Part 3

YES, dear Enchantress,--wandering far and long, In realms unperfumed by the breath of song, Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;-- Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, I tread once more thy consecrated soil; Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne!

My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! I know my audience. All the gay and young Love the light antics of a playful tongue; And these, remembering some expansive line My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, Are all impatience till the opening pun Proclaims the witty shamfight is begun. Two fifths at least, if not the total half, Have come infuriate for an earthquake laugh; I know full well what alderman has tied His red bandanna tight about his side; I see the mother, who, aware that boys Perform their laughter with superfluous noise, Beside her kerchief brought an extra one To stop the explosions of her bursting son; I know a tailor, once a friend of mine, Expects great doings in the button line,-- For mirth's concussions rip the outward case, And plant the stitches in a tenderer place. I know my audience,--these shall have their due; A smile awaits them ere my song is through!

I know myself. Not servile for applause, My Muse permits no deprecating clause; Modest or vain, she will not be denied One bold confession due to honest pride; And well she knows the drooping veil of song Shall save her boldness from the caviller's wrong. Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts To tell the secrets of our aching hearts For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound, She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains, She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding chains; Faint though the music of her fetters be, It lends one charm,--her lips are ever free!

Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon, To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; Behold the star upon my lifted shield Though the just critic pass my humble name, And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame, While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought, Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here? No! while I wander through the land of dreams, To strive with great and play with trifling themes, Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. You have your judgment; will you trust to mine?

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Between two breaths what crowded mysteries lie,-- The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn sigh! Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, As living shadows for a moment seen In airy pageant on the eternal screen, Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame, Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came.

But whence and why, our trembling souls inquire, Caught these dim visions their awakening fire? Oh, who forgets when first the piercing thought Through childhood's musings found its way unsought? I AM;--I LIVE. The mystery and the fear When the dread question, WHAT HAS BROUGHT ME HERE? Burst through life's twilight, as before the sun Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun!

Are angel faces, silent and serene, Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal strife, Are but the preludes to a larger life?

Or does life's summer see the end of all, These leaves of being mouldering as they fall, As the old poet vaguely used to deem, As WESLEY questioned in his youthful dream? Oh, could such mockery reach our souls indeed, Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's creed; Better than this a Heaven of man's device,-- The Indian's sports, the Moslem's paradise!

Or is our being's only end and aim To add new glories to our Maker's name, As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? Does earth send upward to the Eternal's ear The mingled discords of her jarring sphere To swell his anthem, while creation rings With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? Is it for this the immortal Artist means These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines?

Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, Who loves himself, and cares for naught beside; Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, A thousand laws, and not a single right,-- A heart to feel, and quivering nerves to thrill, The sense of wrong, the death-defying will; Who girt thy senses with this goodly frame, Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame, Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought, Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, But all for him, unchanging and supreme, The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme.

Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll, Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul; The God of love, who gave the breath that warms All living dust in all its varied forms, Asks not the tribute of a world like this To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. Though winged with life through all its radiant shores, Creation flowed with unexhausted stores Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; For this he called thee from the quickening void! Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine, A mightier purpose swelled his vast design Thought,--conscience,--will,--to make them all thine own, He rent a pillar from the eternal throne!

Made in his image, thou must nobly dare The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. With eye uplifted, it is thine to view, From thine own centre, Heaven's o'erarching blue; So round thy heart a beaming circle lies No fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; From all its orbs one cheering voice is heard, Full to thine ear it bears the Father's word, Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod "Seek thine own welfare, true to man and God!" Think not too meanly of thy low estate; Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! Remember whose the sacred lips that tell, Angels approve thee when thy choice is well; Remember, One, a judge of righteous men, Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten! Use well the freedom which thy Master gave, (Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a slave?) And He who made thee to be just and true Will bless thee, love thee,--ay, respect thee too!

Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, To breast its waves, but not without a guide; Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, As the true current it will falsely feel, Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. Go to yon tower, where busy science plies Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies That little vernier on whose slender lines The midnight taper trembles as it shines, A silent index, tracks the planets' march In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch; Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, And marks the spot where Uranus returns. So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, The living index which thy Maker traced Repeats the line each starry Virtue draws Through the wide circuit of creation's laws; Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray Where the dark shadows of temptation stray, But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night.

