trust_ and _obsequious_, _clothes_ and _shows_; Dryden gives the same sound to _clothes_, and has also _minds_ with _designs_. Of course, I do not affirm that their ears may not have told them that these were imperfect rhymes (though I am by no means sure even of that), but they surely would never have tolerated any such had they suspected the least vulgarity in them. Prior has the rhyme _first_ and _trust_, but puts it into the mouth of a landlady. Swift has _stunted_ and _burnt_ it, an intentionally imperfect rhyme, no doubt, but which I cite as giving precisely the Yankee pronunciation of _burned_. Donne couples in unhallowed wedlock _after_ and _matter_, thus seeming to give to both the true Yankee sound; and it is not uncommon to find _after_ and _daughter_. Worse than all, in one of Dodsley's Old Plays we have _onions_ rhyming with _minions_,--I have tears in my eyes while I record it. And yet what is viler than the universal _Misses_ (_Mrs._) for _Mistress_? This was once a vulgarism, and in 'The Miseries of Inforced Marriage' the rhyme (printed as prose in Dodsley's Old Plays by Collier),

'To make my young _mistress_ Delighting in _kisses_,'

is put into the mouth of the clown. Our people say _Injun_ for _Indian_. The tendency to make this change where _i_ follows _d_ is common. The Italian _giorno_ and French _jour_ from _diurnus_ are familiar examples. And yet _Injun_ is one of those depravations which the taste challenges peremptorily, though it have the authority of Charles Cotton--who rhymes '_Indies_' with '_cringes_'--and four English lexicographers, beginning with Dr. Sheridan, bid us say _invidgeous_. Yet after all it is no worse than the debasement which all our terminations in _tion_ and _tience_ have undergone, which yet we hear with _resignashun_ and _payshunce_, though it might have aroused both _impat-i-ence_ and _in-dig-na-ti-on_ in Shakespeare's time. When George Herbert tells us that if the sermon be dull,

'God takes a text and preacheth patience,'

the prolongation of the word seems to convey some hint at the longanimity of the virtue. Consider what a poor curtal we have made of Ocean. There was something of his heave and expanse in _o-ce-an_, and Fletcher knew how to use it when he wrote so fine a verse as the second of these, the best deep-sea verse I know,--

'In desperate storms stem with a little rudder The tumbling ruins of the oceän.'

Oceanus was not then wholly shorn of his divine proportions, and our modern _oshun_ sounds like the gush of small-beer in comparison. Some other contractions of ours have a vulgar air about them. _More 'n_ for _more than_, as one of the worst, may stand for a type of such. Yet our old dramatists are full of such obscurations (elisions they can hardly be called) of the _th_, making _whe'r_ of _whether_, _where_ of _whither_, _here_ of _hither_, _bro'r_ of _brother_, _smo'r_ of _smother_, _mo'r_ of _mother_, and so on. And dear Brer Rabbit, can I forget him? Indeed, it is this that explains the word _rare_ (which has Dryden's support), and which we say of meat where an Englishman would use _underdone_. I do not believe, with the dictionaries, that it had ever anything to do with the Icelandic _hrar_ (_raw_), as it plainly has not in _rareripe_, which means earlier ripe,--President Lincoln said of a precocious boy that 'he was a _rareripe_.' And I do not believe it, for this reason, that the earliest form of the word with us was, and the commoner now in the inland parts still is, so far as I can discover, _raredone_. Golding has 'egs reere-rosted,' which, whatever else it mean, cannot mean _raw_-roasted, I find _rather_ as a monosyllable in Donne, and still better, as giving the sound, rhyming with _fair_ in Warner. There is an epigram of Sir Thomas Browne in which the words _rather than_ make a monosyllable;--

'What furie is't to take Death's part And rather than by Nature, die by Art!'

The contraction _more'n_ I find in the old play 'Fuimus Troes,' in a verse where the measure is so strongly accented as to leave it beyond doubt,--

'A golden crown whose heirs More than half the world subdue.'

It may be, however, that the contraction is in 'th'orld.' It is unmistakable in the 'Second Maiden's Tragedy:'--

'It were but folly, Dear soul, to boast of _more than_ I can perform.'

Is our _gin_ for _given_ more violent than _mar'l_ for _marvel_, which was once common, and which I find as late as Herrick? Nay, Herrick has _gin_ (spelling it _gen_), too, as do the Scotch, who agree with us likewise in preferring _chimly_ to _chimney_.

I will now leave pronunciation and turn to words or phrases which have been supposed peculiar to us, only pausing to pick up a single dropped stitch, in the pronunciation of the word _súpreme_, which I had thought native till I found it in the well-languaged Daniel. I will begin with a word of which I have never met with any example in any English writer of authority. We express the first stage of withering in a green plant suddenly cut down by the verb _to wilt_. It is, of course, own cousin of the German _welken_, but I have never come upon it in literary use, and my own books of reference give me faint help. Graff gives _welhèn_, _marcescere_, and refers to _weih_ (_weak_), and conjecturally to A.-S, _hvelan_. The A.-S. _wealwian_ (_to wither_) is nearer, but not so near as two words in the Icelandic, which perhaps put us on the track of its ancestry,--_velgi_, _tepefacere_, (and _velki_, with the derivative) meaning _contaminare_. _Wilt_, at any rate, is a good word, filling, as it does, a sensible gap between drooping and withering, and the imaginative phrase 'he wilted right down,' like 'he caved right in,' is a true Americanism. _Wilt_ occurs in English provincial glossaries, but is explained by _wither_, which with us it does not mean. We have a few words such as _cache_, _cohog_, _carry_ (_portage_), _shoot_ (_chute_), _timber_ (_forest_), _bushwhack_ (to pull a boat along by the bushes on the edge of a stream), _buckeye_ (a picturesque word for the horse-chestnut); but how many can we be said to have fairly brought into the language, as Alexander Gill, who first mentions Americanisms, meant it when he said, '_Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur ut_ MAIZ _et_ CANOA'? Very few, I suspect, and those mostly by borrowing from the French, German, Spanish, or Indian.[28] 'The Dipper,' for the 'Great Bear,' strikes me as having a native air. _Bogus_, in the sense of _worthless_, is undoubtedly ours, but is, I more than suspect, a corruption of the French _bagasse_ (from low Latin _bagasea_), which travelled up the Mississippi from New Orleans, where it was used for the refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, we have modified the meaning of some words. We use _freshet_ in the sense of _flood_, for which I have not chanced upon any authority. Our New England cross between Ancient Pistol and Dugald Dalgetty, Captain Underhill, uses the word (1638) to mean a _current_, and I do not recollect it elsewhere in that sense. I therefore leave it with a? for future explorers. _Crick_ for _creek_ I find in Captain John Smith and in the dedication of Fuller's 'Holy Warre,' and _run_, meaning a _small stream_, in Waymouth's 'Voyage' (1605). _Humans_ for _men_, which Mr. Bartlett includes in his 'Dictionary of Americanisms,' is Chapman's habitual phrase in his translation of Homer. I find it also in the old play of 'The Hog hath lost his Pearl.' _Dogs_ for _andirons_ is still current in New England, and in Walter de Biblesworth I find _chiens_ glossed in the margin by _andirons_. _Gunning_ for _shooting_ is in Drayton. We once got credit for the poetical word _fall_ for _autumn_, but Mr. Bartlett and the last edition of Webster's Dictionary refer us to Dryden. It is even older, for I find it in Drayton, and Bishop Hall has _autumn fall_. Middleton plays upon the word: 'May'st thou have a reasonable good _spring_, for thou art like to have many dangerous foul _falls_.' Daniel does the same, and Coleridge uses it as we do. Gray uses the archaism _picked_ for _peaked_, and the word _smudge_ (as our backwoodsmen do) for a smothered fire. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (more properly perhaps than even Sidney, the last _preux chevalier_) has 'the Emperor's folks' just as a Yankee would say it. _Loan_ for _lend_, with which we have hitherto been blackened, I must retort upon the mother island, for it appears so long ago as in 'Albion's England.' _Fleshy_, in the sense of _stout_, may claim Ben Jonson's warrant, and I find it also so lately as in Francklin's 'Lucian.' _Chore_ is also Jonson's word, and I am inclined to prefer it to _chare_ and _char_, because I think that I see a more natural origin for it in the French _jour_--whence it might come to mean a day's work, and thence a job--than anywhere else.[29] _At onst_ for _at once_ I thought a corruption of our own, till I found it in the Chester Plays. I am now inclined to suspect it no corruption at all, but only an erratic and obsolete superlative _at onest_. _To progress_ was flung in our teeth till Mr. Pickering retorted with Shakespeare's 'doth prógress down thy cheeks.' I confess that I was never satisfied with this answer, because the accent was different, and because the word might here be reckoned a substantive quite as well as a verb. Mr. Bartlett (in his dictionary above cited) adds a surrebutter in a verse from Ford's 'Broken Heart.' Here the word is clearly a verb, but with the accent unhappily still on the first syllable. Mr. Bartlett says that he 'cannot say whether the word was used in Bacon's time or not.' It certainly was, and with the accent we give to it. Ben Jonson, in the 'Alchemist,' had this verse,

'Progress so from extreme unto extreme,'

and Sir Philip Sidney,

'Progressing then from fair Turias' golden place.'

Surely we may now sleep in peace, and our English cousins will forgive us, since we have cleared ourselves from any suspicion of originality in the matter! Even after I had convinced myself that the chances were desperately against our having invented any of the _Americanisms_ with which we are _faulted_ and which we are in the habit of _voicing_, there were one or two which had so prevailingly indigenous an accent as to stagger me a little. One of these was 'the biggest _thing out_.' Alas, even this slender comfort is denied me. Old Gower has

'So harde an herte was none _oute_,'

and

'That such merveile was none _oute_.'

He also, by the way, says 'a _sighte_ of flowres' as naturally as our up-country folk would say it. _Poor_ for _lean_, _thirds_ for _dower_, and _dry_ for _thirsty_ I find in Middleton's plays. _Dry_ is also in Skelton and in the 'World' (1754). In a note on Middleton, Mr. Dyce thinks it needful to explain the phrase _I can't tell_ (universal in America) by the gloss _I could not say_. Middleton also uses _sneeked_, which I had believed an Americanism till I saw it there. It is, of course, only another form of _snatch_, analogous to _theek_ and _thatch_ (cf. the proper names Dekker and Thacher), _break_ (_brack_) and _breach_, _make_ (still common with us) and _match_. _'Long on_ for _occasioned by_ ('who is this 'long on?') occurs constantly in Gower and likewise in Middleton. _'Cause why_ is in Chaucer. _Raising_ (an English version of the French _leaven_) for _yeast_ is employed by Gayton in his 'Festivous Notes on Don Quixote.' I have never seen an instance of our New England word _emptins_ in the same sense, nor can I divine its original. Gayton has _limekill_; also _shuts_ for _shutters_, and the latter is used by Mrs. Hutchinson in her 'Life of Colonel Hutchinson.' Bishop Hall, and Purchas in his 'Pilgrims,' have _chist_ for _chest_, and it is certainly nearer _cista_, as well as to its form in the Teutonic languages, whence probably we got it. We retain the old sound from _cist_, but _chest_ is as old as Chaucer. Lovelace says _wropt_ for _wrapt_. 'Musicianer' I had always associated with the militia-musters of my boyhood, and too hastily concluded it an abomination of our own, but Mr. Wright calls it a Norfolk word, and I find it to be as old as 1642 by an extract in Collier. 'Not worth the time of day,' had passed with me for native till I saw it in Shakespeare's 'Pericles.' For _slick_ (which is only a shorter sound of _sleek_, like _crick_ and the now universal _britches_ for _breeches_) I will only call Chapman and Jonson. 'That's a sure card!' and 'That's a stinger!' both sound like modern slang, but you will find the one in the old interlude of 'Thersytes' (1537), and the other in Middleton. 'Right here,' a favorite phrase with our orators and with a certain class of our editors, turns up _passim_ in the Chester and Coventry plays. Mr. Dickens found something very ludicrous in what he considered our neologism _right away_. But I find a phrase very like it, and which I would gladly suspect to be a misprint for it, in 'Gammer Gurton:'--

'Lyght it and bring it _tite away_.'

But _tite_ is the true word in this case. After all, what is it but another form of _straightway_? _Cussedness_, meaning _wickedness, malignity_, and _cuss_, a sneaking, ill-natured fellow, in such phrases as 'He done it out o' pure cussedness,' and 'He is a nateral cuss,' have been commonly thought Yankeeisms. To vent certain contemptuously indignant moods they are admirable in their rough-and-ready way. But neither is our own. _Cursydnesse_, in the same sense of malignant wickedness, occurs in the Coventry Plays, and _cuss_ may perhaps claim to have come in with the Conqueror. At least the term is also French. Saint Simon uses it and confesses its usefulness. Speaking of the Abbé Dubois, he says, 'Qui étoit en plein ce qu'un mauvais françois appelle un _sacre_, mais qui ne se peut guere exprimer autrement.' 'Not worth a cuss,' though supported by 'not worth a damn,' may be a mere corruption, since 'not worth a _cress_' is in 'Piers Ploughman.' 'I don't see it,' was the popular slang a year or two ago, and seemed to spring from the soil; but no, it is in Cibber's 'Careless Husband.' _Green sauce_ for _vegetables_ I meet in Beaumont and Fletcher, Gayton, and elsewhere. Our rustic pronunciation _sahce_ (for either the diphthong _au_ was anciently pronounced _ah_, or else we have followed abundant analogy in changing it to the latter sound, as we have in _chance, dance_, and so many more) may be the older one, and at least gives some hint at its ancestor _salsa_. _Warn_, in the sense of _notify_, is, I believe, now peculiar to us, but Pecock so employs it. I find _primmer_ (_primer_, as we pronounce it) in Beaumont and Fletcher, and a 'square eater' too (compare our '_square_ meal'), _heft_ for _weight_, and 'muchness' in the 'Mirror for Magistrates,' _bankbill_ in Swift and Fielding, and _as_ for _that_ I might say _passim_. _To cotton to_ is, I rather think, an Americanism. The nearest approach to it I have found is _cotton together_, in Congreve's 'Love for Love.' To _cotton_ or _cotten_, in another sense, is old and common. Our word means to _cling_, and its origin, possibly, is to be sought in another direction, perhaps in A.S. _cvead_, which means _mud, clay_ (both proverbially clinging), or better yet, in the Icelandic _qvoda_ (otherwise _kód_), meaning _resin_ and _glue_, which are [Greek: kat' exochaen], sticky substances. To _spit cotton_ is, I think, American, and also, perhaps, to _flax_ for to _beat_. _To the halves_ still survives among us, though apparently obsolete in England. It means either to let or to hire a piece of land, receiving half the profit in money or in kind (_partibus locare_). I mention it because in a note by some English editor, to which I have lost my reference, I have seen it wrongly explained. The editors of Nares cite Burton. _To put_, in the sense of _to go_, as _Put!_ for _Begone!_ would seem our own, and yet it is strictly analogous to the French _se mettre à la voie_, and the Italian _mettersi in via_. Indeed, Dante has a verse,

'_Io sarei_ [for _mi sarei_] _già messo per lo sentiero_,'

which, but for the indignity, might be translated,

'I should, ere this, have _put_ along the way,'

I deprecate in advance any share in General Banks's notions of international law, but we may all take a just pride in his exuberant eloquence as something distinctively American. When he spoke a few years ago of 'letting the Union slide,' even those who, for political purposes, reproached him with the sentiment, admired the indigenous virtue of his phrase. Yet I find 'let the world slide' in Heywood's Edward IV.;' and in Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Wit without Money,' Valentine says,

'Will you go drink, And let the world slide?'

