Chapter 18

SHE gathered at her slender waist The beauteous robe she wore; Its folds a golden belt embraced, One rose-hued gem it bore.

The girdle shrank; its lessening round Still kept the shining gem, But now her flowing locks it bound, A lustrous diadem.

And narrower still the circlet grew; Behold! a glittering band, Its roseate diamond set anew, Her neck's white column spanned.

Suns rise and set; the straining clasp The shortened links resist, Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp The diamond, on her wrist.

At length, the round of changes past The thieving years could bring, The jewel, glittering to the last, Still sparkles in a ring.

So, link by link, our friendships part, So loosen, break, and fall, A narrowing zone; the loving heart Lives changeless through them all.

THE LYRE OF ANACREON

1885

THE minstrel of the classic lay Of love and wine who sings Still found the fingers run astray That touched the rebel strings.

Of Cadmus he would fain have sung, Of Atreus and his line; But all the jocund echoes rung With songs of love and wine.

Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught Some fresher fancy's gleam; My truant accents find, unsought, The old familiar theme.

Love, Love! but not the sportive child With shaft and twanging bow, Whose random arrows drove us wild Some threescore years ago;

Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, The urchin blind and bare, But Love, with spectacles and staff, And scanty, silvered hair.

Our heads with frosted locks are white, Our roofs are thatched with snow, But red, in chilling winter's spite, Our hearts and hearthstones glow.

Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, He warms his frozen hands.

Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, And waft this message o'er To all we miss, from all we meet On life's fast-crumbling shore:

Say that, to old affection true, We hug the narrowing chain That binds our hearts,--alas, how few The links that yet remain!

The fatal touch awaits them all That turns the rocks to dust; From year to year they break and fall,-- They break, but never rust.

Say if one note of happier strain This worn-out harp afford,-- One throb that trembles, not in vain,-- Their memory lent its chord.

Say that when Fancy closed her wings And Passion quenched his fire, Love, Love, still echoed from the strings As from Anacreon's lyre!

THE OLD TUNE

THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION

1886

THIS shred of song you bid me bring Is snatched from fancy's embers; Ah, when the lips forget to sing, The faithful heart remembers!

Too swift the wings of envious Time To wait for dallying phrases, Or woven strands of labored rhyme To thread their cunning mazes.

A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain Its magic breath discloses Our life's long vista through a lane Of threescore summers' roses!

One language years alone can teach Its roots are young affections That feel their way to simplest speech Through silent recollections.

That tongue is ours. How few the words We need to know a brother! As simple are the notes of birds, Yet well they know each other.

This freezing month of ice and snow That brings our lives together Lends to our year a living glow That warms its wintry weather.

So let us meet as eve draws nigh, And life matures and mellows, Till Nature whispers with a sigh, "Good-night, my dear old fellows!"

THE BROKEN CIRCLE

1887

I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain, The waste that careless Nature owns; Lone tenants of her bleak domain, Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.

Upheaved in many a billowy mound The sea-like, naked turf arose, Where wandering flocks went nibbling round The mingled graves of friends and foes.

The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, This windy desert roamed in turn; Unmoved these mighty blocks remain Whose story none that lives may learn.

Erect, half buried, slant or prone, These awful listeners, blind and dumb, Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, As wave on wave they go and come.

"Who are you, giants, whence and why?" I stand and ask in blank amaze; My soul accepts their mute reply "A mystery, as are you that gaze.

"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm From riven rocks their spoils to bring; A nameless Titan lent his arm To range us in our magic ring.

"But Time with still and stealthy stride, That climbs and treads and levels all, That bids the loosening keystone slide, And topples down the crumbling wall,--

"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, Leans on these wrecks that press the sod; They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, And strew the turf their priests have trod.

"No more our altar's wreath of smoke Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; The fires are dead, the ring is broke, Where stood the many stand the few."

My thoughts had wandered far away, Borne off on Memory's outspread wing, To where in deepening twilight lay The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.

Ah me! of all our goodly train How few will find our banquet hall! Yet why with coward lips complain That this must lean, and that must fall?

Cold is the Druid's altar-stone, Its vanished flame no more returns; But ours no chilling damp has known,-- Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.

So let our broken circle stand A wreck, a remnant, yet the same, While one last, loving, faithful hand Still lives to feed its altar-flame!

THE ANGEL-THIEF

1888

TIME is a thief who leaves his tools behind him; He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn; We track his footsteps, but we never find him Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn,

And all around are left the bars and borers, The splitting wedges and the prying keys, Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please.

Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast, Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us To break the cramping fetters of our past.

Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken, Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft, More precious are those implements forsaken, Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left.

Some lever that a casket's hinge has broken Pries off a bolt, and lo! our souls are free; Each year some Open Sesame is spoken, And every decade drops its master-key.

