Chapter 22

Let us be true to our most subtle selves, We long to have our idols like the rest. Think! when the men of Israel had their God Encamped among them, talking with their chief, Leading them in the pillar of the cloud And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire, They still must have an image; still they longed For somewhat of substantial, solid form Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix Their wandering thoughts and gain a stronger hold For their uncertain faith, not yet assured If those same meteors of the day and night Were not mere exhalations of the soil. Are we less earthly than the chosen race? Are we more neighbors of the living God Than they who gathered manna every morn, Reaping where none had sown, and heard the voice Of him who met the Highest in the mount, And brought them tables, graven with His hand? Yet these must have their idol, brought their gold, That star-browed Apis might be god again; Yea, from their ears the women brake the rings That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown Of sunburnt cheeks,--what more could woman do To show her pious zeal? They went astray, But nature led them as it leads us all. We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf And scoff at Egypt's sacred scarabee, Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss, And flood with rapturous tears, and bear with us To be our dear companions in the dust; Such magic works an image in our souls.

Man is an embryo; see at twenty years His bones, the columns that uphold his frame Not yet cemented, shaft and capital, Mere fragments of the temple incomplete. At twoscore, threescore, is he then full grown? Nay, still a child, and as the little maids Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived, And change its raiment when the world cries shame!

We smile to see our little ones at play So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care Nursing the wisps of rags they call their babes;-- Does He not smile who sees us with the toys We call by sacred names, and idly feign To be what we have called them? He is still The Father of this helpless nursery-brood, Whose second childhood joins so close its first, That in the crowding, hurrying years between We scarce have trained our senses to their task Before the gathering mist has dimmed our eyes, And with our hollowed palm we help our ear, And trace with trembling hand our wrinkled names, And then begin to tell our stories o'er, And see--not hear--the whispering lips that say, "You know? Your father knew him.--This is he, Tottering and leaning on the hireling's arm,"-- And so, at length, disrobed of all that clad The simple life we share with weed and worm, Go to our cradles, naked as we came.

XII.

LOVE

WHAT if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved While yet on earth and was beloved in turn, And still remembered every look and tone Of that dear earthly sister who was left Among the unwise virgins at the gate,-- Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train,-- What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host Of chanting angels, in some transient lull Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour Some wilder pulse of nature led astray And left an outcast in a world of fire, Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain From worn-out souls that only ask to die,-- Would it not long to leave the bliss of heaven,-- Bearing a little water in its hand To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain With Him we call our Father? Or is all So changed in such as taste celestial joy They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe; The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed Her cradle slumbers; she who once had held A babe upon her bosom from its voice Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same?

No! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones We build to mimic life with pygmy hands,-- Not in those earliest days when men ran wild And gashed each other with their knives of stone, When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows And their flat hands were callous in the palm With walking in the fashion of their sires, Grope as they might to find a cruel god To work their will on such as human wrath Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, Could hate have shaped a demon more malign Than him the dead men mummied in their creed And taught their trembling children to adore!

Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names, Is not your memory still the precious mould That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer? Thus only I behold Him, like to them, Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath, If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin, Longing to clasp him in a father's arms, And seal his pardon with a pitying tear!

Four gospels tell their story to mankind, And none so full of soft, caressing words That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned In the meek service of his gracious art The tones which, like the medicinal balms That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls. Oh that the loving woman, she who sat So long a listener at her Master's feet, Had left us Mary's Gospel,--all she heard Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man! Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read The messages of love between the lines Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue Of him who deals in terror as his trade With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame They tell of angels whispering round the bed Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms, Of Him who blessed the children; of the land Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, Of the white robes the winged creatures wear, The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore! We too had human mothers, even as Thou, Whom we have learned to worship as remote From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. The milk of woman filled our branching veins, She lulled us with her tender nursery-song, And folded round us her untiring arms, While the first unremembered twilight yeas Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel Her pulses in our own,--too faintly feel; Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds!

Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell, Not from the conclave where the holy men Glare on each other, as with angry eyes They battle for God's glory and their own, Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn,-- Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear The Father's voice that speaks itself divine! Love must be still our Master; till we learn What he can teach us of a woman's heart, We know not His whose love embraces all.

EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES AUTOCRAT-PROFESSOR-POET

AT A BOOKSTORE

Anno Domini 1972

A CRAZY bookcase, placed before A low-price dealer's open door; Therein arrayed in broken rows A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays Whose low estate this line betrays (Set forth the lesser birds to lime) YOUR CHOICE AMONG THESE BOORS 1 DIME!