So also in Sidney's 'Arcadia,'

'Let his dominion slide.'

In the one case it is put into the mouth of a clown, in the other, of a gentleman, and was evidently proverbial. It has even higher sanction, for Chaucer writes,

'Well nigh all other curës _let he slide_.'

Mr. Bartlett gives 'above one's bend' as an Americanism; but compare Hamlet's 'to the top of my bent.' _In his tracks_ for _immediately_ has acquired an American accent, and passes where he can for a native, but is an importation nevertheless; for what is he but the Latin _e vestigio_, or at best the Norman French _eneslespas_, both which have the same meaning? _Hotfoot_ (provincial also in England), I find in the old romance of 'Tristan,'

'_Si s'en parti_ CHAUT PAS'

_Like_ for _as_ is never used in New England, but is universal in the South and West. It has on its side the authority of two kings (_ego sum rex Romanorum et supra grammaticam_), Henry VIII. and Charles I. This were ample, without throwing into the scale the scholar and poet Daniel. _Them_ was used as a nominative by the majesty of Edward VI., by Sir P. Hoby, and by Lord Paget (in Froude's 'History'). I have never seen any passage adduced where _guess_ was used as the Yankee uses it. The word was familiar in the mouths of our ancestors, but with a different shade of meaning from that we have given it, which is something like _rather think_, though the Yankee implies a confident certainty by it when he says, 'I guess I _du!_' There are two examples in Otway, one of which ('So in the struggle, I guess the note was lost') perhaps might serve our purpose, and Coleridge's

'I guess 'twas fearful there to see'

certainly comes very near. But I have a higher authority than either in Selden, who, in one of his notes to the 'Polyolbion,' writes, 'The first inventor of them (I _guess_ you dislike not the addition) was one Berthold Swartz.' Here he must mean by it, 'I take it for granted.' Robert Greene, in his 'Quip for an Upstart Courtier,' makes Cloth-breeches say, 'but I _gesse_ your maistership never tried what true honor meant.' In this case the word seems to be used with a meaning precisely like that which we give it. Another peculiarity almost as prominent is the beginning sentences, especially in answer to questions, with 'well.' Put before such a phrase as 'How d'e do?' it is commonly short, and has the sound of it _wul_, but in reply it is deliberative, and the various shades of meaning which can be conveyed by difference of intonation, and by prolonging or abbreviating, I should vainly attempt to describe. I have heard _ooa-ahl_, _wahl_, _ahl_, _wal_ and something nearly approaching the sound of the _le_ in _able_. Sometimes before 'I' it dwindles to a mere _l_, as ''l _I_ dunno.' A friend of mine (why should I not please myself, though I displease him, by brightening my page with the initials of the most exquisite of humorists, J.H.?) told me that he once heard five 'wells,' like pioneers, precede the answer to an inquiry about the price of land. The first was the ordinary _wul_, in deference to custom; the second, the long, perpending _ooahl_, with a falling inflection of the voice; the third, the same, but with the voice rising, as if in despair of a conclusion, into a plaintively nasal whine; the fourth, _wulh_, ending in the aspirate of a sigh; and then, fifth, came a short, sharp _wal_, showing that a conclusion had been reached. I have used this latter form in the 'Biglow Papers,' because, if enough nasality be added, it represents most nearly the average sound of what I may call the interjection.

A locution prevails in the Southern and Middle States which is so curious that, though never heard in New England, I will give a few lines to its discussion, the more readily because it is extinct elsewhere. I mean the use of _allow_ in the sense of _affirm_, as 'I allow that's a good horse.' I find the word so used in 1558 by Anthony Jenkinson in Hakluyt: 'Corne they sowe not, neither doe eate any bread, mocking the Christians for the same, and disabling our strengthe, saying we live by eating the toppe of a weede, and drinke a drinke made of the same, _allowing_ theyr great devouring of flesh and drinking of milke to be the increase of theyr strength.' That is, they undervalued our strength, and affirmed their own to be the result of a certain diet. In another passage of the same narrative the word has its more common meaning of approving or praising: 'The said king, much allowing this declaration, said.' Ducange quotes Bracton _sub voce_ ADLOCARE for the meaning 'to admit as proved,' and the transition from this to 'affirm,' is by no means violent. Izaak Walton has 'Lebault _allows_ waterfrogs to be good meat,' and here the word is equivalent to _affirms_. At the same time, when we consider some of the meanings of _allow_ in old English, and of _allouer_ in old French, and also remember that the verbs _prize_ and _praise_ are from one root, I think we must admit _allaudare_ to a share in the paternity of _allow_. The sentence from Hakluyt would read equally well, 'contemning our strengthe, ... and praising (or valuing) their great eating of flesh as the cause of their increase in strength.' After all, if we confine ourselves to _allocare_, it may turn out that the word was somewhere and somewhen used for _to bet_, analogously to _put up, put down, post_ (cf. Spanish _apostar_), and the like. I hear boys in the street continually saying, 'I bet that's a good horse,' or what not, meaning by no means to risk anything beyond their opinion in the matter.

The word _improve_, in the sense of to 'occupy, make use of, employ,' as Dr. Pickering defines it, he long ago proved to be no neologism. He would have done better, I think, had he substituted _profit by_ for _employ_. He cites Dr. Franklin as saying that the word had never, so far as he knew, been used in New England before he left it in 1723, except in Dr. Mather's 'Bemarkable Providences,' which he oddly calls a 'very old book.' Franklin, as Dr. Pickering goes on to show, was mistaken.

Mr. Bartlett in his 'Dictionary' merely abridges Pickering. Both of them should have confined the application of the word to material things, its extension to which is all that is peculiar in the supposed American use of it. For surely 'Complete Letter-Writers' have been '_improving_ this opportunity' time out of mind. I will illustrate the word a little further, because Pickering cites no English authorities. Skelton has a passage in his 'Phyllyp Sparowe,' which I quote the rather as it contains also the word _allowed_ and as it distinguishes _improve_ from _employ:_--

'His [Chaucer's] Englysh well alowed, So as it is _emprowed_ For as it is employd, There is no English voyd.'

Here the meaning is to _profit by_. In Fuller's 'Holy Warre' (1647), we have 'The Egyptians standing on the firm ground, were thereby enabled to _improve_ and enforce their darts to the utmost.' Here the word might certainly mean _to make use of_. Mrs. Hutchison (Life of Colonel H.) uses the word in the same way: 'And therefore did not _emproove_ his interest to engage the country in the quarrel.' Swift in one of his letters says: 'There is not an acre of land in Ireland turned to half its advantage; yet it is better _improved_ than the people.' I find it also in 'Strength out of Weakness' (1652), and Plutarch's 'Morals'(1714), but I know of only one example of its use in the purely American sense, and that is 'a very good _improvement_ for a mill' in the 'State Trials' (Speech of the Attorney. General in the Lady Ivy's case, 1864). In the sense of _employ_, I could cite a dozen old English authorities.

In running over the fly-leaves of those delightful folios for this reference, I find a note which reminds me of another word, for our abuse of which we have been deservedly ridiculed. I mean _lady,_ It is true I might cite the example of the Italian _donna_[30] (_domina_), which has been treated in the same way by a whole nation, and not, as _lady_ among us, by the uncultivated only. It perhaps grew into use in the half-democratic republics of Italy in the same way and for the same reasons as with us. But I admit that our abuse of the word is villainous. I know of an orator who once said in a public meeting where bonnets preponderated, that 'the ladies were last at the cross and first at the tomb'! But similar sins were committed before our day and in the mother country. In the 'Harleian Miscellany' (vol. v. p. 455) I find 'this _lady_ is my servant; the hedger's daughter Ioan.' in the 'State Trials' I learn of 'a _gentlewoman_ that lives cook with' such a one, and I hear the Lord High Steward speaking of the wife of a waiter at a bagnio as a _gentlewoman_! From the same authority, by the way, I can state that our vile habit of chewing tobacco had the somewhat unsavory example of Titus Oates, and I know by tradition from an eye-witness that the elegant General Burgoyne partook of the same vice. Howell, in one of his letters (dated 26 August, 1623), speaks thus of another 'institution' which many have thought American: 'They speak much of that boisterous Bishop of Halverstadt (for so they term him here), that, having taken a place where ther were two Monasteries of Nuns and Friers, he caus'd divers feather-beds to be rip'd, and all the feathers to be thrown in a great Hall, whither the Nuns and Friers were thrust naked with their bodies oil'd and pitch'd, and to tumble among the feathers.' Howell speaks as if the thing were new to him, and I know not if the 'boisterous' Bishop was the inventor of it, but I find it practised in England before our Revolution.

Before leaving the subject, I will add a few comments made from time to time on the margin of Mr. Bartlett's excellent 'Dictionary,' to which I am glad thus publicly to acknowledge my many obligations. 'Avails' is good old English, and the _vails_ of Sir Joshua Reynolds's porter are famous. Averse _from_, averse _to_, and in connection with them the English vulgarism 'different _to_;' the corrupt use of _to_ in these cases, as well as in the Yankee 'he lives to Salem,' 'to home,' and others, must be a very old one, for in the one case it plainly arose from confounding the two French prepositions _à_, (from Latin _ad_ and _ab_), and in the other from translating the first of them. I once thought 'different to' a modern vulgarism, and Mr. Thackeray, on my pointing it out to him in 'Henry Esmond,' confessed it to be an anachronism. Mr. Bartlett refers to 'the old writers quoted in Richardson's Dictionary' for 'different to,' though in my edition of that work all the examples are with _from_. But I find _to_ used invariably by Sir R. Hawkins in Hakluyt. _Banjo_ is a negro corruption of O.E. _bandore_. _Bind-weed_ can hardly be modern, for _wood-bind_ is old and radically right, intertwining itself through _bindan_ and _windan_ with classic stems. _Bobolink_: is this a contraction for Bob o' Lincoln? I find _bobolynes_, in one of the poems attributed to Skelton, where it may be rendered _giddy-pate_, a term very fit for the bird in his ecstasies. _Cruel_ for _great_ is in Hakluyt. _Bowling-alley_ is in Nash's 'Pierce Pennilesse.' _Curious_, meaning _nice_, occurs continually in old writers, and is as old as Pecock's 'Repressor.' _Droger_ is O.E. _drugger_. _Educational_ is in Burke. _Feeze_ is only a form of _fizz_. _To fix_, in the American sense, I find used by the Commissioners of the United Colonies so early as 1675, 'their arms well _fixed_ and fit for service.' _To take the foot in the hand_ is German; so is to _go under_. _Gundalow_ is old; I find _gundelo_ in Hakluyt, and _gundello_ in Booth's reprint of the folio Shakespeare of 1623. _Gonoff_ is O.E. _gnoffe_. _Heap_ is in 'Piers Ploughman' ('and other names _an heep_'), and in Hakluyt ('seeing such a _heap_ of their enemies ready to devour them'). _To liquor_ is in the 'Puritan' ('call 'em in, and liquor 'em a little'). _To loaf_: this, I think, is unquestionably German. _Laufen_ is pronounced _lofen_ in some parts of Germany, and I once heard one German student say to another, _Ich lauf_ (lofe) _hier bis du wiederkehrest_, and he began accordingly to saunter up and down, in short, to _loaf_. _To mull_, Mr. Bartlett says, means 'to soften, to dispirit,' and quotes from 'Margaret,'--'There has been a pretty considerable _mullin_ going on among the doctors,'--where it surely cannot mean what he says it does. We have always heard _mulling_ used for _stirring, bustling_, sometimes in an underhand way. It is a metaphor derived probably from _mulling_ wine, and the word itself must be a corruption of _mell_, from O.F. _mesler_. _Pair_ of stairs is in Hakluyt. _To pull up stakes_ is in Curwen's Journal, and therefore pre-Revolutionary. I think I have met with it earlier. _Raise_: under this word Mr. Bartlett omits 'to raise a house,' that is, the frame of a wooden one, and also the substantive formed from it, a _raisin'_. _Retire_ for _go to bed_ is in Fielding's 'Amelia.' _Setting-poles_ cannot be new, for I find 'some _set_ [the boats] with long _poles_' in Hakluyt. _Shoulder-hitters_: I find that _shoulder-striker_ is old, though I have lost the reference to my authority. _Snag_ is no new word, though perhaps the Western application of it is so; but I find in Gill the proverb, 'A bird in the bag is worth two on the snag.' Dryden has _swop_ and _to rights_. _Trail_: Hakluyt has 'many wayes _traled_ by the wilde beastes.'

I subjoin a few phrases not in Mr. Bartlett's book which I have heard. _Bald-headed_: 'to go it bald-beaded;' in great haste, as where one rushes out without his hat. _Bogue_: 'I don't git much done 'thout I _bogue_ right in along 'th my men.' _Carry_: a _portage_. _Cat-nap_: a short doze. _Cat-stick_: a small stick. _Chowder-head_: a muddle-brain. _Cling-john_: a soft cake of rye. _Cocoanut_; the head. _Cohees_: applied to the people of certain settlements in Western Pennsylvania, from their use of the archaic form _Quo' he_. _Dunnow'z I know_: the nearest your true Yankee ever comes to acknowledging ignorance. _Essence-pedler_: a skunk. _First-rate and a half_. _Fish flakes_, for drying fish: O.E. _fleck_ (_cratis_). _Gander-party_: a social gathering of men only. _Gawnicus_: a dolt. _Hawkin's whetstone_: rum; in derision of one Hawkins, a well-known temperance-lecturer. _Hyper_: to bustle: 'I mus' _hyper_ about an' git tea.' _Keeler-tub_: one in which dishes are washed. ('And Greasy Joan doth _keel_ the pot.') _Lap-tea_: where the guests are too many to sit at table. _Last of pea-time_: to be hard-up. _Lose-laid_ (_loose-laid_): a weaver's term, and probably English; weak-willed. _Malahack_: to cut up hastily or awkwardly. _Moonglade_: a beautiful word: for the track of moonlight on the water. _Off-ox_: an unmanageable, cross-grained fellow. _Old Driver, Old Splitfoot_: the Devil. _On-hitch_: to pull trigger (cf. Spanish _disparar_). _Popular_: conceited, _Rote_: sound of surf before a storm. _Rot-gut_: cheap whiskey; the word occurs in Heywood's 'English Traveller' and Addison's 'Drummer,' for a poor kind of drink. _Seem_: it is habitual with the New-Englander to put this verb to strange uses, as 'I can't _seem_ to be suited,' 'I couldn't _seem_ to know him.' _Sidehill_, for _hillside_. _State-house_: this seems an Americanism, whether invented or derived from the Dutch _Stad-huys_, I know not. _Strike_ and _string_; from the game of ninepins; to make a _strike_ is to knock down all the pins with one ball, hence it has come to mean fortunate, successful. _Swampers_: men who break out roads for lumberers. _Tormented_: euphemism for damned, as, 'not a tormented cent.' _Virginia fence, to make a_: to walk like a drunken man.