So as from year to year we count our treasure, Our loss seems less, and larger look our gains; Time's wrongs repaid in more than even measure,-- We lose our jewels, but we break our chains.

AFTER THE CURFEW

1889

THE Play is over. While the light Yet lingers in the darkening hall, I come to say a last Good-night Before the final _Exeunt all_.

We gathered once, a joyous throng: The jovial toasts went gayly round; With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song, We made the floors and walls resound.

We come with feeble steps and slow, A little band of four or five, Left from the wrecks of long ago, Still pleased to find ourselves alive.

Alive! How living, too, are they Whose memories it is ours to share! Spread the long table's full array,-- There sits a ghost in every chair!

One breathing form no more, alas! Amid our slender group we see; With him we still remained "The Class,"-- Without his presence what are we?

The hand we ever loved to clasp,-- That tireless hand which knew no rest,-- Loosed from affection's clinging grasp, Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast.

The beaming eye, the cheering voice, That lent to life a generous glow, Whose every meaning said "Rejoice," We see, we hear, no more below.

The air seems darkened by his loss, Earth's shadowed features look less fair, And heavier weighs the daily cross His willing shoulders helped us bear.

Why mourn that we, the favored few Whom grasping Time so long has spared Life's sweet illusions to pursue, The common lot of age have shared?

In every pulse of Friendship's heart There breeds unfelt a throb of pain,-- One hour must rend its links apart, Though years on years have forged the chain.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

So ends "The Boys,"--a lifelong play. We too must hear the Prompter's call To fairer scenes and brighter day Farewell! I let the curtain fall.

POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE

1857-1858

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,-- The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,-- Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

SUN AND SHADOW

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, To the billows of foam-crested blue, Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, The sun gleaming bright on her sail.

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- Of breakers that whiten and roar; How little he cares, if in shadow or sun They see him who gaze from the shore! He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, To the rock that is under his lee, As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves Where life and its ventures are laid, The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves May see us in sunshine or shade; Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark, We'll trim our broad sail as before, And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, Nor ask how we look from the shore!

MUSA

O MY lost beauty!--hast thou folded quite Thy wings of morning light Beyond those iron gates Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, And Age upon his mound of ashes waits To chill our fiery dreams, Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, Whose flowers are silvered hair! Have I not loved thee long, Though my young lips have often done thee wrong, And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song? Ah, wilt thou yet return, Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me!--I will flood thy silent shrine With my soul's sacred wine, And heap thy marble floors As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores, In leafy islands walled with madrepores And lapped in Orient seas, When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze.

Come to me!--thou shalt feed on honeyed words, Sweeter than song of birds;-- No wailing bulbul's throat, No melting dulcimer's melodious note When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, Thy ravished sense might soothe With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth.

Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, Sought in those bowers of green Where loop the clustered vines And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,-- Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, And Summer's fruited gems, And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,-- Or stretched by grass-grown graves, Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones Still slumbering where they lay While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing! Still let me dream and sing,-- Dream of that winding shore Where scarlet cardinals bloom-for me no more,-- The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, And clustering nenuphars Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!-- Come while the rose is red,-- While blue-eyed Summer smiles On the green ripples round yon sunken piles Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, And on the sultry air The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!

Oh for thy burning lips to fire my brain With thrills of wild, sweet pain!-- On life's autumnal blast, Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,-- Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- Behold thy new-decked shrine, And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"

A PARTING HEALTH

TO J. L. MOTLEY

YES, we knew we must lose him,--though friendship may claim To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom, Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timid, Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!

Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed! From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career!

1857.

WHAT WE ALL THINK

THAT age was older once than now, In spite of locks untimely shed, Or silvered on the youthful brow; That babes make love and children wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow, Which faded with those "good old days" When winters came with deeper snow, And autumns with a softer haze.

That--mother, sister, wife, or child-- The "best of women" each has known. Were school-boys ever half so wild? How young the grandpapas have grown!

That but for this our souls were free, And but for that our lives were blest; That in some season yet to be Our cares will leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,-- Some common ailment of the race,-- Though doctors think the matter plain,-- That ours is "a peculiar case."

That when like babes with fingers burned We count one bitter maxim more, Our lesson all the world has learned, And men are wiser than before.

That when we sob o'er fancied woes, The angels hovering overhead Count every pitying drop that flows, And love us for the tears we shed.

That when we stand with tearless eye And turn the beggar from our door, They still approve us when we sigh, "Ah, had I but one thousand more!"

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, Their tablets bold with what we think, Their echoes dumb to what we know;

That one unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above, Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE!

SPRING HAS COME

INTRA MUROS

THE sunbeams, lost for half a year, Slant through my pane their morning rays; For dry northwesters cold and clear, The east blows in its thin blue haze.