Ho! dealer; for its motto's sake This scarecrow from the shelf I take; Three starveling volumes bound in one, Its covers warping in the sun. Methinks it hath a musty smell, I like its flavor none too well, But Yorick's brain was far from dull, Though Hamlet pah!'d, and dropped his skull.

Why, here comes rain! The sky grows dark,-- Was that the roll of thunder? Hark! The shop affords a safe retreat, A chair extends its welcome seat, The tradesman has a civil look (I 've paid, impromptu, for my book), The clouds portend a sudden shower,-- I 'll read my purchase for an hour.

What have I rescued from the shelf? A Boswell, writing out himself! For though he changes dress and name, The man beneath is still the same, Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, One actor in a dozen parts, And whatsoe'er the mask may be, The voice assures us, This is he.

I say not this to cry him down; I find my Shakespeare in his clown, His rogues the selfsame parent own; Nay! Satan talks in Milton's tone! Where'er the ocean inlet strays, The salt sea wave its source betrays; Where'er the queen of summer blows, She tells the zephyr, "I'm the rose!"

And his is not the playwright's page; His table does not ape the stage; What matter if the figures seen Are only shadows on a screen, He finds in them his lurking thought, And on their lips the words he sought, Like one who sits before the keys And plays a tune himself to please.

And was he noted in his day? Read, flattered, honored? Who shall say? Poor wreck of time the wave has cast To find a peaceful shore at last, Once glorying in thy gilded name And freighted deep with hopes of fame, Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, The first for many a long, long year.

For be it more or less of art That veils the lowliest human heart Where passion throbs, where friendship glows, Where pity's tender tribute flows, Where love has lit its fragrant fire, And sorrow quenched its vain desire, For me the altar is divine, Its flame, its ashes,--all are mine!

And thou, my brother, as I look And see thee pictured in thy book, Thy years on every page confessed In shadows lengthening from the west, Thy glance that wanders, as it sought Some freshly opening flower of thought, Thy hopeful nature, light and free, I start to find myself in thee!

. . . . . . . . . . .

Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn In leather jerkin stained and torn, Whose talk has filled my idle hour And made me half forget the shower, I'll do at least as much for you, Your coat I'll patch, your gilt renew, Read you--perhaps--some other time. Not bad, my bargain! Price one dime!

SONGS OF MANY SEASONS

1862-1874

OPENING THE WINDOW

THUS I lift the sash, so long Shut against the flight of song; All too late for vain excuse,-- Lo, my captive rhymes are loose.

Rhymes that, flitting through my brain, Beat against my window-pane, Some with gayly colored wings, Some, alas! with venomed stings.

Shall they bask in sunny rays? Shall they feed on sugared praise? Shall they stick with tangled feet On the critic's poisoned sheet?

Are the outside winds too rough? Is the world not wide enough? Go, my winged verse, and try,-- Go, like Uncle Toby's fly!

PROGRAMME

READER--gentle--if so be Such still live, and live for me, Will it please you to be told What my tenscore pages hold?

Here are verses that in spite Of myself I needs must write, Like the wine that oozes first When the unsqueezed grapes have burst.

Here are angry lines, "too hard!" Says the soldier, battle-scarred. Could I smile his scars away I would blot the bitter lay,

Written with a knitted brow, Read with placid wonder now. Throbbed such passion in my heart? Did his wounds once really smart?

Here are varied strains that sing All the changes life can bring, Songs when joyous friends have met, Songs the mourner's tears have wet.

See the banquet's dead bouquet, Fair and fragrant in its day; Do they read the selfsame lines,-- He that fasts and he that dines?

Year by year, like milestones placed, Mark the record Friendship traced. Prisoned in the walls of time Life has notched itself in rhyme.

As its seasons slid along, Every year a notch of song, From the June of long ago, When the rose was full in blow,

Till the scarlet sage has come And the cold chrysanthemum. Read, but not to praise or blame; Are not all our hearts the same?

For the rest, they take their chance,-- Some may pay a passing glance; Others,-well, they served a turn,-- Wherefore written, would you learn?

Not for glory, not for pelf, Not, be sure, to please myself, Not for any meaner ends,-- Always "by request of friends."

Here's the cousin of a king,-- Would I do the civil thing? Here 's the first-born of a queen; Here 's a slant-eyed Mandarin.

Would I polish off Japan? Would I greet this famous man, Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah?-- Figaro gi and Figaro la!

Would I just this once comply?-- So they teased and teased till I (Be the truth at once confessed) Wavered--yielded--did my best.