It is always worth while to note down the erratic words or phrases which one meets with in any dialect. They may throw light on the meaning of other words, on the relationship of languages, or even on history itself. In so composite a language as ours they often supply a different form to express a different shade of meaning, as in _viol_ and _fiddle_, _thrid_ and _thread_, _smother_ and _smoulder_, where the _l_ has crept in by a false analogy with _would_. We have given back to England the excellent adjective _lengthy_, formed honestly like _earthy, drouthy_, and others, thus enabling their journalists to characterize our President's messages by a word civilly compromising between _long_ and _tedious_, so as not to endanger the peace of the two countries by wounding our national sensitiveness to British criticism. Let me give two curious examples of the antiseptic property of dialects at which I have already glanced. Dante has _dindi_ as a childish or low word for _danari_ (money), and in Shropshire small Roman coins are still dug up which the peasants call _dinders_. This can hardly be a chance coincidence, but seems rather to carry the word back to the Roman soldiery. So our farmers say _chuk, chuk_, to their pigs, and _ciacco_ is one of the Italian words for _hog_. When a countryman tells us that he 'fell _all of a heap_,' I cannot help thinking that he unconsciously points to an affinity between our word _tumble_, and the Latin _tumulus_, that is older than most others. I believe that words, or even the mere intonation of them, have an astonishing vitality and power of propagation by the root, like the gardener's pest, quitch-grass,[31] while the application or combination of them may be new. It is in these last that my countrymen seem to me full of humor, invention, quickness of wit, and that sense of subtle analogy which needs only refining to become fancy and imagination. Prosaic as American life seems in many of its aspects to a European, bleak and bare as it is on the side of tradition, and utterly orphaned of the solemn inspiration of antiquity, I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlettered men among us is fuller of metaphor and of phrases that suggest lively images than that of any other people I have seen. Very many such will be found in Mr. Bartlett's book, though his short list of proverbs at the end seem to me, with one or two exceptions, as un-American as possible. Most of them have no character at all but coarseness, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always 'takes off its coat to it,' as a Yankee would say. There are plenty that have a more native and puckery flavor, seedlings from the old stock often, and yet new varieties. One hears such not seldom among us Easterners, and the West would yield many more. 'Mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog;' 'Cold as the north side of a Jenooary gravestone by starlight;' 'Hungry as a graven image;' 'Pop'lar as a hen with one chicken;' 'A hen's time ain't much;' 'Quicker 'n greased lightnin';' 'Ther's sech a thing ez bein' _tu_' (our Yankee paraphrase of [Greek: maeden agan]); hence the phrase _tooin' round_, meaning a supererogatory activity like that of flies; 'Stingy enough to skim his milk at both eends;' 'Hot as the Devil's kitchen;' 'Handy as a pocket in a shirt;' 'He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon;' 'All deacons are good, but there's odds in deacons' (to _deacon_ berries is to put the largest atop); 'So thievish they hev to take in their stone walls nights;'[32] may serve as specimens. 'I take my tea _barfoot_,' said a backwoodsman when asked if he would have cream and sugar. (I find _barfoot_, by the way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man speaking to me once of a very rocky clearing said, 'Stone's got a pretty heavy mortgage on that land,' and I overheard a guide in the woods say to his companions who were urging him to sing, 'Wal, I _did_ sing once, but toons gut invented, an' thet spilt my trade.' Whoever has driven over a stream by a bridge made of _slabs_ will feel the picturesque force of the epithet _slab-bridged_ applied to a fellow of shaky character. Almost every county has some good die-sinker in phrase, whose mintage passes into the currency of the whole neighborhood. Such a one described the county jail (the one stone building where all the dwellings are of wood) as 'the house whose underpinnin' come up to the eaves,' and called hell 'the place where they didn't rake up their fires nights.' I once asked a stage-driver if the other side of a hill were as steep as the one we were climbing: 'Steep? chain lightnin' couldn' go down it 'thout puttin' the shoe on!' And this brings me back to the exaggeration of which I spoke before. To me there is something very taking in the negro 'so black that charcoal made a chalk-mark on him,' and the wooden shingle 'painted so like marble that it sank in water,' as if its very consciousness or its vanity had been overpersuaded by the cunning of the painter. I heard a man, in order to give a notion of some very cold weather, say to another that a certain Joe, who had been taking mercury, found a lump of quicksilver in each boot, when he went home to dinner. This power of rapidly dramatizing a dry fact into flesh and blood and the vivid conception of Joe as a human thermometer strike me as showing a poetic sense that may be refined into faculty. At any rate there is humor here, and not mere quickness of wit,--the deeper and not the shallower quality. The _tendency_ of humor is always towards overplus of expression, while the very essence of wit is its logical precision. Captain Basil Hall denied that our people had any humor, deceived, perhaps, by their gravity of manner. But this very seriousness is often the outward sign of that humorous quality of the mind which delights in finding an element of identity in things seemingly the most incongruous, and then again in forcing an incongruity upon things identical. Perhaps Captain Hall had no humor himself, and if so he would never find it. Did he always feel the point of what was said to himself? I doubt it, because I happen to know a chance he once had given him in vain. The Captain was walking up and down the veranda of a country tavern in Massachusetts while the coach changed horses. A thunder-storm was going on, and, with that pleasant European air of indirect self-compliment in condescending to be surprised by American merit, which we find so conciliating, he said to a countryman lounging against the door, 'Pretty heavy thunder you have here.' The other, who had divined at a glance his feeling of generous concession to a new country, drawled gravely, 'Waal, we _du_, considerin' the number of inhabitants.' This, the more I analyze it, the more humorous does it seem. The same man was capable of wit also, when he would. He was a cabinet-maker, and was once employed to make some commandment-tables for the parish meeting-house. The parson, a very old man, annoyed him by looking into his workshop every morning, and cautioning him to be very sure to pick out 'clear mahogany without any _knots_ in it.' At last, wearied out, he retorted one day: 'Wal, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave the _nots_ out o' some o' the c'man'ments, 't'ould soot you full ez wal!'

If I had taken the pains to write down the proverbial or pithy phrases I have heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting the Yankeeisms I met with in my reading, I might have been able to do more justice to my theme. But I have done all I wished in respect to pronunciation, if I have proved that where we are vulgar, we have the countenance of very good company. For, as to the _jus et norma loquendi_, I agree with Horace and those who have paraphrased or commented him, from Boileau to Gray. I think that a good rule for style is Galiani's definition of sublime oratory,--'l'art de tout dire sans être mis à la Bastille dans un pays où il est defendu de rien dire.' I profess myself a fanatical purist, but with a hearty contempt for the speech-gilders who affect purism without any thorough, or even pedagogic knowledge of the engendure, growth, and affinities of the noble language about whose _mésalliances_ they profess (like Dean Alford) to be so solicitous. If _they_ had their way--! 'Doch es sey,' says Lessing, 'dass jene gotbische Höflichkeit eine unentbehrliche Tugend des heutigen Umganges ist. Soll sie darum unsere Schriften eben so schaal und falsch machen als unsern Umgang?' And Drayton was not far wrong in affirming that

'Tis possible to climb, To kindle, or to slake, Although in Skelton's rhyme.'

Cumberland in his Memoirs tells us that when, in the midst of Admiral Rodney's great sea-fight, Sir Charles Douglas said to him, 'Behold, Sir George, the Greeks and Trojans contending for the body of Patroclus!' the Admiral answered, peevishly, 'Damn the Greeks and damn the Trojans! I have other things to think of.' After the battle was won, Rodney thus to Sir Charles, 'Now, my dear friend, I am at the service of your Greeks and Trojans, and the whole of Homer's Iliad, or as much of it as you please!' I had some such feeling of the impertinence of our pseudo-classicality when I chose our homely dialect to work in. Should we be nothing, because somebody had contrived to be something (and that perhaps in a provincial dialect) ages ago? and to be nothing by our very attempt to be that something, which they had already been, and which therefore nobody could be again without being a bore? Is there no way left, then, I thought, of being natural, of being _naïf_, which means nothing more than native, of belonging to the age and country in which you are born? The Yankee, at least, is a new phenomenon; let us try to be _that_. It is perhaps a _pis aller_, but is not _No Thoroughfare_ written up everywhere else? In the literary world, things seemed to me very much as they were in the latter half of the last century. Pope, skimming the cream of good sense and expression wherever he could find it, had made, not exactly poetry, but an honest, salable butter of worldly wisdom which pleasantly lubricated some of the drier morsels of life's daily bread, and, seeing this, scores of harmlessly insane people went on for the next fifty years coaxing his buttermilk with the regular up and down of the pentameter churn. And in our day do we not scent everywhere, and even carry away in our clothes against our will, that faint perfume of musk which Mr. Tennyson has left behind him, or worse, of Heine's _patchouli_? And might it not be possible to escape them by turning into one of our narrow New England lanes, shut in though it were by bleak stone walls on either hand, and where no better flowers were to be gathered than goldenrod and hardhack?

Beside the advantage of getting out of the beaten track, our dialect offered others hardly inferior. As I was about to make an endeavor to state them, I remembered something that the clear-sighted Goethe had said about Hebel's 'Allemannische Gedichte,' which, making proper deduction for special reference to the book under review, expresses what I would have said far better than I could hope to do: 'Allen diesen innern guten Eigenschaften kommt die behagliche naive Sprache sehr zu statten. Man findet mehrere sinnlich bedeutende and wohlklingende Worte ... von einem, zwei Buchstaben, Abbreviationen, Contractionen, viele kurze, leichte Sylben, neue Reime, welches, mehr als man glaubt, ein Vortheil für den Dichter ist. Diese Elemente werden durch glückliche Constructionen und lebhafte Formen zu einem Styl zusammengedrängt der zu diesem Zwecke vor unserer Büchersprache grosse Vorzüge hat.' Of course I do not mean to imply that _I_ have come near achieving any such success as the great critic here indicates, but I think the success is _there_, and to be plucked by some more fortunate hand.

Nevertheless, I was encouraged by the approval of many whose opinions I valued. With a feeling too tender and grateful to be mixed with any vanity, I mention as one of these the late A.H. Clough, who more than any one of those I have known (no longer living), except Hawthorne, impressed me with the constant presence of that indefinable thing we call genius. He often suggested that I should try my hand at some Yankee Pastorals, which would admit of more sentiment and a higher tone without foregoing the advantage offered by the dialect. I have never completed anything of the kind, but, in this Second Series, both my remembrance of his counsel and the deeper feeling called up by the great interests at stake, led me to venture some passages nearer to what is called poetical than could have been admitted without incongruity into the former series. The time seemed calling to me, with the old poet,--

'Leave, then, your wonted prattle, The oaten reed forbear; For I hear a sound of battle, And trumpets rend the air!'

The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) was in 'The Courtin'.' While the introduction to the First Series was going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and improvised another fictitious 'notice of the press,' in which, because verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the _balance_ of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other verses, into some of which I fused a little more sentiment in a homely way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters' and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those kindly importunings.

As I have seen extracts from what purported to be writings of Mr. Biglow, which were not genuine, I may properly take this opportunity to say, that the two volumes now published contain every line I ever printed under that pseudonyme, and that I have never, so far as I can remember, written an anonymous article (elsewhere than in the 'North American Review' and the 'Atlantic Monthly,' during my editorship of it) except a review of Mrs. Stowe's 'Minister's Wooing,' and, some twenty years ago, a sketch of the antislavery movement in America for an English journal.

A word more on pronunciation. I have endeavored to express this so far as I could by the types, taking such pains as, I fear, may sometimes make the reading harder than need be. At the same time, by studying uniformity I have sometimes been obliged to sacrifice minute exactness. The emphasis often modifies the habitual sound. For example, _for_ is commonly _fer_ (a shorter sound than _fur_ for _far_), but when emphatic it always becomes _for_, as 'wut _for!_' So _too_ is pronounced like _to_ (as it was anciently spelt), and _to_ like _ta_ (the sound as in the _tou_ of _touch_), but _too_, when emphatic, changes into _tue_, and _to_, sometimes, in similar cases, into _toe_, as 'I didn' hardly know wut _toe_ du!' Where vowels come together, or one precedes another following an aspirate, the two melt together, as was common with the older poets who formed their versification on French or Italian models. Drayton is thoroughly Yankee when he says 'I 'xpect,' and Pope when he says, 't' inspire.' _With_ becomes sometimes _'ith_, _'ŭth_, or _'th_, or even disappears wholly where it comes before _the_, as, 'I went along _th'_ Square' (along with the Squire), the _are_ sound being an archaism which I have noticed also in _choir_, like the old Scottish _quhair_.[33] (Herrick has, 'Of flowers ne'er sucked by th' theeving bee.') _Without_ becomes _athout_ and _'thout_. _Afterwards_ always retains its locative _s_, and is pronounced always _ahterwurds'_, with a strong accent on the last syllable. This oddity has some support in the erratic _towards'_ instead of _to'wards_, which we find in the poets and sometimes hear. The sound given to the first syllable of _to'wards_, I may remark, sustains the Yankee lengthening of the _o_ in _to_. At the beginning of a sentence, _ahterwurds_ has the accent on the first syllable; at the end of one, on the last; as, '_ah'terwurds_ he tol' me,' 'he tol' me _ahterwurds'_.' The Yankee never makes a mistake in his aspirates. _U_ changes in many words to _e_, always in _such, brush, tush, hush, rush, blush_, seldom in _much_, oftener in _trust_ and _crust_, never in _mush, gust, bust, tumble_, or (?) _flush_, in the latter case probably to avoid confusion with _flesh_. I have heard _flush_ with the _e_ sound, however. For the same reason, I suspect, never in _gush_ (at least, I never heard it), because we have already one _gesh_ for _gash_. _A_ and _i_ short frequently become _e_ short. _U_ always becomes _o_ in the prefix _un_ (except _unto_), and _o_ in return changes to _u_ short in _uv_ for _of_, and in some words beginning with _om_. _T_ and _d_, _b_ and _p_, _v_ and _w_, remain intact. So much occurs to me in addition to what I said on this head in the preface to the former volume.

