Chapter 11

Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, Spring with her birds, or children at their play, Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art, Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, Turn to the record where his years are told,-- Count his gray hairs,--they cannot make him old! What magic power has changed the faded mime? One breath of memory on the dust of time. As the last window in the buttressed wall Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, Though to the passing crowd its hues are spread, A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows When through its pictured screen the sunlight flows, And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane See angels glow in every shapeless stain; So streamed the vision through his sunken eye, Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. All the wild hopes his eager boyhood knew, All the young fancies riper years proved true, The sweet, low-whispered words, the winning glance From queens of song, from Houris of the dance, Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing phrase, And Beauty's silence when her blush was praise, And melting Pride, her lashes wet with tears, Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns and cheers, Pangs of wild joy that perish on the tongue, And all that poets dream, but leave unsung!

In every heart some viewless founts are fed From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; On the worn features of the weariest face Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace, As in old gardens left by exiled kings The marble basins tell of hidden springs, But, gray with dust, and overgrown with weeds, Their choking jets the passer little heeds, Till time's revenges break their seals away, And, clad in rainbow light, the waters play.

Good night, fond dreamer! let the curtain fall The world's a stage, and we are players all. A strange rehearsal! Kings without their crowns, And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing clowns, Speak the vain words that mock their throbbing hearts, As Want, stern prompter! spells them out their parts. The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay Is twice an actor in a twofold play. We smile at children when a painted screen Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; Ask the poor hireling, who has left his throne To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, Which of his double lives most real seems, The world of solid fact or scenic dreams? Canvas, or clouds,--the footlights, or the spheres,-- The play of two short hours, or seventy years? Dream on! Though Heaven may woo our open eyes, Through their closed lids we look on fairer skies; Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; The cheating future lends the present's bliss; Life is a running shade, with fettered hands, That chases phantoms over shifting sands; Death a still spectre on a marble seat, With ever clutching palms and shackled feet; The airy shapes that mock life's slender chain, The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, Death only grasps; to live is to pursue,-- Dream on! there 's nothing but illusion true!

A POEM

DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY, SEPTEMBER 9,1850

ANGEL of Death! extend thy silent reign! Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain No sable car along the winding road Has borne to earth its unresisting load; No sudden mound has risen yet to show Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below; No marble gleams to bid his memory live In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give; Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own!

Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled From their dim paths the children of the wild; The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells, The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells, Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil,-- Last of his wrecks that strews the alien soil! Here spread the fields that heaped their ripened store Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky blush; The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid, In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade; The gourd that swells beneath her tossing plume; The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of bloom,-- Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive With the wide murmurs of the scattered hive; Here glowed the apple with the pencilled streak Of morning painted on its southern cheek; The pear's long necklace strung with golden drops, Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared props; Here crept the growths that paid the laborer's care With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to spare; Here sprang the healing herbs which could not save The hand that reared them from the neighboring grave.

Yet all its varied charms, forever free From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain; No more, when Autumn strews the flaming leaves, The reaper's band shall gird its yellow sheaves; For thee alike the circling seasons flow Till the first blossoms heave the latest snow. In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, Life's withering flower shall drop its shrivelled seeds; Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap!

Spirit of Beauty! let thy graces blend With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. Come from the forest where the beech's screen Bars the fierce moonbeam with its flakes of green; Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, Stanch the deep wound That dries the maple's veins. Come with the stream whose silver-braided rills Fling their unclasping bracelets from the hills, Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's wings, Melts the white glitter of a hundred springs. Come from the steeps where look majestic forth From their twin thrones the Giants of the North On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their knees, Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with shaggy trees. Through the wide waste of ether, not in vain, Their softened gaze shall reach our distant plain; There, while the mourner turns his aching eyes On the blue mounds that print the bluer skies, Nature shall whisper that the fading view Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly hue. Cherub of Wisdom! let thy marble page Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; Teach us to live, not grudging every breath To the chill winds that waft us on to death, But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, And tempering gently every word it forms. Seraph of Love! in heaven's adoring zone, Nearest of all around the central throne, While with soft hands the pillowed turf we spread That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, With the low whisper,--Who shall first be laid In the dark chamber's yet unbroken shade?-- Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled here, And all we cherish grow more truly dear. Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging vault, Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's fault Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful sod, And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God.

FATHER of all! in Death's relentless claim We read thy mercy by its sterner name; In the bright flower that decks the solemn bier, We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; In the deep lessons that affliction draws, We trace the curves of thy encircling laws; In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, We own the love that calls us back to Thee!