"What is thy creed?" a hundred lips inquire; "Thou seekest God beneath what Christian spire?" Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; When man's first incense rose above the plain, Of earth's two altars one was built by Cain! Uncursed by doubt, our earliest creed we take; We love the precepts for the teacher's sake; The simple lessons which the nursery taught Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, And the full blossom owes its fairest hue To those sweet tear-drops of affection's dew. Too oft the light that led our earlier hours Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers; The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt; Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without Oh then, if Reason waver at thy side, Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide; Go to thy birthplace, and, if faith was there, Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer!

Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm, And age, like distance, lends a double charm; In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, What holy awe invests the saintly tomb! There pride will bow, and anxious care expand, And creeping avarice come with open hand; The gay can weep, the impious can adore, From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains Through the faint halos of the irised panes. Yet there are graves, whose rudely-shapen sod Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, The eternal record shall at length proclaim Pure as the holiest in the long array Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay!

Come, seek the air; some pictures we may gain Whose passing shadows shall not be in vain; Not from the scenes that crowd the stranger's soil, Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, But when the Sabbath brings its kind release, And Care lies slumbering on the lap of Peace.

The air is hushed, the street is holy ground; Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound As one by one awakes each silent tongue, It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. The Chapel, last of sublunary things That stirs our echoes with the name of Kings, Whose bell, just glistening from the font and forge, Rolled its proud requiem for the second George, Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, Flings to the wind its deep, sonorous clang; The simpler pile, that, mindful of the hour When Howe's artillery shook its half-built tower, Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, The iron breastpin which the "Rebels" threw, Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering thrill Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire; The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; While, sad with memories of the olden time, Throbs from his tower the Northern Minstrel's chime,-- Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient song, But tears still follow as they breathe along.

Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to range Where man and nature, faith and customs change, Borne in thy memory, each familiar tone Mourns on the winds that sigh in every zone. When Ceylon sweeps thee with her perfumed breeze Through the warm billows of the Indian seas; When--ship and shadow blended both in one-- Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, From sparkling midnight to refulgent noon Thy canvas swelling with the still monsoon; When through thy shrouds the wild tornado sings, And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered wings,-- Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, His heart lies warm among his triple hills!

Turned from her path by this deceitful gleam, My wayward fancy half forgets her theme. See through the streets that slumbered in repose The living current of devotion flows, Its varied forms in one harmonious band Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand; Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl; And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to appear, Lift the deep borders of the proud cashmere. See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and pale, Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's veil; Alone she wanders where with HIM she trod, No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. While other doublets deviate here and there, What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair? Compactest couple! pressing side to side,-- Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride! By the white neckcloth, with its straitened tie, The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, Severe and smileless, he that runs may read The stern disciple of Geneva's creed Decent and slow, behold his solemn march; Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. A livelier bearing of the outward man, The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, Now smartly raised or half profanely twirled,-- A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,-- Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes behold A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. Down the chill street that curves in gloomiest shade What marks betray yon solitary maid? The cheek's red rose that speaks of balmier air, The Celtic hue that shades her braided hair, The gilded missal in her kerchief tied,-- Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side! Sister in toil, though blanched by colder skies, That left their azure in her downcast eyes, See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of the wild, Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines. Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold. Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands. Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!

This weekly picture faithful Memory draws, Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause; Faint is the glow such barren hopes can lend, And frail the line that asks no loftier end. Trust me, kind listener, I will yet beguile Thy saddened features of the promised smile. This magic mantle thou must well divide, It has its sable and its ermine side; Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, Take thou in silence what I give in tears.

Dear listening soul, this transitory scene Of murmuring stillness, busily serene,-- This solemn pause, the breathing-space of man, The halt of toil's exhausted caravan,-- Comes sweet with music to thy wearied ear; Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere!

Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes that guide The lowliest brother straying from thy side If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own; If wrong, the verdict is for God alone.

What though the champions of thy faith esteem The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life?

Let my free soul, expanding as it can, Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan; But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride? In that stern faith my angel Mary died; Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made grave?

True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child; Must thou be raking in the crumbled past For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast? See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile The whitened skull of old Servetus smile! Round her young heart thy "Romish Upas" threw Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she grew; Thy sneering voice may call them "Popish tricks," Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, But De Profundis blessed her father's grave, That "idol" cross her dying mother gave! What if some angel looks with equal eyes On her and thee, the simple and the wise, Writes each dark fault against thy brighter creed, And drops a tear with every foolish bead! Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reeking page; Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age; Strive with the wanderer from the better path, Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, Have thine own faith,--but hope and pray for all!