Of course in what I have said I wish to be understood as keeping in mind the difference between provincialisms properly so called and _slang_. _Slang_ is always vulgar, because it is not a natural but an affected way of talking, and all mere tricks of speech or writing are offensive. I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be fairly charged with vulgarity, and I should have entirely failed in my design, if I had not made it appear that high and even refined sentiment may coexist with the shrewder and more comic elements of the Yankee character. I believe that what is essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in politics seldom has its source in the body of the people, but much rather among those who are made timid by their wealth or selfish by their love of power. A democracy can _afford_ much better than an aristocracy to follow out its convictions, and is perhaps better qualified to build those convictions on plain principles of right and wrong, rather than on the shifting sands of expediency. I had always thought 'Sam Slick' a libel on the Yankee character, and a complete falsification of Yankee modes of speech, though, for aught I know, it may be true in both respects so far as the British provinces are concerned. To me the dialect was native, was spoken all about me when a boy, at a time when an Irish day-laborer was as rare as an American one now. Since then I have made a study of it so far as opportunity allowed. But when I write in it, it is as in a mother tongue, and I am carried back far beyond any studies of it to long-ago noonings in my father's hay-fields, and to the talk of Sam and Job over their jug of _blackstrap_ under the shadow of the ash-tree which still dapples the grass whence they have been gone so long.

But life is short, and prefaces should be. And so, my good friends, to whom this introductory epistle is addressed, farewell. Though some of you have remonstrated with me, I shall never write any more 'Biglow Papers,' however great the temptation,--great especially at the present time,--unless it be to complete the original plan of this Series by bringing out Mr. Sawin as an 'original Union man.' The very favor with which they have been received is a hindrance to me, by forcing on me a self-consciousness from which I was entirely free when I wrote the First Series. Moreover, I am no longer the same careless youth, with nothing to do but live to myself, my books, and my friends, that I was then. I always hated politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not likely to grow, fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and personal prejudice, or can conceive the possibility of another's doing so. I feel as if I could in some sort claim to be an _emeritus_, and I am sure that political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and delightful humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. I regret that I killed off Mr. Wilbur so soon, for he would have enabled me to bring into this preface a number of learned quotations, which must now go a-begging, and also enabled me to dispersonalize myself into a vicarious egotism. He would have helped me likewise in clearing myself from a charge which I shall briefly touch on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has found it needful to defend me in his preface to one of the English editions of the 'Biglow Papers.' I thank Mr. Hughes heartily for his friendly care of my good name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), I should leave the matter where he left it. The charge is of profanity, brought in by persons who proclaimed African slavery of Divine institution, and is based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series--

'An' you've gut to git up airly, Ef you want to take in God,'

and,

'God'll send the bill to you,'

and on some Scriptural illustrations by Mr. Sawin.

Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself. Will any one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he does _not_ speak of sacred things familiarly? that Biblical allusions (allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his church-going habits, he is intimate) are _not_ frequent on his lips? If so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away far from them, or interpret the fear of God into being afraid of Him. The Talmudists had conceived a deep truth when they said, that 'all things were in the power of God, save the fear of God;' and when people stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages criticised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The Reverend Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me with three apposite quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern English poetry. The Puritan divines would furnish me with many more such. St. Bernard says, _Sapiens nummularius est Deus: nummum fictum non recipiet_; 'A cunning money-changer is God: he will take in no base coin.' Latimer says, 'You shall perceive that God, by this example, shaketh us by the noses and taketh us by the ears.' Familiar enough, both of them, one would say! But I should think Mr. Biglow had verily stolen the last of the two maligned passages from Dryden's 'Don Sebastian,' where I find

'And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on me!'

And there I leave the matter, being willing to believe that the Saint, the Martyr, and even the Poet, were as careful of God's honor as my critics are ever likely to be.

II. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS

Act'lly, _actually_. Air, _are_. Airth, _earth_. Airy, _area_. Aree, _area_. Arter, _after_. Ax, _ask_.

Beller, _bellow_. Bellowses, _lungs_. Ben, _been_. Bile, _boil_. Bimeby, _by and by_. Blurt out, _to speak bluntly_. Bust, _burst_. Buster, _a roistering blade_; used also as a general superlative.

Caird, _carried_. Cairn, _carrying_. Caleb, _a turncoat_. Cal'late, _calculate_. Cass, _a person with two lives_. Close, _clothes_. Cockerel, _a young cock_. Cocktail, _a kind of drink_; also, _an ornament peculiar to soldiers_. Convention, _a place where people are imposed on; a juggler's show_. Coons, _a cant term for a now defunct party_; derived, perhaps, from the fact of their being commonly _up a tree_. Cornwallis, _a sort of muster in masquerade_; supposed to have had its origin soon after the Revolution, and to commemorate the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. It took the place of the old Guy Fawkes procession. Crooked stick, _a perverse, froward person_. Cunnle, _a colonel_. Cus, _a curse_; also, _a pitiful fellow_.

Darsn't, used indiscriminately, either in singular or plural number, for _dare not, dares not_, and _dared not_. Deacon off, _to give the cue to_; derived from a custom, once universal, but now extinct, in our New England Congregational churches. An important part of the office of deacon was to read aloud the hymns _given out_ by the minister, one line at a time, the congregation singing each line as soon as read. Demmercrat, leadin', _one in favor of extending slavery; a free-trade lecturer maintained in the custom-house_. Desput, _desperate_. Dō', _don't_. Doos, _does_. Doughface, _a contented lick-spittle_; a common variety of Northern politician. Dror, _draw_. Du, _do_. Dunno, dno, _do not_ or _does not know_. Dut, _dirt_.

Eend, _end_. Ef, _if_. Emptins, _yeast_. Env'y, _envoy_. Everlasting, an intensive, without reference to duration. Ev'y, _every_. Ez, _as_.

Fence, on the; said of one who halts between two opinions; a trimmer. Fer, _for_. Ferfle, ferful, _fearful_; also an intensive. Fin', _find_. Fish-skin, used in New England to clarify coffee. Fix, _a difficulty, a nonplus_. Foller, folly, _to follow_. Forrerd, _forward_. Frum, _from_. Fur, _for_ Furder, _farther_. Furrer, _furrow_. Metaphorically, _to draw a straight furrow_ is to live uprightly or decorously. Fust, _first_.

Gin, _gave_. Git, _get_. Gret, _great_. Grit, _spirit, energy, pluck_. Grout, _to sulk_. Grouty, _crabbed, surly_. Gum, _to impose on_. Gump, _a foolish fellow, a dullard_. Gut, _got_.

Hed, _had_. Heern, _heard_. Hellum, _helm_. Hendy, _handy_. Het, _heated_. Hev, _have_. Hez, _has_. Holl, _whole_. Holt, _hold_. Huf, _hoof_. Hull, _whole_. Hum, _home_. Humbug, _General Taylor's antislavery_. Hut, _hurt_.

Idno, _I do not know_. In'my, _enemy_. Insines, _ensigns_; used to designate both the officer who carries the standard, and the standard itself. Inter, intu, _into_.

Jedge, _judge_. Jest, _just_. Jine, _join_. Jint, _joint_. Junk, _a fragment of any solid substance_.

Keer, _care_. Kep', _kept_. Killock, _a small anchor_. Kin', kin' o', kinder, _kind, kind of_.

Lawth, _loath_. Less, _let's, let us_. Let daylight into, _to shoot_. Let on, _to hint, to confess, to own_. Lick, _to beat, to overcome_. Lights, _the bowels_. Lily-pads, _leaves of the water-lily_. Long-sweetening, _molasses_.

Mash, _marsh_. Mean, _stingy, ill-natured_. Min', _mind_.

Nimepunce, _ninepence, twelve and a half cents_. Nowers, _nowhere_.

Offen, _often_. Ole, _old_. Ollers, olluz, _always_. On, _of_; used before _it_ or _them,_ or at the end of a sentence, as _on 't, on 'em, nut ez ever I heerd on_. On'y, _only_. Ossifer, _officer_ (seldom heard).

Peaked, _pointed_. Peek, _to peep_. Pickerel, _the pike, a fish_. Pint, _point_. Pocket full of rocks, _plenty of money_. Pooty, _pretty_. Pop'ler, _conceited, popular_. Pus, _purse_. Put out, _troubled, vexed_.

Quarter, _a quarter-dollar_. Queen's-arm, _a musket_.

Resh, _rush_. Revelee, _the réveille_. Rile, _to trouble_. Riled, _angry; disturbed,_ as the sediment in any liquid. Riz, _risen_. Row, a long row to hoe, _a difficult task_. Rugged, _robust_.

Sarse, _abuse, impertinence_. Sartin, _certain_. Saxon, _sacristan, sexton_. Scaliest, _worst_. Scringe, _cringe_. Scrouge, _to crowd_. Sech, _such_. Set by, _valued_. Shakes, great, _of considerable consequence_. Shappoes, _chapeaux, cocked-hats_. Sheer, _share_. Shet, _shut_. Shut, _shirt_. Skeered, _scared_. Skeeter, _mosquito_. Skooting, _running,_ or _moving swiftly_. Slarterin', _slaughtering_. Slim, _contemptible_. Snake, _crawled like a snake_; but _to snake any one out_ is to track him to his hiding-place; _to snake a thing out_ is to snatch it out. Soffies, _sofas_. Sogerin', _soldiering_; a barbarous amusement common among men in the savage state. Som'ers, _somewhere_. So'st, _so as that_. Sot, _set, obstinate, resolute_. Spiles, _spoils; objects of political ambition_. Spry, _active_. Steddles, _stout stakes driven into the salt marshes_, on which the hay-ricks are set, and thus raised out of the reach of high tides. Streaked, _uncomfortable, discomfited_. Suckle, _circle_. Sutthin', _something_. Suttin, _certain_.

Take on, _to sorrow_. Talents, _talons_. Taters, _potatoes_. Tell, _till_. Tetch, _touch_. Tetch tu, _to be able_; used always after a negative in this sense. Tollable, _tolerable_. Toot, used derisively for _playing on any wind instrument_. Thru, _through_. Thundering, a euphemism common in New England for the profane English expression _devilish_. Perhaps derived from the belief, common formerly, that thunder was caused by the Prince of the Air, for some of whose accomplishments consult Cotton Mather. Tu, _to, too_; commonly has this sound when used emphatically, or at the end of a sentence. At other times it has the sound of _t_ in _tough_, as _Ware ye gain' tu? Goin' ta Boston_.

Ugly, _ill-tempered, intractable_. Uncle Sam, _United States_; the largest boaster of liberty and owner of slaves. Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread; _heavy, most unrisen, or most incapable of rising_.

V-spot, _a five-dollar bill_. Vally, _value_.

Wake snakes, _to get into trouble_. Wal, _well_; spoken with great deliberation, and sometimes with the _a_ very much flattened, sometimes (but more seldom) very much broadened. Wannut, _walnut (hickory)_. Ware, _where_. Ware, _were_. Whopper, _an uncommonly large lie_; as, that General Taylor is in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. Wig, _Whig_; a party now dissolved. Wunt, _will not_. Wus, _worse_. Wut, _what_. Wuth, _worth_; _as, Antislavery perfessions 'fore 'lection aint wuth a Bungtown copper_. Wuz, _was_, sometimes _were_.

Yaller, _yellow_. Yeller, _yellow_. Yellers, _a disease of peach-trees_.

Zack, Ole, _a second Washington, an antislavery slaveholder; a humane buyer and seller of men and women, a Christian hero generally_.

III. INDEX TO BIGLOW PAPERS

A.

A. wants his axe ground. A.B., Information wanted concerning. Abraham (Lincoln), his constitutional scruples. Abuse, an, its usefulness. Adam, eldest son of, respected, his fall, how if he had bitten a sweet apple? Adam, Grandfather, forged will of. Æeneas goes to hell. Æeolus, a seller of money, as is supposed by some. Æeschylus, a saying of. Alligator, a decent one conjectured to be, in some sort, humane. Allsmash, the eternal. Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal, tyrannical act of. Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but rationalistic) sentiment of. 'American Citizen,' new compost so called. American Eagle, a source of inspiration, hitherto wrongly classed, long bill of. Americans bebrothered. Amos cited. Anakim, that they formerly existed, shown. Angels providentially speak French, conjectured to be skilled in all tongues. Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, what. Anglo-Saxon mask. Anglo-Saxon race. Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom carried to perfection. Antiquaries, Royal Society of Northern. Antonius, a speech of, by whom best reported. Antony of Padua, Saint, happy in his hearers. Apocalypse, beast in, magnetic to theologians. Apollo, confessed mortal by his own oracle. Apollyon, his tragedies popular. Appian, an Alexandrian, not equal to Shakespeare as an orator. Applause, popular, the _summum bonum_. Ararat, ignorance of foreign tongues is an. Arcadian background. Ar c'houskezik, an evil spirit. Ardennes, Wild Boar of, an ancestor of Rev. Mr. Wilbur. Aristocracy, British, their natural sympathies. Aristophanes. Arms, profession of, once esteemed, especially that of gentlemen. Arnold. Ashland. Astor, Jacob, a rich man. Astræa, nineteenth century forsaken by. Athenians, ancient, an institution of. Atherton, Senator, envies the loon. 'Atlantic,' editors of. See _Neptune_. Atropos, a lady skilful with the scissors. Austin, Saint, prayer of. Austrian eagle split. Aye-aye, the, an African animal, America supposed to be settled by.