Through the hushed street, along the silent plain, The spectral future leads its mourning train, Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, Where man's white lips and woman's wringing hands Track the still burden, rolling slow before, That love and kindness can protect no more; The smiling babe that, called to mortal strife, Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little life; The drooping child who prays in vain to live, And pleads for help its parent cannot give; The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; The strength of manhood broken in an hour; Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and care, Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair.

The sun shall set, and heaven's resplendent spheres Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by tears, But ah! how soon the evening stars will shed Their sleepless light around the slumbering dead!

Take them, O Father, in immortal trust! Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, Till the last angel rolls the stone away, And a new morning brings eternal day!

TO GOVERNOR SWAIN

DEAR GOVERNOR, if my skiff might brave The winds that lift the ocean wave, The mountain stream that loops and swerves Through my broad meadow's channelled curves Should waft me on from bound to bound To where the River weds the Sound, The Sound should give me to the Sea, That to the Bay, the Bay to thee.

It may not be; too long the track To follow down or struggle back. The sun has set on fair Naushon Long ere my western blaze is gone; The ocean disk is rolling dark In shadows round your swinging bark, While yet the yellow sunset fills The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills; The day-star wakes your island deer Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; Your mists are soaring in the blue While mine are sparks of glittering dew.

It may not be; oh, would it might, Could I live o'er that glowing night! What golden hours would come to life, What goodly feats of peaceful strife,-- Such jests, that, drained of every joke, The very bank of language broke,-- Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died With stitches in his belted side; While Time, caught fast in pleasure's chain, His double goblet snapped in twain, And stood with half in either hand,-- Both brimming full,--but not of sand!

It may not be; I strive in vain To break my slender household chain,-- Three pairs of little clasping hands, One voice, that whispers, not commands. Even while my spirit flies away, My gentle jailers murmur nay; All shapes of elemental wrath They raise along my threatened path; The storm grows black, the waters rise, The mountains mingle with the skies, The mad tornado scoops the ground, The midnight robber prowls around,-- Thus, kissing every limb they tie, They draw a knot and heave a sigh, Till, fairly netted in the toil, My feet are rooted to the soil. Only the soaring wish is free!-- And that, dear Governor, flies to thee! PITTSFIELD, 1851.

TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND

THE seed that wasteful autumn cast To waver on its stormy blast, Long o'er the wintry desert tost, Its living germ has never lost. Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, It feels the kindling ray of spring, And, starting from its dream of death, Pours on the air its perfumed breath.

So, parted by the rolling flood, The love that springs from common blood Needs but a single sunlit hour Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, From shore to shore, from zone to zone, Where summer's falling roses stain The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, Or where the lichen creeps below Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow.

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold May change the fair ancestral mould, No winter chills, no summer drains The life-blood drawn from English veins, Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows The love that with its fountain rose, Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, From age to age, from clime to clime! 1852.

AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH

COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, And leave the crowded hall For where the eyes of twilight shine O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, Each with its leafy crown; Hark! from their sides a thousand rills Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and shine, Strained through the shadowy nooks, Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks, and still they run With ripple, shade, and gleam, Till, clustering all their braids in one, They flow a single stream.

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, A silvery sash unwound, With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark,--a pygmy's ship; Beneath a child it rolls; Fear not,--one body makes it dip, But not a thousand souls.

Float we the grassy banks between; Without an oar we glide; The meadows, drest in living green, Unroll on either side.

Come, take the book we love so well, And let us read and dream We see whate'er its pages tell, And sail an English stream.

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, Still trilling as he flies; The linnet sings as there he sung; The unseen cuckoo cries,

And daisies strew the banks along, And yellow kingcups shine, With cowslips, and a primrose throng, And humble celandine.

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed Her daughter in the West, The fount was drained that opened first; She bared her other breast.

On the young planet's orient shore Her morning hand she tried; Then turned the broad medallion o'er And stamped the sunset side.

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, Her elm with hanging spray; She wears her mountain diadem Still in her own proud way.

Look on the forests' ancient kings, The hemlock's towering pride Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, And fell before it died.

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom And slights our grassy plain; For us she wears her court costume,-- Look on its broidered train;

The lily with the sprinkled dots, Brands of the noontide beam; The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, Its double in the stream,

As if some wounded eagle's breast, Slow throbbing o'er the plain, Had left its airy path impressed In drops of scarlet rain.

And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; There thrilled the thrush's soul; And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- The fire-plumed oriole!

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, Flung from the bright, blue sky; Below, the robin hops, and whoops His piercing, Indian cry.