Turn my pages,--never mind If you like not all you find; Think not all the grains are gold Sacramento's sand-banks hold.

Every kernel has its shell, Every chime its harshest bell, Every face its weariest look, Every shelf its emptiest book,

Every field its leanest sheaf, Every book its dullest leaf, Every leaf its weakest line,-- Shall it not be so with mine?

Best for worst shall make amends, Find us, keep us, leave us friends Till, perchance, we meet again. Benedicite.--Amen!

October 7, 1874.

IN THE QUIET DAYS

AN OLD-YEAR SONG

As through the forest, disarrayed By chill November, late I strayed, A lonely minstrel of the wood Was singing to the solitude I loved thy music, thus I said, When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now Thy carol on the leafless bough. Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer The sadness of the dying year.

When violets pranked the turf with blue And morning filled their cups with dew, Thy slender voice with rippling trill The budding April bowers would fill, Nor passed its joyous tones away When April rounded into May: Thy life shall hail no second dawn,-- Sing, little bird! the spring is gone.

And I remember--well-a-day!-- Thy full-blown summer roundelay, As when behind a broidered screen Some holy maiden sings unseen With answering notes the woodland rung, And every tree-top found a tongue. How deep the shade! the groves how fair! Sing, little bird! the woods are bare.

The summer's throbbing chant is done And mute the choral antiphon; The birds have left the shivering pines To flit among the trellised vines, Or fan the air with scented plumes Amid the love-sick orange-blooms, And thou art here alone,--alone,-- Sing, little bird! the rest have flown.

The snow has capped yon distant hill, At morn the running brook was still, From driven herds the clouds that rise Are like the smoke of sacrifice; Erelong the frozen sod shall mock The ploughshare, changed to stubborn rock, The brawling streams shall soon be dumb,-- Sing, little bird! the frosts have come.

Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep, The songless fowls are half asleep, The air grows chill, the setting sun May leave thee ere thy song is done, The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold, Thy secret die with thee, untold The lingering sunset still is bright,-- Sing, little bird! 't will soon be night.

1874.

DOROTHY Q.

A FAMILY PORTRAIT

I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more simply in prose than I have told it in verse, but I can add something to it. Dorothy was the daughter of Judge Edmund Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, the young patriot and orator who died just before the American Revolution, of which he was one of the most eloquent and effective promoters. The son of the latter, Josiah Quincy, the first mayor of Boston bearing that name, lived to a great age, one of the most useful and honored citizens of his time. The canvas of the painting was so much decayed that it had to be replaced by a new one, in doing which the rapier thrust was of course filled up.

GRANDMOTHER'S mother: her age, I guess, Thirteen summers, or something less; Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid.

On her hand a parrot green Sits unmoving and broods serene. Hold up the canvas full in view,-- Look! there's a rent the light shines through, Dark with a century's fringe of dust,-- That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust! Such is the tale the lady old, Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told.

Who the painter was none may tell,-- One whose best was not over well; Hard and dry, it must be confessed, Flat as a rose that has long been pressed; Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, Dainty colors of red and white, And in her slender shape are seen Hint and promise of stately mien.

Look not on her with eyes of scorn,-- Dorothy Q. was a lady born! Ay! since the galloping Normans came, England's annals have known her name; And still to the three-billed rebel town Dear is that ancient name's renown, For many a civic wreath they won, The youthful sire and the gray-haired son.

O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! Strange is the gift that I owe to you; Such a gift as never a king Save to daughter or son might bring,-- All my tenure of heart and hand, All my title to house and land; Mother and sister and child and wife And joy and sorrow and death and life!

What if a hundred years ago Those close-shut lips had answered No, When forth the tremulous question came That cost the maiden her Norman name, And under the folds that look so still The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill? Should I be I, or would it be One tenth another, to nine tenths me?

Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast Through all the battles of wave and blast, And never an echo of speech or song That lives in the babbling air so long! There were tones in the voice that whispered then You may hear to-day in a hundred men.

O lady and lover, how faint and far Your images hover,--and here we are, Solid and stirring in flesh and bone,-- Edward's and Dorothy's--all their own,-- A goodly record for Time to show Of a syllable spoken so long ago!-- Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive For the tender whisper that bade me live?

It shall be a blessing, my little maid! I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, And gild with a rhyme your household name; So you shall smile on us brave and bright As first you greeted the morning's light, And live untroubled by woes and fears Through a second youth of a hundred years.

1871.