B., a Congressman, _vide_ A. Babel, probably the first Congress, gabble-mill. Baby, a low-priced one. Bacon, his rebellion. Bacon, Lord, quoted. Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether to be damned. Balcom, Elder Joash Q., 2d, founds a Baptist society in Jaalam, A.D. 1830. Baldwin apples. Baratarias, real or imaginary, which most pleasant. Barnum, a great natural curiosity recommended to. Barrels, an inference from seeing. Bartlett, Mr., mistaken. Bâton Rouge, strange peculiarities of laborers at. Baxter, R., a saying of, Bay, Mattysqumscot. Bay State, singular effect produced on military officers by leaving it. Beast, in Apocalypse, a loadstone for whom, tenth horn of, applied to recent events. Beaufort. Beauregard real name Toutant. Beaver brook. Beelzebub, his rigadoon. Behmen, his letters not letters. Behn, Mrs. Aphra, quoted. Sellers, a saloon-keeper, inhumanly refuses credit to a presidential candidate. Belmont. See Woods. Bentley, his heroic method with Milton. Bible, not composed for use of colored persons. Biglow, Ezekiel, his letter to Hon. J.T. Buckingham, never heard of any one named Mandishes, nearly fourscore years old, his aunt Keziah, a notable saying of. Biglow, Hosea, Esquire, excited by composition, a poem by, his opinion of war, wanted at home by Nancy, recommends a forcible enlistment of warlike editors, would not wonder, if generally agreed with, versifies letter of Mr. Sawin, a letter from, his opinion of Mr. Sawin, does not deny fun at Cornwallis, his idea of militia glory, a pun of, is uncertain in regard to people of Boston, had never heard of Mr. John P. Robinson, _aliquid sufflaminandus_, his poems attributed to a Mr. Lowell, is unskilled in Latin, his poetry maligned by some, his disinterestedness, his deep share in commonweal, his claim to the presidency, his mowing, resents being called Whig, opposed to tariff, obstinate, infected with peculiar notions, reports a speech, emulates historians of antiquity, his character sketched from a hostile point of view, a request of his complied with, appointed at a public meeting in Jaalam, confesses ignorance, in one minute particular, of propriety, his opinion of cocked hats, letter to, called 'Dear Sir,' by a general, probably receives same compliment from two hundred and nine, picks his apples, his crop of Baldwins conjecturally large, his labors in writing autographs, visits the Judge and has a pleasant time, born in Middlesex County, his favorite walks, his gifted pen, born and bred in the country, feels his sap start in spring, is at times unsocial, the school-house where he learned his a b c, falls asleep, his ancestor a Cromwellian colonel, finds it harder to make up his mind as he grows older, wishes he could write a song or two, liable to moods, loves nature and is loved in return, describes some favorite haunts of his, his slain kindred, his speech in March meeting, does not reckon on being sent to Congress, has no eloquence, his own reporter, never abused the South, advises Uncle Sam, is not Boston-mad, bids farewell. Billings, Dea. Cephas. _Billy, Extra, demagogus._ Birch, virtue of, in instilling certain of the dead languages. Bird of our country sings hosanna. Bjarna Grímólfsson invents smoking. Blind, to go it. Blitz pulls ribbons from his mouth. Bluenose potatoes, smell of, eagerly desired. Bobolink, the. Bobtail obtains a cardinal's hat. Boggs, a Norman name. Bogus Four-Corners Weekly Meridian. Bolles, Mr. Secondary, author of prize peace essay, presents sword to Lieutenant-Colonel, a fluent orator, found to be in error. Bonaparte, N., a usurper. Bonds, Confederate, their specie basis cutlery, when payable (attention, British stockholders!). Boot-trees, productive, where. Boston, people of, supposed educated, has a good opinion of itself. Bowers, Mr. Arphaxad, an ingenious photographic artist. Brahmins, navel-contemplating. Brains, poor substitute for. Bread-trees. Bream, their only business. Brigadier-Generals in militia, devotion of. Brigadiers, nursing ones, tendency in, to literary composition. _Brigitta, viridis_. Britannia, her trident. Brotherhood, subsides after election. Brown, Mr., engages in an unequal contest. Browne, Sir T., a pious and wise sentiment of, cited and commended. Brutus Four-Corners. Buchanan, a wise and honest man. Buckingham, Hon. J.T., editor of the Boston Courier, letters to, not afraid. Buffalo, a plan hatched there, plaster, a prophecy in regard to. Buffaloes, herd of, probable influence of tracts upon. Bull, John, prophetic allusion to, by Horace, his 'Run,' his mortgage, unfortunate dip of, wool pulled over his eyes. Buncombe, in the other world supposed, mutual privilege, in. Bung, the eternal, thought to be loose. Bungtown Fencibles, dinner of. Burke, Mr., his age of chivalry surpassed. Burleigh, Lord, quoted for something said in Latin long before. Burns, Robert, a Scottish poet. Bushy Brook. Butler, Bishop. Butter in Irish bogs.

C., General, commended for parts, for ubiquity, for consistency, for fidelity, is in favor of war, his curious valuation of principle. Cabbage-heads, the, always in majority. Cabinet, English, makes a blunder. Cæsar, tribute to, his veni, vidi, vici, censured for undue prolixity. Cainites, sect of, supposed still extant. Caleb, a monopoly of his denied, curious notions of, as to meaning of 'shelter,' his definition of Anglo-Saxon, charges Mexicans (not with bayonets but) with improprieties. Calhoun, Hon. J.C., his cow-bell curfew, light of the nineteenth century to be extinguished at sound of, cannot let go apron-string of the Past, his unsuccessful tilt at Spirit of the Age, the Sir Kay of modern chivalry, his anchor made of a crooked pin, mentioned. _Calyboosus, carcer_. Cambridge Platform, use discovered for. Canaan in quarterly instalments. Canary Islands. Candidate, presidential, letter from, smells a rat, against a bank, takes a revolving position, opinion of pledges, is a periwig, fronts south by north, qualifications of, lessening, wooden leg (and head) useful to. Cape Cod clergyman, what, Sabbath-breakers, perhaps, reproved by. Captains, choice of, important. Carolina, foolish act of. Caroline, case of. Carpini, Father John de Piano, among the Tartars. Cartier, Jacques, commendable zeal of. Cass, General, clearness of his merit, limited popularity at 'Bellers's.' Castles, Spanish, comfortable accommodations in. Cato, letters of, so called, suspended _naso adunco_. C.D., friends of, can hear of him. Century, nineteenth. Chalk egg, we are proud of incubation of. Chamberlayne, Doctor, consolatory citation from. Chance, an apothegm concerning, is impatient. Chaplain, a one-horse, stern-wheeled variety of. Chappelow on Job, a copy of, lost. Charles I., accident to his neck. Charles II., his restoration, how brought about. Cherubusco, news of, its effects on English royalty. Chesterfield no letter-writer. Chief Magistrate, dancing esteemed sinful by. Children naturally speak Hebrew. China-tree. Chinese, whether they invented gunpowder before the Christian era not considered. Choate hired. Christ, shuffled into Apocrypha, conjectured to disapprove of slaughter and pillage, condemns a certain piece of barbarism. Christianity, profession of, plebeian, whether. Christian soldiers, perhaps inconsistent whether. Cicero, an opinion of, disputed. Cilley, Ensign, author of nefarious sentiment. _Cimex lectularius_. Cincinnati, old, law and order party of. Cincinnatus, a stock character in modern comedy. Civilization, progress of, an alias, rides upon a powder-cart. Clergymen, their ill husbandry, their place in processions, some, cruelly banished for the soundness of their lungs. Clotho, a Grecian lady. Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into. College of Cardinals, a strange one. Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of. Colored folks, curious national diversion of kicking. Colquitt, a remark of, acquainted with some principles of aerostation. Columbia, District of, its peculiar climatic effects, not certain that Martin is for abolishing it. Columbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones. Columbus, a Paul Pry of genius, will perhaps be remembered, thought by some to have discovered America. Columby. Complete Letter-Writer, fatal gift of. Compostella, Saint James of, seen. Compromise system, the, illustrated. Conciliation, its meaning. Congress, singular consequence of getting into, a stumbling-block. Congressional debates found instructive. Constituents, useful for what, 194. Constitution, trampled on, to stand upon what. Convention, what. Convention, Springfield. Coon, old, pleasure in skinning. Co-operation defined. Coppers, _caste_ in picking up of. Copres, a monk, his excellent method of arguing. Corduroy-road, a novel one. Corner-stone, patent safety. Cornwallis, a, acknowledged entertaining. Cotton loan, its imaginary nature. Cotton Mather, summoned as witness. Country, our, its boundaries more exactly defined, right or wrong, nonsense about, exposed, lawyers, sent providentially. Earth's biggest, gets a soul. Courier, The Boston, an unsafe print. Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats in. Court, Supreme. Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy. Cousins, British, our _ci-devant_. Cowper, W., his letters commended. Credit defined. Creditors all on Lincoln's side. Creed, a safe kind of. Crockett, a good rule of. Cruden, Alexander, his Concordance. Crusade, first American. Cuneiform script recommended. Curiosity distinguishes man from brutes. Currency, Ethiopian, inconveniences of. Cynthia, her hide as a means of conversion.

Dædalus first taught men to sit on fences. Daniel in the lion's den. Darkies dread freedom. Davis, Captain Isaac, finds out something to his advantage. Davis, Jefferson (a new species of martyr), has the latest ideas on all subjects, superior in financiering to patriarch Jacob, is _some_, carries Constitution in his hat, knows how to deal with his Congress, astonished at his own piety, packed up for Nashville, tempted to believe his own lies, his snake egg, blood on his hands. Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, a remark of his. Day and Martin, proverbially "on hand." Death, rings down curtain. De Bow (a famous political economist). Delphi, oracle of, surpassed, alluded to. Democracy, false notion of, its privileges. Demosthenes. Destiny, her account. Devil, the, unskilled in certain Indian tongues, letters to and from. Dey of Tripoli. Didymus, a somewhat voluminous grammarian. Dighton rock character might be usefully employed in some emergencies. Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh supply of. Diogenes, his zeal for propagating certain variety of olive. Dioscuri, imps of the pit. District-Attorney, contemptible conduct of one. Ditchwater on brain, a too common ailing. Dixie, the land of. Doctor, the, a proverbial saying of. Doe, Hon. Preserved, speech of. Donatus, profane wish of. Doughface, yeast-proof. Downing Street. Drayton, a martyr, north star, culpable for aiding, whether. Dreams, something about. Dwight, President, a hymn unjustly attributed to. D.Y., letter of.

Eagle, national, the late, his estate administered upon. Earth, Dame, a peep at her housekeeping. Eating words, habit of, convenient in time of famine. Eavesdroppers. Echetlæus. Editor, his position, commanding pulpit of, large congregation of, name derived from what, fondness for mutton, a pious one, his creed, a showman, in danger of sudden arrest, without bail. Editors, certain ones who crow like cockerels. Edwards, Jonathan. Eggs, bad, the worst sort of. Egyptian darkness, phial of, use for. Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail for. Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of her ambassador. Emerson. Emilius, Paulus. Empedocles. Employment, regular, a good thing. Enfield's Speaker, abuse of. England, late Mother-Country, her want of tact, merits as a lecturer, her real greatness not to be forgotten, not contented (unwisely) with her own stock of fools, natural maker of international law, her theory thereof, makes a particularly disagreeable kind of sarse, somewhat given to bullying, has respectable relations, ought to be Columbia's friend, anxious to buy an elephant. Epaulets, perhaps no badge of saintship. Epimenides, the Cretan Rip Van Winkle. Episcopius, his marvellous oratory. Eric, king of Sweden, his cap. Ericsson, his caloric engine. Eriksson, Thorwald, slain by natives. Essence-peddlers. Ethiopian, the, his first need. Evangelists, iron ones. Eyelids, a divine shield against authors. Ezekiel, text taken from. Ezekiel would make a poor figure at a caucus.

Faber, Johannes. Factory-girls, expected rebellion of. Facts, their unamiability, compared to an old-fashioned stage-coach. _Falstaffii, legio_. Family-trees, fruit of jejune, a primitive forest of. Faneuil Hall, a place where persons tap themselves for a species of hydrocephalus, a bill of fare mendaciously advertised in. Father of country, his shoes. Female Papists, cut off in the midst of idolatry. _Fenianorum, rixæ_. Fergusson, his 'Mutual Complaint,' etc. F.F., singular power of their looks. Fire, we all like to play with it. Fish, emblematic, but disregarded, where. Fitz, Miss Parthenia Almira, a sheresiarch. Flam, President, untrustworthy. Flirt, Mrs. Flirtilla, elegy on death of. Floyd, a taking character. _Floydus, furcifer_. Fly-leaves, providential increase of. Fool, a cursed, his inalienable rights. Foote, Mr., his taste for field-sports. Fourier, a squinting toward. Fourth of July ought to know its place. Fourth of Julys, boiling. France, a strange dance begun in, about to put her foot in it. Friar John. Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise saying of. Funnel, old, hurraing in. Gabriel, his last trump, its pressing nature. Gardiner, Lieutenant Lion. Gawain, Sir, his amusements. Gay, S.H., Esquire, editor of National Antislavery Standard, letter to. Geese, how infallibly to make swans of. Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifically classed. Getting up early. Ghosts, some, presumed fidgety, (but see Stilling's Pneumatology.) Giants formerly stupid. Gideon, his sword needed. Gift of tongues, distressing case of. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey. Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to. Glory, a perquisite of officers, her account with B. Sawin, Esq. Goatsnose, the celebrated interview with. God, the only honest dealer. Goings, Mehetable, unfounded claim of, disproved. Gomara, has a vision, his relationship to the Scarlet Woman. Governor, our excellent. Grandfather, Mr. Biglow's, safe advice of. Grandfathers, the, knew something. Grand jurors, Southern, their way of finding a true bill. _Grantus, Dux_. Gravestones, the evidence of Dissenting ones held doubtful. Gray's letters are letters. Great horn spoon, sworn by. Greeks, ancient, whether they questioned candidates. Green Man, sign of.

Habeas corpus, new mode of suspending it. Hail Columbia, raised. Ham, sandwich, an orthodox (but peculiar) one, his seed, their privilege in the Bible, immoral justification of. Hamlets, machine for making. Hammon. Hampton Roads, disaster in. Hannegan, Mr., something said by. Harrison, General, how preserved. Hat, a leaky one. Hat-trees in full bearing. Hawkins, his whetstone. Hawkins, Sir John, stout, something he saw. Hawthorne. Hay-rick, electrical experiments with. Headlong, General. Hell, the opinion of some concerning, breaks loose. Henry the Fourth of England, a Parliament of, how named. Hens, self-respect attributed to. Herb, the Circean. Herbert, George, next to David. Hercules, his second labor probably what. Hermon, fourth-proof dew of. Herodotus, story from. Hesperides, an inference from. Hessians, native American soldiers. Hickory, Old, his method. Higgses, their natural aristocracy of feeling. Hitchcock, Doctor. Hitchcock, the Rev. Jeduthun, colleague of Mr. Wilbur, letter from, containing notices of Mr. Wilbur, ditto, enclosing macaronic verses, teacher of high-school. Hogs, their dreams. Holden, Mr. Shearjashub, Preceptor of Jaalam Academy, his knowledge of Greek limited, a heresy of his, leaves a fund to propagate it. Holiday, blind man's. Hollis, Ezra, goes to Cornwallis. Hollow, why men providentially so constructed. Holmes, Dr., author of 'Annals of America.,' Homer, a phrase of, cited. Homer, eldest son of Mr. Wilbur. Homers, democratic ones, plums left for. Hotels, big ones, humbugs. House, a strange one described. Howell, James, Esq., story told by, letters of, commended. Huldah, her bonnet. Human rights out of order on the floor of Congress. Humbug, ascription of praise to, generally believed in. Husbandry, instance of bad.

Icarius, Penelope's father. Icelander, a certain uncertain. Idea, the Southern, its natural foes, the true American. Ideas, friction ones unsafe. Idyl defined. Indecision, mole-blind. Infants, prattlings of, curious observation concerning. Information wanted (universally, but especially at page). Ishmael, young.