Faith; Conscience; Love. A meaner task remains, And humbler thoughts must creep in lowlier strains. Shalt thou be honest? Ask the worldly schools, And all will tell thee knaves are busier fools; Prudent? Industrious? Let not modern pens Instruct "Poor Richard's" fellow-citizens.

Be firm! One constant element in luck Is genuine solid old Teutonic pluck. See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's thrill, Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise still.

Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip, But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields!

Yet in opinions look not always back,-- Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; Leave what you've done for what you have to do; Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.

Don't catch the fidgets; you have found your place Just in the focus of a nervous race, Fretful to change and rabid to discuss, Full of excitements, always in a fuss. Think of the patriarchs; then compare as men These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue and pen! Run, if you like, but try to keep your breath; Work like a man, but don't be worked to death; And with new notions,--let me change the rule,-- Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool.

Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks The aid of clubs, the countenance of cliques; And with this object settle first of all Your weight of metal and your size of ball. Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap, Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep; The "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs" Are little people fed on great men's crumbs. Yet keep no followers of that hateful brood That basely mingles with its wholesome food The tumid reptile, which, the poet said, Doth wear a precious jewel in his head.

If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride, Have young companions ever at thy side; But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success," Go with thine elders, though they please thee less. Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves, And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!" Felon of minutes, never taught to feel The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal, Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, But spare the right,--it holds my golden time!

Does praise delight thee? Choose some _ultra_ side,-- A sure old recipe, and often tried; Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; But know the forfeit which thy choice abides, For on two wheels the poor reformer rides,-- One black with epithets the _anti_ throws, One white with flattery painted by the pros.

Though books on MANNERS are not out of print, An honest tongue may drop a harmless hint. Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet, To spin your wordy fabric in the street; While you are emptying your colloquial pack, The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back. Nor cloud his features with the unwelcome tale Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale; Health is a subject for his child, his wife, And the rude office that insures his life. Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's soul, Not on his garments, to detect a hole; "How to observe" is what thy pages show, Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau! Oh, what a precious book the one would be That taught observers what they 're NOT to see!

I tell in verse--'t were better done in prose-- One curious trick that everybody knows; Once form this habit, and it's very strange How long it sticks, how hard it is to change. Two friendly people, both disposed to smile, Who meet, like others, every little while, Instead of passing with a pleasant bow, And "How d' ye do?" or "How 's your uncle now?"

Impelled by feelings in their nature kind, But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck, Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed; So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or snow, Both bored to death, and both afraid to go! Your hat once lifted, do not hang your fire, Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire; When your old castor on your crown you clap, Go off; you've mounted your percussion cap.

Some words on LANGUAGE may be well applied, And take them kindly, though they touch your pride. Words lead to things; a scale is more precise,-- Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips The native freedom of the Saxon lips; See the brown peasant of the plastic South, How all his passions play about his mouth! With us, the feature that transmits the soul, A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk; Not all the pumice of the polished town Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race By this one mark,--he's awkward in the face;-- Nature's rude impress, long before he knew The sunny street that holds the sifted few. It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue; But school and college often try in vain To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain One stubborn word will prove this axiom true,-- No quondam rustic can enunciate view.

A few brief stanzas may be well employed To speak of errors we can all avoid. Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope The careless lips that speak of so'ap for soap; Her edict exiles from her fair abode The clownish voice that utters ro'ad for road Less stern to him who calls his coat a co'at, And steers his boat, believing it a bo'at, She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, Who said at Cambridge mo'st instead of most, But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot To hear a Teacher call a root a ro'ot.

Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all; Carve every word before you let it fall; Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, Try over-hard to roll the British R; Do put your accents in the proper spot; Don't,--let me beg you,--don't say "How?" for "What?" And when you stick on conversation's burs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_.

From little matters let us pass to less, And lightly touch the mysteries of DRESS; The outward forms the inner man reveal,-- We guess the pulp before we cut the peel.

I leave the broadcloth,--coats and all the rest,-- The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys "vest," The things named "pants" in certain documents, A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents;" One single precept might the whole condense Be sure your tailor is a man of sense; But add a little care, a decent pride, And always err upon the sober side.