Beauty runs virgin in the woods Robed in her rustic green, And oft a longing thought intrudes, As if we might have seen.

Her every finger's every joint Ringed with some golden line, Poet whom Nature did anoint Had our wild home been thine.

Yet think not so; Old England's blood Runs warm in English veins; But wafted o'er the icy flood Its better life remains.

Our children know each wildwood smell, The bayberry and the fern, The man who does not know them well Is all too old to learn.

Be patient! On the breathing page Still pants our hurried past; Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, The poet comes the last!

Though still the lark-voiced matins ring The world has known so long; The wood-thrush of the West shall sing Earth's last sweet even-song!

AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE

SHINE soft, ye trembling tears of light That strew the mourning skies; Hushed in the silent dews of night The harp of Erin lies.

What though her thousand years have past Of poets, saints, and kings,-- Her echoes only hear the last That swept those golden strings.

Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, The balmiest wreaths ye wear, Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers Heaven's own ambrosial air.

Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, By shadowy grove and rill; Thy song will soothe us while we own That his was sweeter still.

Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him Who gave thee swifter wings, Nor let thine envious shadow dim The light his glory flings.

If in his cheek unholy blood Burned for one youthful hour, 'T was but the flushing of the bud That blooms a milk-white flower.

Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, Who loved thy smiles so well, And spread thy mantle o'er his rest Of rose and asphodel.

The bark has sailed the midnight sea, The sea without a shore, That waved its parting sign to thee,-- "A health to thee, Tom Moore!"

And thine, long lingering on the strand, Its bright-hued streamers furled, Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, To seek the silent world.

Not silent! no, the radiant stars Still singing as they shine, Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, Have voices sweet as thine.

Wake, then, in happier realms above, The songs of bygone years, Till angels learn those airs of love That ravished mortal ears!

AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS

"Purpureos spargam flores."

THE wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave Is lying on thy Roman grave, Yet on its turf young April sets Her store of slender violets; Though all the Gods their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower. Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring? The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow. No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," Though its long blade of glossy green And pallid stripe may still be seen. Nature, who treads her nobles down, And gives their birthright to the clown, Has sown her base-born weedy things Above the garden's queens and kings. Yet one sweet flower of ancient race Springs in the old familiar place. When snows were melting down the vale, And Earth unlaced her icy mail, And March his stormy trumpet blew, And tender green came peeping through, I loved the earliest one to seek That broke the soil with emerald beak, And watch the trembling bells so blue Spread on the column as it grew. Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame The sweet, dead poet's holy name; The God of music gave thee birth, Called from the crimson-spotted earth, Where, sobbing his young life away, His own fair Hyacinthus lay. The hyacinth my garden gave Shall lie upon that Roman grave!

AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY

ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there.

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns.

And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, And torches flaring in the weedy caves, Where'er the waters lay with icy hands The shapes uplifted from their coral graves.

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, And lean, wild children gather from the shore To the black hovels bedded in the rocks.

But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, "One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, Raised the pale burden on his level shield.

Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; His form a nobler element shall claim; Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame.

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; All else has risen in yon silvery cloud.

Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art.

Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- In all the mansions of the house on high, Say not that Mercy has not one for him!

AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- The vision is over,--the rivulet free.

We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.

We will part before Summer has opened her wing, And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.

It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- It is but one word that we all know too well.

Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain Will turn for a moment and look at his chain.

Our parting is not as the friendship of years, That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found.

But now at the gate of the garden we stand, And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat?

Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; You may pass through the doorway in rank or in file, If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile.

For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell.

THE HUDSON

AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY

'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song.

"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; "Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid."

I wandered afar from the land of my birth, I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side.

But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here!

Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West! I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled!

December, 1854.

THE NEW EDEN

MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, AT STOCKBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 13,1854

SCARCE could the parting ocean close, Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow, When o'er the rugged desert rose The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough.

Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field The rippling grass, the nodding grain, Such growths as English meadows yield To scanty sun and frequent rain.

But when the fiery days were done, And Autumn brought his purple haze, Then, kindling in the slanted sun, The hillsides gleamed with golden maize.

The food was scant, the fruits were few A red-streak glistening here and there; Perchance in statelier precincts grew Some stern old Puritanic pear.

Austere in taste, and tough at core, Its unrelenting bulk was shed, To ripen in the Pilgrim's store When all the summer sweets were fled.

Such was his lot, to front the storm With iron heart and marble brow, Nor ripen till his earthly form Was cast from life's autumnal bough.

But ever on the bleakest rock We bid the brightest beacon glow, And still upon the thorniest stock The sweetest roses love to blow.