Jaalam, unjustly neglected by great events. Jaalam Centre, Anglo-Saxons unjustly suspected by the young ladies there "Independent Blunderbuss," strange conduct of editor of, public meeting at, meeting-house ornamented with imaginary clock. Jaalam, East Parish of. Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, charge of, prospectively offered to Mr. H. Biglow. _Jacobus, rex_. Jakes, Captain, reproved for avarice. Jamaica. James the Fourth, of Scots, experiment by. Jarnagin, Mr., his opinion of the completeness of Northern education. Jefferson, Thomas, well-meaning, but injudicious. Jeremiah, hardly the best guide in modern politics. Jerome, Saint, his list of sacred writers. Jerusha, ex-Mrs. Sawin. Job, Book of, Chappelow on. Johnson, Andrew, as he used to be, as he is: see Arnold, Benedict. Johnson, Mr., communicates some intelligence. Jonah, the inevitable destiny of, probably studied internal economy of the cetacea, his gourd, his unanimity in the whale. Jonathan to John. Jortin, Dr., cited. Journals, British, their brutal tone. Juanito. Judea, everything not known there, not identical with A.D. Judge, the, his garden, his hat covers many things. Juvenal, a saying of.

Kay, Sir, the, of modern chivalry. Key, brazen one. Keziah, Aunt, profound observation of. Kinderhook. Kingdom Come, march to, easy. Königsmark, Count.

Lablache surpassed. Lacedæmonians banish a great talker. Lamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence. Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Satan. Latin tongue, curious information concerning. Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, perhaps would find less sport therein now. Laura, exploited. Learning, three-story. Letcher, _de la vieille roche_. _Letcherus, nebulo_. Letters, classed, their shape, of candidates, often fatal. Lettres Cabalistiques, quoted. Lewis, Dixon H., gives his view of slavery. Lewis Philip, a scourger of young native Americans, commiserated (though not deserving it). Lexington. Liberator, a newspaper, condemned by implication. Liberty, unwholesome for men of certain complexions. Licking, when constitutional. Lignum vitæ, a gift of this valuable wood proposed. Lincoln, too shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell. Literature, Southern, its abundance. Little Big Boosy River. Longinus recommends swearing, note (Fuseli did same thing). Long-sweetening recommended. Lord, inexpensive way of lending to. Lords, Southern, prove _pur sang_ by ablution. Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of. Louis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees of his. Lowell, Mr. J.R., unaccountable silence of. Luther, Martin, his first appearance as Europa. Lyæus. Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an imposition.

Macrobii, their diplomacy. Magoffin, a name naturally noble. Mahomet, got nearer Sinai than some. Mahound, his filthy gobbets. Mandeville, Sir John, quoted. Mangum, Mr., speaks to the point. Manichæan, excellently confuted. Man-trees, grow where. Maori chieftains. Mapes, Walter, quoted, paraphrased. Mares'-nests, finders of, benevolent. Marius, quoted. Marshfield. Martin, Mr. Sawin used to vote for him. Mason and Dixon's line, slaves north of. Mason an F.F.V. Mason and Slidell, how they might have been made at once useful and ornamental. Mass, the, its duty defined. Massachusetts, on her knees, something mentioned in connection with, worthy the attention of tailors, citizen of, baked, boiled, and roasted (_nefandum!_). Masses, the, used as butter by some. Maury, an intellectual giant, twin birth with Simms (which see). Mayday a humbug. M.C., an invertebrate animal. Me, Mister, a queer creature. Mechanics' Fair, reflections suggested at. _Medium, ardentispirituale_. Mediums, spiritual, dreadful liars. Memminger, old. Mentor, letters of, dreary. Mephistopheles at a nonplus. Mexican blood, its effect in raising price of cloth. Mexican polka. Mexicans, charged with various breaches of etiquette, kind feelings beaten into them. Mexico, no glory in overcoming. Middleton, Thomas, quoted. Military glory spoken disrespectfully of, militia treated still worse. Milk-trees, growing still. Mill, Stuart, his low ideas. Millenniums apt to miscarry. Millspring. Mills for manufacturing gabble, how driven. Mills, Josiah's. Milton, an unconscious plagiary, a Latin verse of, cited, an English poet, his 'Hymn of the Nativity.' Missionaries, useful to alligators, culinary liabilities of. Missions, a profitable kind of. Monarch, a pagan, probably not favored in philosophical experiments. Money-trees, desirable, that they once existed shown to be variously probable. Montaigne. Montaigne, a communicative old Gascon. Monterey, battle of, its singular chromatic effect on a species of two-headed eagle. Montezuma, licked. Moody, Seth, his remarkable gun, his brother Asaph. Moquis Indians, praiseworthy custom of. Moses, held up vainly as an example, construed by Joe Smith, (not, A.J. Moses) prudent way of following. Muse invoked. Myths, how to interpret readily.

Naboths, Popish ones, how distinguished. Nana Sahib. Nancy, presumably Mrs. Biglow. Napoleon III., his new chairs. Nation, rights of, proportionate to size, young, its first needs. National pudding, its effect on the organs of speech, a curious physiological fact. Negroes, their double usefulness, getting too current. Nephelim, not yet extinct. New England, overpoweringly honored, wants no more speakers, done brown by whom, her experience in beans beyond Cicero's. Newspaper, the, wonderful, a strolling theatre, thoughts suggested by tearing wrapper of, a vacant sheet, a sheet in which a vision was let down, wrapper to a bar of soap, a cheap impromptu platter. New World, apostrophe to. New York, letters from, commended. Next life, what. Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed. Niggers, area of abusing, extended, Mr. Sawin's opinions of. Ninepence a day low for murder. No, a monosyllable, hard to utter. Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably. Noblemen, Nature's. Nornas, Lapland, what. North, the, has no business, bristling, crowded off roost, its mind naturally unprincipled. North Bend, geese inhumanly treated at, mentioned. North star, a proposition to indict. Northern Dagon. Northmen, _gens inclytissima_. Nôtre Dame de la Haine. Now, its merits. Nowhere, march to.

O'Brien, Smith. Off ox. Officers, miraculous transformation in character of, Anglo-Saxon, come very near being anathematized. Old age, an advantage of. Old One, invoked. Onesimus made to serve the cause of impiety. O'Phace, Increase D., Esq., speech of. Opinion, British, its worth to us. Opinions, certain ones compared to winter flies. Oracle of Fools, still respectfully consulted. Orion becomes commonplace. Orrery, Lord, his letters (lord!). Ostracism, curious species of. _Ovidii Nasonis, carmen supposititium_.

Palestine. Paley, his Evidences. Palfrey, Hon. J.G., (a worthy representative of Massachusetts). Pantagruel, recommends a popular oracle. Panurge, his interview with Goatsnose. Paper, plausible-looking, wanted. Papists, female, slain by zealous Protestant bomb-shell. Paralipomenon, a man suspected of being. Paris, liberal principles safe as far away as. _Parliamentum Indoctorum_ sitting in permnence. Past, the, a good nurse. Patience, sister, quoted. Patriarchs, the, illiterate. _Patricius, brogipotens_. Paynims, their throats propagandistically cut. Penelope, her wise choice. People, soft enough, want correct ideas, the, decline to be Mexicanized. Pepin, King. Pepperell General, quoted. Pequash Junction. Periwig. Perley, Mr. Asaph, has charge of bass-viol. Perseus, King, his avarice. Persius, a pithy saying of. Pescara, Marquis, saying of. Peter, Saint, a letter of (_post-mortem_). Petrarch, exploited Laura. Petronius. Pettibone, Jabez, bursts up. Pettus came over with Wilhelmus Conquistor. Phaon. Pharaoh, his lean kine. Pharisees, opprobriously referred to. Philippe, Louis, in pea-jacket. Phillips, Wendell, catches a Tartar. Phlegyas quoted. Phrygian language, whether Adam spoke it. Pickens, a Norman name. Pilcoxes, genealogy of. Pilgrim Father, apparition of. Pilgrims, the. Pillows, constitutional. Pine-trees, their sympathy. Pinto, Mr., some letters of his commended. Pisgah, an impromptu one. Platform, party, a convenient one. Plato, supped with, his man. Pleiades, the, not enough esteemed. Pliny, his letters not admired. Plotinus, a story of. Plymouth Rock, Old, a Convention wrecked on. Poets apt to become sophisticated. Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawin wrecked on. Poles, exile, whether crop of beans depends on. Polk, _nomen gentile_. Polk, President, synonymous with our country, censured, in danger of being crushed. Polka, Mexican. Pomp, a runaway slave, his nest, hypocritically groans like white man, blind to Christian privileges, his society valued at fifty dollars, his treachery, takes Mr. Sawin prisoner, cruelly makes him work, puts himself illegally under his tuition, dismisses him with contumelious epithets, a negro. Pontifical bull, a tamed one. Pope, his verse excellent. Pork, refractory in boiling. Portico, the. Portugal, Alphonso the Sixth of, a monster. Post, Boston, shaken visibly, bad guide-post, too swift, edited by a colonel, who is presumed officially in Mexico, referred to. Pot-hooks, death in. Power, a first-class, elements of. Preacher, an ornamental symbol, a breeder of dogmas, earnestness of, important. Present, considered as an annalist, not long wonderful. President, slaveholding natural to, must be a Southern resident, must own a nigger, the, his policy, his resemblance to Jackson. Princes mix cocktails. Principle, exposure spoils it. Principles, bad, when less harmful, when useless. Professor, Latin, in College, Scaliger. Prophecies, fulfilment of. Prophecy, a notable one. Prospect Hill. Providence has a natural life-preserver. Proviso, bitterly spoken of. Prudence, sister, her idiosyncratic teapot. Psammeticus, an experiment of. Psyche, poor. Public opinion, a blind and drunken guide, nudges Mr. Wilbur's elbow, ticklers of. Punkin Falls 'Weekly Parallel.' Putnam, General Israel, his lines. Pythagoras a bean-hater, why. Pythagoreans, fish reverenced by, why.

_Quid, ingens nicotianum_. Quixote, Don.

Rafn, Professor. Rag, one of sacred college. Rantoul, Mr., talks loudly, pious reason for not enlisting. Recruiting sergeant, Devil supposed the first. Religion, Southern, its commercial advantages. Representatives' Chamber. Rhinothism, society for promoting. Rhyme, whether natural not considered. Rib, an infrangible one. Richard the First of England, his Christian fervor. Riches conjectured to have legs as well as wings. Ricos Hombres. Ringtail Rangers. Roanoke Island. Robinson, Mr. John P., his opinions fully stated. Rocks, pocket full of. Roosters in rainy weather, their misery. Rotation insures mediocrity and inexperience. Rough and ready, a Wig, a kind of scratch. Royal Society, American fellows of. Rum and water combine kindly. Runes resemble bird-tracks. Runic inscriptions, their different grades of unintelligibility and consequent value. Russell, Earl, is good enough to expound our Constitution for us. Russian eagle turns Prussian blue. _Ryeus, Bacchi epitheton_.

Sabbath, breach of. Sabellianism, one accused of. Sailors, their rights how won. Saltillo, unfavorable view of. Salt-river, in Mexican, what. _Samuel, avunculus_, 271. Samuel, Uncle, riotous, yet has qualities demanding reverence, a good provider for his family, an exorbitant bill of, makes some shrewd guesses, expects his boots, 245. Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking. Santa Anna, his expensive leg. Sappho, some human nature in. Sassycus, an impudent Indian. Satan, never wants attorneys, an expert talker by signs, a successful fisherman with little or no bait, cunning fetch of, dislikes ridicule, ought not to have credit of ancient oracles, his worst pitfall. Satirist, incident to certain dangers. Savages, Canadian, chance of redemption offered to. Sawin, B., Esquire, his letter not written in verse, a native of Jaalam not regular attendant on Rev. Mr. Wilbur's preaching, a fool, his statements trustworthy, his ornithological tastes, letters from, his curious discovery in regard to bayonets, displays proper family pride, modestly confesses himself less wise than the Queen of Sheba, the old Adam in, peeps out, a _miles emeritus_, is made text for a sermon, loses a leg, an eye, left hand, four fingers of right hand, has six or more ribs broken, a rib of his infrangible, allows a certain amount of preterite greenness in himself, his share of spoil limited, his opinion of Mexican climate, acquires property of a certain sort, his experience of glory, stands sentry, and puns thereupon, undergoes martyrdom in some of its most painful forms, enters the candidating business, modestly states the (avail) abilities which qualify him for high political station, has no principles, a peace-man, unpledged, has no objections to owning peculiar property, but would not like to monopolize the truth, his account with glory, a selfish motive hinted in, sails for Eldorado, shipwrecked on a metaphorical promontory, parallel between, and Rev. Mr. Wilbur (not Plutarchian), conjectured to have bathed in river Selemnus, loves plough wisely, but not too well, a foreign mission probably expected by, unanimously nominated for presidency, his country's father-in-law, nobly emulates Cincinnatus, is not a crooked stick, advises his adherents, views of, on present state of politics, popular enthusiasm for, at Bellers's, and its disagreeable consequences, inhuman treatment of, by Bellers, his opinion of the two parties, agrees with Mr. Webster, his antislavery zeal, his proper self respect, his unaffected piety, his not intemperate temperance, a thrilling adventure of, his prudence and economy, bound to Captain Jakes, but regains his freedom, is taken prisoner, ignominiously treated, his consequent resolution. Sawin, Honorable B. O'F., a vein of humor suspected in, gets into an enchanted castle, finds a wooden leg better in some respects than a living one, takes something hot, his experience of Southern hospitality, water-proof internally, sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, his liberal-handedness, gets his arrears of pension, marries the widow Shannon, confiscated, finds in himself a natural necessity of income, his missionary zeal, never a stated attendant on Mr. Wilbur's preaching, sang bass in choir, prudently avoided contribution toward bell, abhors a covenant of works, if saved at all, must be saved genteelly, reports a sermon, experiences religion, would consent to a dukedom, converted to unanimity, sound views of, makes himself an extempore marquis, extract of letter from, his opinion of Paddies, of Johnson. Sayres, a martyr. Scaliger, saying of. _Scarabæus pilularius_. Scott, General, his claims to the presidency. Scrimgour, Rev. Shearjashub. Scythians, their diplomacy commended. Sea, the wormy. Seamen, colored, sold. _Secessia, licta_. Secession, its legal nature defined. Secret, a great military. Selemnus, a sort of Lethean river. Senate, debate in, made readable. Seneca, saying of, another, overrated by a saint (but see Lord Bolingbroke's opinion of, in a letter to Dean Swift), his letters not commended, a son of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, quoted. Serbonian bog of literature. Sermons, some pitched too high. Seward, Mister, the late, his gift of prophecy, needs stiffening, misunderstands parable of fatted calf. Sextons, demand for, heroic official devotion of one. Seymour, Governor. Shakespeare, a good reporter. Shaking fever, considered as an employment. Sham, President, honest. Shannon, Mrs., a widow, her family and accomplishments, has tantrums, her religious views, her notions of a moral and intellectual being, her maidan name, her blue blood. Sheba, Queen of. Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wilbur's turned wolves. Shem, Scriptural curse of. Shiraz Centre, lead-mine at. Shirley, Governor. Shoddy, poor covering for outer or inner man. Shot at sight, privilege of being. Show, natural to love it. Silver spoon born in Democracy's mouth, what. Simms, an intellectual giant, twin-birth with Maury (which see). Sin, wilderness of, modern, what. Sinai suffers outrages. Skim-milk has its own opinions. Skin, hole in, strange taste of some for. Skippers, Yankee, busy in the slave-trade. Slaughter, whether God strengthen us for. Slaughterers and soldiers compared. Slaughtering nowadays _is_ slaughtering. Slavery, of no color, corner-stone of liberty, also keystone, last crumb of Eden, a Jonah, an institution, a private State concern. Slidell, New York trash. Sloanshure, Habakkuk, Esquire, President of Jaalam Bank. Smith, Joe, used as a translation. Smith, John, an interesting character. Smith, Mr., fears entertained for, dined with. Smith, N.B., his magnanimity. _Smithius, dux_. Soandso, Mr., the great, defines his position. Soft-heartedness, misplaced, is soft-headedness. Sol, the fisherman, soundness of respiratory organs hypothetically attributed to. Soldiers, British, ghosts of, insubordinate. Solomon, Song of, portions of it done into Latin verse by Mr. Wilbur. Solon, a saying of. Soul, injurious properties of. South, its natural eloquence, facts have a mean spite against. South Carolina, futile attempt to anchor, her pedigrees. Southern men, their imperfect notions of labor, of subscriptions, too high pressure, prima facie noble. Spanish, to walk, what. Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech. Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits engaged in it. Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm. Spring, described. Star, north, subject to indictment, whether. Statesman, a genuine, defined. Stearns, Othniel, fable by. Stone Spike, the. Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud. Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot. Style, the catalogue. Sumter, shame of. Sunday should mind its own business. Swearing commended as a figure of speech. Swett, Jethro C., his fall. Swift, Dean, threadbare saying of.