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, Then close against the sheltering wall The tulip's horn of dusky green, The peony's dark unfolding ball.

The golden-chaliced crocus burns; The long narcissus-blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns To light her blue-flamed chandelier.

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung By the wild winds of gusty March, With sallow leaflets lightly strung, Are swaying by the tufted larch.

The elms have robed their slender spray With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; Wide o'er the clasping arch of day Soars like a cloud their hoary chief.

See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, That flames in glory for an hour,-- Behold it withering,--then look up,-- How meek the forest monarch's flower!

When wake the violets, Winter dies; When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near: When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"

The windows blush with fresh bouquets, Cut with the May-dew on their lips; The radish all its bloom displays, Pink as Aurora's finger-tips.

Nor less the flood of light that showers On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- The walks are gay as bridal bowers With rows of many-petalled maids.

The scarlet shell-fish click and clash In the blue barrow where they slide; The horseman, proud of streak and splash, Creeps homeward from his morning ride.

Here comes the dealer's awkward string, With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- Rough colts, with careless country-swing, In lazy walk or slouching trot.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wild filly from the mountain-side, Doomed to the close and chafing thills, Lend me thy long, untiring stride To seek with thee thy western hills!

I hear the whispering voice of Spring, The thrush's trill, the robin's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but longs to fly.

Oh for one spot of living greed,-- One little spot where leaves can grow,-- To love unblamed, to walk unseen, To dream above, to sleep below!

PROLOGUE

A PROLOGUE? Well, of course the ladies know,-- I have my doubts. No matter,--here we go! What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. 'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. "The world's a stage,"--as Shakespeare said, one day; The stage a world--was what he meant to say. The outside world's a blunder, that is clear; The real world that Nature meant is here. Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa; Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, The cheats are taken in the traps they laid; One after one the troubles all are past Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, And black-browed ruffians always come to grief. When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, Cries, "Help, kyind Heaven!" and drops upon her knees On the green--baize,--beneath the (canvas) trees,-- See to her side avenging Valor fly:-- "Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!" When the poor hero flounders in despair, Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire, Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, Sobs on his neck, "My boy! MY BOY!! _MY BOY_!!!"

Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night, Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt Wrong the soft passion in the world without, Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, One thing is certain: Love will triumph here! Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,-- The world's great masters, when you 're out of school,-- Learn the brief moral of our evening's play Man has his will,--but woman has her way! While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,-- The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. All earthly powers confess your sovereign art But that one rebel,--woman's wilful heart. All foes you master, but a woman's wit Lets daylight through you ere you know you 're hit. So, just to picture what her art can do, Hear an old story, made as good as new.

Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, Alike was famous for his arm and blade. One day a prisoner Justice had to kill Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. His falchion lighted with a sudden gleam, As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go; The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. "Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act," The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) "Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied; "Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." He held his snuff-box,--"Now then, if you please!" The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, Off his head tumbled,--bowled along the floor,-- Bounced down the steps;--the prisoner said no more! Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye; If death lurk in it, oh how sweet to die! Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head; We die with love, and never dream we're dead!

LATTER-DAY WARNINGS

WHEN legislators keep the law, When banks dispense with bolts and looks, When berries--whortle, rasp, and straw-- Grow bigger downwards through the box,--

When he that selleth house or land Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,-- When haberdashers choose the stand Whose window hath the broadest light,--

When preachers tell us all they think, And party leaders all they mean,-- When what we pay for, that we drink, From real grape and coffee-bean,--

When lawyers take what they would give, And doctors give what they would take,-- When city fathers eat to live, Save when they fast for conscience' sake,--

When one that hath a horse on sale Shall bring his merit to the proof, Without a lie for every nail That holds the iron on the hoof,--

When in the usual place for rips Our gloves are stitched with special care, And guarded well the whalebone tips Where first umbrellas need repair,--

When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot The power of suction to resist, And claret-bottles harbor not Such dimples as would hold your fist,--

When publishers no longer steal, And pay for what they stole before,-- When the first locomotive's wheel Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore;--

Till then let Cumming blaze away, And Miller's saints blow up the globe; But when you see that blessed day, Then order your ascension robe.

ALBUM VERSES

WHEN Eve had led her lord away, And Cain had killed his brother, The stars and flowers, the poets say, Agreed with one another.

To cheat the cunning tempter's art, And teach the race its duty, By keeping on its wicked heart Their eyes of light and beauty.

A million sleepless lids, they say, Will be at least a warning; And so the flowers would watch by day, The stars from eve to morning.

On hill and prairie, field and lawn, Their dewy eyes upturning, The flowers still watch from reddening dawn Till western skies are burning.

Alas! each hour of daylight tells A tale of shame so crushing, That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, And some are always blushing.

But when the patient stars look down On all their light discovers, The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, The lips of lying lovers,