Part 4

If, furthermore, There be any pact ashore, I forget it! If, upon a busy day Beauty make delay, Once over, let it!

Only,--despite Thee, who wouldst unnerve me quite Like a craven,-- Best the current be not so, Heart and I must row Into our haven!

THE INDIAN PIPE.

(TO R. L. S.)

YOUR bays shall all men bring, And flowers the children strew you. Once, as I stood in a thick west wood, I took from a fissure a precious thing, The homage whereof be to you!

A thing pearl-pale, yet stung With fire, as the morning’s beam is; Hid underground thro’ a solar round, Hardy and fragile, antique and young, More exquisite than a dream is.

No rose had so bright birth; No gem of romance surpassed it, By a minstrel-knight, for his maid’s delight, Borne from the moon-burnt marge of the earth, Where Paynim breakers cast it.

Rude-named, memorial, quaint, The dews and the darkness mould it: Scarce twice in an age is our heritage This glory and mystery without taint. Dear Stevenson, do you hold it

A text of grace, ah! much Beyond what the praising throng say: Only your art is its peer at heart, Only your touch is a wonder such, My wild little loving song says!

BROOK FARM.

DOWN the long road bent and brown, Youth, that dearly loves a vision, Ventures to the gates Elysian, As a palmer from the town,

Coming not so late, so far, Rocks and birches! for your story, Nor to prate of vanished glory Where of old was quenched a star;

Where, of old, in lapse of toil, Time, that has for weeds a dower, Bade the supersensual flower Starve in our New England soil.

But to Youth, whose radiant eyes Shatter mists of grief and daunting, Lost glad voices still are chanting ’Neath those unremaining skies; Still the dreams of fellowship Beat their wings of aspiration; And a smile of soft elation Trembles from his haughty lip,

If another dare deride Hopes heroic snapped and parted, Disillusion so high-hearted, All success is mean beside!

‘MY TIMES ARE IN THY HANDS.’

‘MY times are in Thy hands!’ It rumbles from the sea; It jingles ever, inland far, From the reddening rowan-tree.

Let me not sit inert, Let me not be afraid! Teach me to dare and to resist Like the first mortal made,

To whom of fate’s dread strength No sickening rumors ran; Who with whatever grim event Grappled, as man with man.

Seal to my utmost age What now my youth hath known: ‘My times are in Thy hands,’ O most! When wholly in my own.

GARDEN CHIDINGS.

THE spring being at her blessed carpentry, This morning makes a stem, this noon a leaf, And jewels her sparse greenery with a bud; Fostress of happy growth is she. But thou, O too disdainful spirit, or too shy! Passive dost thou inhabit, like a mole, The porch elect of darkness; for thy trade Is underground, a barren industry, Shivering true ardor on the nether air, Shaping the thousandth tendril, and all year Webbing the silver nothings to and fro. What wonder if the gardener think thee dead, When every punctual neighbor-root now goes Adventurously skyward for a flower? Up, laggard! climb thine inch; thyself fulfil; Thou only hast no sign, no pageantry, Save these fine gropings: soon from thy small plot The seasonable sunshine steals away.

FRÉDÉRIC OZANAM.

UNTO the constant heart whom saints befriend Afar in peace, what were our gaudy praise? His course is ended, and his faith is kept. Honor in silence to that memory! sweet Equally in the forum of the schools, And in the sufferer’s hovel. His, threefold, The lowliness of Isai’s chosen son, And zeal that fired the warring Macchabee, About him like a wedding-garment, worn The day of his acceptance; and we know That for the sake of some such soul as this,-- So brave, so clean, compassionate and just, Alert in its most meek security,-- Love beareth yet with all that stains the world.

BANKRUPT.

PAST the cold gates, a wraith without a name, Sullen and withered, like a thing half-tame Still for its jungle moaning, came by night, Before the Judgment’s awful Angel came.

‘Answer, Immortal! at my high decree Glory or shame shall flood thee as the sea: What of the power, the skill, the graciousness, The star-strong soul the Lord hath lent to thee?’

But the lone spectre raised a mournful hand: ‘Call me not that! Release me from this land! What words are Heaven and Hell? They fall on me As on a sphere the fooled and slipping sand.

‘Discerning, thou the good mayst yet belie, By some last test, the sinner sanctify. My guilt is neutral-safe, like innocence: No boon nor bane of deathless days gain I,

‘Whose life is hollow shell and broken bowl, Of all which was its treasury, the whole Utterly, vilely squandered. O most Just! Put down thy scales: for I have spent my soul.’