Tag, elevated to the Cardinalate. Taney, C.J. Tarandfeather, Rev. Mr. Tarbox, Shearjashub, first white child born in Jaalam. Tartars, Mongrel. Taxes, direct, advantages of. Taylor, General, greased by Mr. Choate. Taylor zeal, its origin. Teapots, how made dangerous. Ten, the upper. Tesephone, banished for long-windedness. Thacker, Rev. Preserved, D.D. Thanks get lodged. Thanksgiving, Feejee. Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory, letter of, to the Devil. Theleme, Abbey of. Theocritus, the inventor of idyllic poetry Theory, defined. Thermopylæs, too many. 'They'll say' a notable bully. Thirty-nine articles might be made serviceable. Thor, a foolish attempt of. Thoreau. Thoughts, live ones characterized. Thumb, General Thomas, a valuable member of society. Thunder, supposed in easy circumstances. Thynne, Mr., murdered. Tibullus. Time, an innocent personage to swear by, a scene-shifter. Tinkham, Deacon Pelatiah, story concerning, not told, alluded to, does a very sensible thing. Toms, Peeping. Toombs, a doleful sound from. Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones. Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of. Truth and falsehood start from same point, truth invulnerable to satire, compared to a river, of fiction sometimes truer than fact, told plainly, _passim_. Tuileries, exciting scene at, front parlor of. Tully, a saying of. Tunnel, Northwest-Passage, a poor investment. Turkey-Buzzard Boost. Tuscaloosa. Tutchel, Rev. Jonas, a Sadducee. Tweedledee, gospel according to. Tweedledum, great principles of.

_Tylerus, juvenis insignis, porphyrogenitus, Iohanides, flito celeris, bene titus_. Tyrants, European, how made to tremble.

Ulysses, husband of Penelope, borrows money, (for full particulars of, see Homer and Dante) _rex_. Unanimity, new ways of producing. Union, its hoops off, its good old meaning. Universe, its breeching. University, triennial catalogue of. Us, nobody to be compared with, and see _World, passim_.

Van Buren, fails of gaining Mr. Sawin's confidence, his son John reproved. Van, Old, plan to set up. Vattel, as likely to fall on _your_ toes as on mine. Venetians invented something once. Vices, cardinal, sacred conclave of. Victoria, Queen, her natural terror, her best carpets. Vinland. Virgin, the, letter of, to Magistrates of Messina. _Virginia, descripta_. Virginians, their false heraldry. Voltaire, _esprit de_. Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, singular views of.

Wachuset Mountain. Wait, General. Wales, Prince of, calls Brother Jonathan _consanguineus noster_, but had not, apparently, consulted the Garter King at Arms. Walpole, Horace, classed, his letters praised. Waltham Plain, Cornwallis at. Walton, punctilious in his intercourse with fishes. War, abstract, horrid, its hoppers, grist of, what. Warren, Fort. Warton, Thomas, a story of. Washington, charge brought against. Washington, city of, climatic influence of, on coats, mentioned, grand jury of. Washingtons, two hatched at a time by improved machine. _Watchmanus, noctivagus_. Water, Taunton, proverbially weak. Water-trees. Weakwash, a name fatally typical. Webster, his unabridged quarto, its deleteriousness. Webster, some sentiments of, commended by Mr. Sawin. Westcott, Mr., his horror. Whig party has a large throat, but query as to swallowing spurs. White-house. Wickliffe, Robert, consequences of his bursting. Wife-trees. Wilbur, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox), an invariable rule of, her profile, tribute to. Wilbur, Rev. Homer, A.M., consulted, his instructions to his flock, a proposition of his for Protestant bomb-shells, his elbow nudged, his notions of satire, some opinions of his quoted with apparent approval by Mr. Biglow, geographical speculations of, a justice of the peace, a letter of, a Latin pun of, runs against a post without injury, does not seek notoriety (whatever some malignants may affirm), fits youths for college, a chaplain during late war with England, a shrewd observation of, some curious speculations of, his Martello-tower, forgets he is not in pulpit, extracts from sermon of, interested in John Smith, his views concerning present state of letters, a stratagem of, ventures two hundred and fourth interpretation of Beast in Apocalypse, christens Hon. B. Sawin, then an infant, an addition to our _sylva_ proposed by, curious and instructive adventure of, his account with an unnatural uncle, his uncomfortable imagination, speculations concerning Cincinnatus, confesses digressive tendency of mind, goes to work on sermon (not without fear that his readers will dub him with a reproachful epithet like that with which Isaac Allerton, a Mayflower man, revenges himself on a delinquent debtor of his, calling him in his will, and thus holding him up to posterity, as 'John Peterson, THE BORE'), his modesty, disclaims sole authorship of Mr. Biglow's writings, his low opinion of prepensive autographs, a chaplain in 1812, cites a heathen comedian, his fondness for the Book of Job, preaches a Fast-Day discourse, is prevented from narrating a singular occurrence, is presented with a pair of new spectacles, his church services indecorously sketched by Mr. Sawin, hopes to decipher a Runic inscription, a fable by, deciphers Runic inscription, his method therein, is ready to reconsider his opinion of tobacco, his opinion of the Puritans, his death, born in Pigsgusset, letter of Rev. Mr. Hitchcock concerning, fond of Milton's Christmas hymn, his monument (proposed), his epitaph, his last letter, his supposed disembodied spirit, table belonging to, sometimes wrote Latin verses, his table-talk, his prejudices, against Baptists, his sweet nature, his views of style, a story of his. Wildbore, a vernacular one, how to escape. Wilkes, Captain, borrows rashly. Wind, the, a good Samaritan. Wingfield, his 'Memorial'. Wooden leg, remarkable for sobriety, never eats pudding. Woods, the. See _Belmont_. Works, covenants of, condemned. World, this, its unhappy temper. Wright, Colonel, providentially rescued. Writing, dangerous to reputation. Wrong, abstract, safe to oppose.

Yankees, their worst wooden nutmegs.

Zack, Old.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

A beggar through the world am I, A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, A heap of bare and splintery crags, A hundred years! they're quickly fled, A legend that grew in the forest's hush, A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, A poet cannot strive for despotism, A presence both by night and day, A race of nobles may die out, A stranger came one night to Yussouf's tent, About the oak that framed this chair, of old, Alike I hate to be your debtor, Along a river-side, I know not where, Amid these fragments of heroic days, An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale, 'And how could you dream of meeting?' Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, Are we, then, wholly fallen? Can it be, As a twig trembles, which a bird, As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's slime, As, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches, As life runs on, the road grows strange, As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills, As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, At Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, At length arrived, your book I take, At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages, Ay, pale and silent maiden,

B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing! Beloved, in the noisy city here, Beneath the trees, Bowing thyself in dust before a Book,

Can this be thou who, lean and pale, Come back before the birds are flown, 'Come forth!' my catbird calls to me, Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm,

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Dear M. ---- By way of saving time, Dear Sir,--You wish to know my notions, Dear Sir,--Your letter come to han', Dear Wendell, why need count the years, Death never came so nigh to me before, Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman? Down 'mid the tangled roots of things,

Ef I a song or two could make, Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud, Ere pales in Heaven the morning star,

Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, Far through the memory shines a happy day, Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, For this true nobleness I seek in vain, Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood, From the close-shut windows gleams no spark, Full oft the pathway to her door,

Giddings, far rougher names than thine have grown, Go! leave me, Priest; my soul would be, God! do not let my loved one die, God makes sech nights, all white an' still, God sends his teachers unto every age, Godminster? Is it Fancy's play? Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown, Gone, gone from us! and shall we see, Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, Great truths are portions of the soul of man, Guvener B. is a sensible man,

He came to Florence long ago, He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough, He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide, He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire, Heaven's cup held down to me I drain, Here once my step was quickened, Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder! Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow, Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear, How strange are the freaks of memory! How struggles with the tempest's swells, How was I worthy so divine a loss, Hushed with broad sunlight lies the hill,

I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap, I call as fly the irrevocable hours, I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away, I christened you in happier days, before, I could not bear to see those eyes, I did not praise thee when the crowd, I do not come to weep above thy pall, I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, I du believe in Freedom's cause, I go to the ridge in the forest, I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away, I had a little daughter, I have a fancy: how shall I bring it, I hed it on my min' las' time, when I to write ye started, I know a falcon swift and peerless, I love to start out arter night's begun, I need not praise the sweetness of his song, I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, I sat and watched the walls of night, I sat one evening in my room, I saw a Sower walking slow, I saw the twinkle of white feet, I sent you a message, my friens, t'other day, I spose you recollect thet I explained my gennle views, I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, I swam with undulation soft, I thank ye, my frien's, for the warmth o' your greetin', I thought our love at full, but I did err, I treasure in secret some long, fine hair, I, walking the familiar street, I was with thee in Heaven: I cannot tell, I watched a moorland torrent run, I went to seek for Christ, I would more natures were like thine, I would not have this perfect love of ours, If he be a nobler lover, take him! If I let fall a word of bitter mirth, If I were the rose at your window, In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, In good old times, which means, you know, In his tower sat the poet, In life's small things be resolute and great, In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, In vain we call old notions fudge, Into the sunshine, It don't seem hardly right, John, It is a mere wild rosebud, It mounts athwart the windy hill, It was past the hour of trysting, It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters,

Leaves fit to have been poor Juliet's cradle-rhyme, Let others wonder what fair face, Light of triumph in her eyes, Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, Looms there the New Land,

Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born, Mary, since first I knew thee, to this hour, Men say the sullen instrument, Men! whose boast it is that ye, My coachman, in the moonlight there, My day began not till the twilight fell, My heart, I cannot still it, My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die, My name is Water: I have sped, My soul was like the sea, My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,

Never, surely, was holier man, New England's poet, rich in love as years, Nine years have slipt like hour-glass sand, No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him? Nor deemed he lived unto himself alone, Not always unimpeded can I pray, Not as all other women are, Now Biörn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days,

O days endeared to every Muse, 'O Dryad feet,' O dwellers in the valley-land, O Land of Promise! from what Pisgah's height, O moonlight deep and tender, O wandering dim on the extremest edge, Of all the myriad moods of mind, Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, Oh, tell me less or tell me more, Old events have modern meanings; only that survives, Old Friend, farewell! Your kindly door again, On this wild waste, where never blossom came, Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, Once hardly in a cycle blossometh, Once on a time there was a pool, One after one the stars have risen and set, One feast, of holy days the crest, One kiss from all others prevents me, Opening one day a book of mine, Our love is not a fading, earthly flower, Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Over his keys the musing organist,

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade, Praisest Law, friend? We, too, love it much as they that love it best, Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see, Punctorum garretos colens et cellara Quinque,

Rabbi Jehosha used to say, Reader! Walk up at once (it will soon be too late), Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine,

Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see, Seat of all woes? Though Nature's firm decree, She gave me all that woman can, Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold, Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue, Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will, Silencioso por la puerta, Sisters two, all praise to you, Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope, Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so, So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away, Some sort of heart I know is hers, Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Somewhere in India, upon a time, Spirit, that rarely comest now, Still thirteen years: 'tis autumn now, Stood the tall Archangel weighing, Strong, simple, silent are the [steadfast] laws, Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern,

Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall, That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon, The Bardling came where by a river grew, The century numbers fourscore years, The cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, The dandelions and buttercups, The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill, The fire is burning clear and blithely, The hope of Truth grows stronger, day by day, The little gate was reached at last, The love of all things springs from love of one, The Maple puts her corals on in May, The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall, The moon shines white and silent, The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew, The next whose fortune 'twas a tale to tell, The night is dark, the stinging sleet, The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh his end, The path from me to you that led, The pipe came safe, and welcome too, The rich man's son inherits lands, The same good blood that now refills, The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, The snow had begun in the gloaming, The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward to the skies, The wind is roistering out of doors, The wisest man could ask no more of Fate, The world turns mild; democracy, they say, There are who triumph in a losing cause, There came a youth upon the earth, There lay upon the ocean's shore, There never yet was flower fair in vain, Therefore think not the Past is wise alone, These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast, This is the midnight of the century,--hark! This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like our October trainin', This little blossom from afar, Thou look'dst on me all yesternight, Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things, Though old the thought and oft exprest, Thrash away, you'll _hev_ to rattle, Through suffering and sorrow thou hast passed, Thy love thou sentest oft to me, Thy voice is like a fountain, 'Tis a woodland enchanted! To those who died for her on land and sea, True as the sun's own work but more refined, True Love is a humble, low-born thing, Turbid from London's noise and smoke, 'Twas sung of old in hut and hall, 'Twere no hard task, perchance, to win, Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe,

Unconscious as the sunshine, simply sweet, Unseen Musician, thou art sure to please, Untremulous in the river clear,

Violet! sweet violet!

Wait a little: do _we_ not wait? Walking alone where we walked together, We see but half the causes of our deeds, We, too, have autumns, when our leaves, We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, Weak-winged is song, What boot your houses and your lands? What countless years and wealth of brain were spent, 'What fairings will ye that I bring?' What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his! What hath Love with Thought to do? What know we of the world immense, What man would live coffined with brick and stone, What mean these banners spread, 'What means this glory round our feet,' What Nature makes in any mood, What visionary tints the year puts on, What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast, When I was a beggarly boy, When oaken woods with buds are pink, When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand, When the down is on the chin, When wise Minerva still was young, Where is the true man's fatherland? 'Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?' Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not, Whether the idle prisoner through his grate, While the slow clock, as they were miser's gold, Whither? Albeit I follow fast, Who cometh over the hills, Who does his duty is a question, Who hath not been a poet? Who hath not, Why should I seek her spell to decompose, With what odorous woods and spices, Woe worth the hour when it is crime, Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done, Worn and footsore was the Prophet,

Ye little think what toil it was to build, Ye who, passing graves by night, Yes, faith is a goodly anchor,

Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown,

INDEX OF TITLES

The titles of major works and of general divisions are set in SMALL CAPITALS.