THE ORGAN-BLOWER

DEVOUTEST of My Sunday friends, The patient Organ-blower bends; I see his figure sink and rise, (Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!) A moment lost, the next half seen, His head above the scanty screen, Still measuring out his deep salaams Through quavering hymns and panting psalms.

No priest that prays in gilded stole, To save a rich man's mortgaged soul; No sister, fresh from holy vows, So humbly stoops, so meekly bows; His large obeisance puts to shame The proudest genuflecting dame, Whose Easter bonnet low descends With all the grace devotion lends.

O brother with the supple spine, How much we owe those bows of thine Without thine arm to lend the breeze, How vain the finger on the keys! Though all unmatched the player's skill, Those thousand throats were dumb and still: Another's art may shape the tone, The breath that fills it is thine own.

Six days the silent Memnon waits Behind his temple's folded gates; But when the seventh day's sunshine falls Through rainbowed windows on the walls, He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills The quivering air with rapturous thrills; The roof resounds, the pillars shake, And all the slumbering echoes wake!

The Preacher from the Bible-text With weary words my soul has vexed (Some stranger, fumbling far astray To find the lesson for the day); He tells us truths too plainly true, And reads the service all askew,-- Why, why the--mischief--can't he look Beforehand in the service-book?

But thou, with decent mien and face, Art always ready in thy place; Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune, As steady as the strong monsoon; Thy only dread a leathery creak, Or small residual extra squeak, To send along the shadowy aisles A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles.

Not all the preaching, O my friend, Comes from the church's pulpit end! Not all that bend the knee and bow Yield service half so true as thou! One simple task performed aright, With slender skill, but all thy might, Where honest labor does its best, And leaves the player all the rest.

This many-diapasoned maze, Through which the breath of being strays, Whose music makes our earth divine, Has work for mortal hands like mine. My duty lies before me. Lo, The lever there! Take hold and blow And He whose hand is on the keys Will play the tune as He shall please.

1812.

AT THE PANTOMIME

THE house was crammed from roof to floor, Heads piled on heads at every door; Half dead with August's seething heat I crowded on and found my seat, My patience slightly out of joint, My temper short of boiling-point, Not quite at _Hate mankind as such_, Nor yet at _Love them overmuch_.

Amidst the throng the pageant drew Were gathered Hebrews not a few, Black-bearded, swarthy,--at their side Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed: If scarce a Christian hopes for grace Who crowds one in his narrow place, What will the savage victim do Whose ribs are kneaded by a Jew?

Next on my left a breathing form Wedged up against me, close and warm; The beak that crowned the bistred face Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race,-- That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown hue,-- Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew I started, shuddering, to the right, And squeezed--a second Israelite.

Then woke the evil brood of rage That slumber, tongueless, in their cage; I stabbed in turn with silent oaths The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes, The snaky usurer, him that crawls And cheats beneath the golden balls, Moses and Levi, all the horde, Spawn of the race that slew its Lord.

Up came their murderous deeds of old, The grisly story Chaucer told, And many an ugly tale beside Of children caught and crucified; I heard the ducat-sweating thieves Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, And, thrust beyond the tented green, The lepers cry, "Unclean! Unclean!"

The show went on, but, ill at ease, My sullen eye it could not please, In vain my conscience whispered, "Shame! Who but their Maker is to blame?" I thought of Judas and his bribe, And steeled my soul against their tribe My neighbors stirred; I looked again Full on the younger of the twain.

A fresh young cheek whose olive hue The mantling blood shows faintly through; Locks dark as midnight, that divide And shade the neck on either side; Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam Clear as a starlit mountain stream;-- So looked that other child of Shem, The Maiden's Boy of Bethlehem!

And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood That flows immingled from the Flood,-- Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes! The New World's foundling, in thy pride Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, And lo! the very semblance there The Lord of Glory deigned to wear!

I see that radiant image rise, The flowing hair, the pitying eyes, The faintly crimsoned cheek that shows The blush of Sharon's opening rose,-- Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat, Thy lips would press his garment's hem That curl in wrathful scorn for them!

A sudden mist, a watery screen, Dropped like a veil before the scene; The shadow floated from my soul, And to my lips a whisper stole,-- "Thy prophets caught the Spirit's flame, From thee the Son of Mary came, With thee the Father deigned to dwell,-- Peace be upon thee, Israel!"

18--. Rewritten 1874.

AFTER THE FIRE

WHILE far along the eastern sky I saw the flags of Havoc fly, As if his forces would assault The sovereign of the starry vault And hurl Him back the burning rain That seared the cities of the plain, I read as on a crimson page The words of Israel's sceptred sage:--

_For riches make them wings, and they Do as an eagle fly away_.