A.C.L., To. Above and Below. Absence. After the Burial. Agassiz. Agro-Dolce. Al Fresco. Aladdin. Alexander, Fanny, To. All-Saints. Allegra. Ambrose. Anti-Apis. Appledore, Pictures from. April Birthday, An--at Sea. Arcadia Rediviva. At the Burns Centennial. At the Commencement Dinner, 1866. Auf Wiedersehen. Auspex.

Bankside. Bartlett, Mr. John, To. Beaver Brook. Beggar, The. Bibliolatres. Biglow, Mr. Hosea, to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Biglow, Mr., Latest Views of. BIGLOW PAPERS, THE. Biglow's, Mr. Hosea, Speech in March Meeting. Birch-Tree, The. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow. Birthday Verses. Black Preacher, The. Blondel, Two Scenes from the Life of. Bon Voyage. Boss, The. Boston, Letter from. Bradford, C.F., To. Brakes, The. Brittany, A Legend of. Broken Tryst, The. Burns Centennial, At the.

Captive, The. Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington, On the. Casa sin Alma. CATHEDRAL, THE. Cervantes, Prison of. Changed Perspective. Changeling, The. Channing, Dr., Elegy on the Death of. Chippewa Legend, A. Christmas Carol, A. Cochituate Water, Ode written for the Celebration of the Introduction of the, into the City of Boston. Columbus. Commemoration, Ode recited at the Harvard. Concord Bridge, Ode read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at. Contrast, A. Courtin', The. Credidimus Jovem regnare. Curtis, George William, An Epistle to.

Dancing Bear, The. Dandelion, To the. Dante, On a Portrait of, by Giotto. Dara. Darkened Mind, The. Dead House, The. Death of a Friend's Child, On the. Death of Queen Mercedes. Debate in the Sennit, The. Discovery, The. Dobson's, Mr. Austin, 'Old World Idylls,' Receiving a Copy of.

E.G. de R. EARLIER POEMS. Eleanor makes Macaroons. Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing. Ember Picture, An. Endymion. Epistle to George William Curtis, An. Estrangement. Eurydice. Ewig-Weibliche, Das. Extreme Unction. Eye's Treasury, The.

FABLE FOR CRITICS, A. Fact or Fancy? Falcon, The. Familiar Epistle to a Friend, A. Fancy's Casuistry. Fatherland, The. Festina Lente. Finding of the Lyre, The. First Snow-Fall, The. Fitz Adam's Story. Flying Dutchman, The. Foot-Path, The. For an Autograph. Foreboding, A. Forlorn, The. Fountain, The. Fountain of Youth, The. Fourth of July, 1876, An Ode for the. FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. France, Ode to. 'Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit.' Freedom. Future, To the.

Garrison, W.L., To. Ghost-Seer, The. Giddings, J.R., To. Glance behind the Curtain, A. Godminster Chimes. Gold Egg: A Dream-Fantasy. Grant, General, On a Bust of. Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground, Lines suggested by the. Growth of the Legend, The.

H.W.L., To. Hamburg, An Incident of the Fire at. Happiness, Ode to. Harvard Commemoration, Ode recited at the. HEARTSEASE AND RUE. Hebe. Heritage, The. Holmes, To. Hood, To the Memory of. How I consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes. Hunger and Cold.

In a Copy of Omar Khayydm. In Absence. In an Album. In the Half-Way House. In the Twilight. Incident in a Railroad Car, An. Incident of the Fire at Hamburg, An. Indian-Summer Reverie, An. Inscriptions. For a Bell at Cornell University. For a Memorial Window to Sir Walter Raleigh, set up in St. Margaret's, Westminster, by American Contributors. Proposed for a Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Boston. International Copyright. Interview with Miles Standish, An. Inveraray, On Planting a Tree at. Invita Minerva. Invitation, An. Irené.

Jonathan to John.

Keats, To the Spirit of. Kettelopotomachia. Kossuth.

Lamartine, To. Landlord, The. LAST POEMS. Latest Views of Mr. Biglow. Leaving the Matter open. Legend of Brittany, A. L'ENVOi (To the Muse). L'Envoi (Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not). Lesson, The. Letter, A, from a candidate for the presidency in answer to suttin questions proposed by Mr. Hosea Biglow, inclosed in a note from Mr. Biglow to S.H. Gay, Esq., editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Letter, A, from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of the Boston Courier, inclosing a poem of his son, Mr. Hosea Biglow. Letter, A, from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. J.T. Buckingham, editor of the Boston Courier, covering a letter from Mr. B. Sawin, private in the Massachusetts Regiment. Letter, A Second, from B. Sawin, Esq. Letter, A Third, from B. Sawin, Esq. LETTER FROM BOSTON. Lines (suggested by the Graves of Two English Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground). Longing. Love. Love and Thought. Love's Clock.

M.O.S., To. Mahmood the Image-Breaker. Maple, The. Masaccio. Mason and Slidell: a Yankee Idyll. Memoriæ Positum. MEMORIAL VERSES. Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session, A. Midnight. Miner, The. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Misconception, A. Miss D.T., To. Monna Lisa. Mood, A. Moon, The. My Love. My Portrait Gallery.

Nest, The. New-Year's Eve, 1850. New Year's Greeting, A. Nightingale in the Study, The. Nightwatches. Nobler Lover, The. Nomades, The. Norton, Charles Eliot, To.

Oak, The. Ode, An (for the Fourth of July, 1876). Ode (In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder). Ode (read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at Concord Bridge). Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration. Ode to France. Ode to Happiness. Ode (written for the Celebration of the Introduction of the Cochituate Water into the City of Boston). Omar Khayyám, In a Copy of. On a Bust of General Grant. On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto. On an Autumn Sketch of H.G. Wild. On being asked for an Autograph in Venice. On Board the '76. On burning some Old Letters. On hearing a Sonata of Beethoven's played in the Next Room. On planting a Tree at Inveraray. On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment. On receiving a Copy of Mr. Austin Dobson's 'Old World Idylls.' On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington. On the Death of a Friend's Child. On the Death of Charles Turner Torrey. Optimist, The. Oracle of the Goldfishes, How I consulted the. ORIENTAL APOLOGUE, AN. Origin of Didactic Poetry, The.

Palfrey, John Gorham, To. Palinode. Paolo to Francesca. Parable, A (An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale). Parable, A (Said Christ our Lord, I will go and see). Parable, A (Worn and footsore was the Prophet). Parting of the Ways, The. Past, To the. Perdita, singing. To. Pessimoptimism. Petition, The. Phillips, Wendell. Phoebe. Pictures from Appledore. Pine-Tree, To a. Pioneer, The. Pious Editor's Creed, The. POEMS OF THE WAR. Portrait Gallery, My. Portrait of Dante by Giotto, On a. Prayer, A. Pregnant Comment, The. Present Crisis, The. Prison of Cervantes. Prometheus. Protest, The.

Recall, The. Remarks of Increase D. O'Phace, Esquire, at an extrumpery caucus in State Street, reported by Mr. H. Biglow. Remembered Music. Requiem, A. Rhoecus. Rosaline. Rose, The: a Ballad.

St. Michael the Weigher. Sayings. Scherzo. Science and Poetry. Scottish Border. Search, The. Seaweed. Secret, The. Self-Study. Serenade. She came and went. Shepherd of King Admetus, The. Si descendero in Infernum, ades. Singing Leaves, The. Sirens, The. Sixty-Eighth Birthday. Song (O moonlight deep and tender). Song (to M.L.). Song (Violet! sweet violet!). SONNETS. Bankside. 'Beloved, in the noisy city here'. Bon Voyage! Brakes, The. Dancing Bear, The. Death of Queen Mercedes. E.G. de R. Eye's Treasury, The. 'For this true nobleness I seek in vain.' Foreboding, A. 'Great truths are portions of the soul of man.' 'I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap.' 'I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away.' 'I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away.' 'I thought our love at full, but I did err.' 'I would not have this perfect love of ours.' In Absence. Maple, The. 'My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die.' Nightwatches. On an Autumn Sketch of H.G. Wild. On being asked for an Autograph in Venice. On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment. 'Our love is not a fading, earthly flower.' Paolo to Francesca. Pessimoptimism. Phillips, Wendell. Prison of Cervantes. Scottish Border. Street, The. Sub Pondere crescit. 'There never yet was flower fair in vain.' To A.C.L. To a Friend. To a Lady playing on the Cithern. To Fanny Alexander. To J.R. Giddings. To M.O.S. To M.W., on her Birthday. To Miss D.T. To the Spirit of Keats. To Whittier. 'What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee.' Winlock, Joseph. With a copy of Aucassin and Nicolete. With an Armchair. Wyman, Jeffries. Sower, The. Speech of Honourable Preserved Doe in Secret Caucus. Standish, Miles, An Interview with. Stanzas on Freedom. Street, The. Studies for Two Heads. Sub Pondere crescit. Summer Storm. Sun-Worship. Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line.

Telepathy. Tempora Mutantur. THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. Threnodia. To----. To A.C.L. To a Friend. To a Lady playing on the Cithern. To a Pine-Tree. To C.F. Bradford. To Charles Eliot Norton. To H.W.L. To Holmes. To J.R. Giddings. To John Gorham Palfrey. To Lamartine. To M.O.S. To M.W., on her Birthday. To Miss D.T. To Mr. John Bartlett. To Perdita, singing. To the Dandelion. To the Future. To the Memory of Hood. To the Past. To the Spirit of Keats. To W.L. Garrison. To Whittier. Token, The. Torrey, Charles Turner, On the Death of. Trial. Turner's Old Téméraire. Two Gunners, The. Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel.

Under the October Maples. Under the Old Elm. UNDER THE WILLOWS, AND OTHER POEMS. Under the Willows. UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT, THE.

Valentine, A. Verses, intended to go with a Posset Dish. Villa Franca. VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL, THE. Voyage to Vinland, The.

Washers of the Shroud, The. What Mr. Robinson thinks. What Rabbi Jehosha said. Whittier, To. Wild, H.G., On an Autumn Sketch of. Wind-Harp, The. Winlock, Joseph. Winter-Evening Hymn to my Fire, A. With a Copy of Aucassin and Nicolete. With a Pair of Gloves lost in a Wager. With a Pressed Flower. With a Seashell. With an Armchair. Without and Within. Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment, On reading. Wyman, Jeffries.

Youthful Experiment in English Hexameters, A. Yussouf.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The wise Scandinavians probably called their bards by the queer-looking title of Scald in a delicate way, as it were, just to hint to the world the hot water they always get into.]

[Footnote 2: To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- -versely absurd 'tis to sound this name _Cowper_, As people in general call him named _super_, I remark that he rhymes it himself with horse-trooper.]

[Footnote 3: (If you call Snooks an owl, he will show by his looks That he's morally certain you're jealous of Snooks.)]

[Footnote 4:(Cuts rightly called wooden, as all must admit.)]

[Footnote 5: That is in most cases we do, but not all, Past a doubt, there are men who are innately small, Such as Blank, who, without being 'minished a tittle, Might stand for a type of the Absolute Little.]

[Footnote 6: (And at this just conclusion will surely arrive, That the goodness of earth is more dead than alive.)]

[Footnote 7: Not forgetting their tea and their toast, though, the while.]

[Footnote 8: Turn back now to page--goodness only knows what, And take a fresh hold on the thread of my plot.]

[Footnote 9: The reader curious in such matters may refer (if he can find them) to _A sermon preached on the Anniversary of the Dark Day, An Artillery Election Sermon, A Discourse on the Late Eclipse, Dorcas, A Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam Submit Tidd, Relict of the late Experience Tidd, Esq., &c., &c._]

[Footnote 10: Aut insanit, aut versos facit. --H.W.]

[Footnote 11: In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr. Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time be a comparatively innocent personage to swear by, and though Longinus in his discourse [Greek: Peri 'Upsous] have commended timely oaths as not only a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have always kept my lips free from that abomination. _Odi profanum vulgus_, I hate your swearing and hectoring fellows.--H.W.]

[Footnote 12: i hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But their _is_ fun to a cornwallis I aint agoin' to deny it.--H.B.]

[Footnote 13: he means Not quite so fur I guess.--H.B.]

[Footnote 14: the ignerant creeter means Sekketary; but he ollers stuck to his books like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone.--H.B.]

[Footnote 15: it must be aloud that thare's a streak of nater in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things in nater to see a rispecktable dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch maybe) a riggin' himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.--H.B.]

[Footnote 16: these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha becum.--H.B.]

[Footnote 17: it wuz 'tumblebug' as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha wouldn't stan' it no how. idnow as tha _wood_ and idnow _as_ tha wood.--H.B.]

[Footnote 18: he means human beins, that's wut he means. i spose he kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes from.--H.B.]

[Footnote 19: The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his recently discovered tractate _De Republica_, tells us, _Nec vero habere virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare_, and from our Milton, who says: 'I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, _not without dust and heat.'--Areop_. He had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim with Donatus (if Saint Jerome's tutor may stand sponsor for a curse), _Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!_--H.W.]

[Footnote 20: That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians without a wrinkle,--_Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter_.--H.W.]

[Footnote 21: There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,--

'Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.'--H.W.]

[Footnote 22: Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of othere prophecies? It is granting too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Phillippe was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:--

'Rapida fortuna ac levis Præcepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit.'

Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence of Æschylus,--

[Greek: Apas de trachus hostis han neon kratae.]

--H.W.]

[Footnote 23: A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the _Mephitis_.--H.W.]

[Footnote 24: _Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English_.]

[Footnote 25: Cited in Collier. (I give my authority where I do not quote from the original book.)]

[Footnote 26: The word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, in Golding, and Warner. Milton also was fond of the word.]

[Footnote 27: Though I find Worcëster in the _Mirror for Magistrates_.]

[Footnote 28: This was written twenty years ago, and now (1890) I cannot open an English journal without coming upon an Americanism.]

[Footnote 29: The Rev. A.L. Mayhew of Wadham College, Oxford, has convinced me that I was astray in this.]

[Footnote 30: _Dame_, in English, is a decayed gentlewoman of the same family.]

[Footnote 31: Which, whether in that form, or under its aliases _witch_-grass and _cooch_-grass, points us back to its original Saxon _quick_.]

[Footnote 32: And, by the way, the Yankee never says 'o'nights,' but uses the older adverbial form, analogous to the German _nachts_.]

[Footnote 33: Greene in his _Quip for an Upstart Courtier_ says, 'to _square_ it up and downe the streetes before his mistresse.']