A REASON FOR SILENCE.

YOU sang, you sang! you mountain brook Scarce by your tangly banks held in, As running from a rocky nook, You leaped the world, the sea to win, Sun-bright past many a foamy crook, And headlong as a javelin.

Now men do check and still your course To serve a village enterprise, And wheelward drive your sullen force, What wonder, slave! that in no wise Breaks from you, pooled ’mid reeds and gorse, The voice you had in Paradise?

TEMPTATION.

I COME where the wry road leads Thro’ the pines and the alder scents, Sated of books, with a start, Sharp on the gang to-day: Scarce see the Romany steeds, Scarce hear the flap of the tents, When hillo! my heart, my heart Is out of its leash, and away.

Gypsies, gypsies, the whole Tatterdemalion crew! Brown and sly and severe With curious trades in hand. A string snaps in my soul, The one high answer due If an exile chance to hear The songs of his fatherland.

... To be abroad with the rain, And at home with the forest hush, With the crag, and the flower-urn, And the wan sleek mist upcurled; To break the lens and the plane, To burn the pen and the brush, And, clean and alive, return Into the old wild world!...

How is it? O wind that bears The arrow from its mark, The sea-bird from the sea, The moth from his midnight lamp, Fate’s self, thou mocker of prayers! Whirl up from the mighty dark, And even so, even me Blow far from the gypsy camp!

FOR A CHILD.

Schumann’s ‘Erinnerung: Novbr. 4, 1847.’

IN memory of dear Mendelssohn, the loving song I made Fain would I sing for you, my own, but that I am afraid, Aye, truly, sore afraid:

For sweet as was its every tone, once freed to mortal ears, In memory of dear Mendelssohn, the ghostly wand of tears Would yet be strong to break my song, Thro’ all these after-years!

AGLAUS.

THE ash hath no perfidious mind; The open fields are just and kind; Tho’ loves betray, I hear this way The feathery step of the faithful wind.

Thorn-apple, bayberry and rose Around me, talismanic, close: The frosty flakes, the thunder-quakes, Are bulwarks twain of my year’s repose.

No struggle, no delight, no moan, But at my hearthstone I have known! All thoughts that pass, as in a glass The gods have bared to me for mine own.

Wisdom, the sought and unpossessed, Hath of her own will been my guest; Not smoking feud, but quietude My heart hath chosen, at her behest.

‘This is of men the happiest man Who hath his plot Arcadian,’ Apollo cried, my gates beside, ‘Nor ever wanders beyond its span.’

Now, like my sheep, I seek the fold; My hair is shaken in the cold; The night is nigh; but ere I die, Bear witness, brothers! that young and old,

My name I wear without regret: The Home-Keeper am I, and yet At every inn my feet have been, Above all travellers I am set.

Tho’ ocean currents by me purled, The sails of my desire were furled. What pilgrims crave, three acres gave; And I, Aglaus, have seen the world!

AN AUDITOR.

WHY chide me that mutely I listen, ah, jester? For either thou knowest Too much, or thou knowest not aught of this aching vexed planet down-whirling: Thou knowest?--Thy wit is but fortitude; would’st have me laugh in its presence? Thou knowest not?--Laugh I can never, for innocence also is sacred.

THE WATER-TEXT.

WATCHING my river marching overland, By mighty tides, transfigured and set free,-- My river, lapped in idle-hearted mirth, Made at a touch a glory to the earth, And leaving, wheresoever falls his hand, The balm and benediction of the sea,--

O soon, I know, the hour whereof we dreamed, The saving hour miraculous, arrives! When, ere to darkness winds our sordid course, Some glad, new, potent, consecrating force Shall speed us, so uplifted, so redeemed, Along the old worn channel of our lives.

CYCLAMEN.

ON me, thro’ joy’s eclipse, and inward dark, First fell thy beauty like a star new-lit; To thee my carol now! albeit no lark Hath for thy praise a throat too exquisite. O would that song might fit These harsh north slopes for thine inhabiting, Or shelter lend thy loveliest laggard wing, Thou undefiled estray of earth’s o’ervanished spring!

Here is the sunless clime, the fallen race; Down our green dingles is no peer of thee: Why art thou such, dear outcast, who hadst place With shrine, and bower, and olive-silvery Peaked islets in mid-sea? Thou seekest thine Achaian dews in vain, And osiered nooks jocose, at summer’s wane, With gossip spirit-fine of chill and widening rain.

Thou wert among Thessalia’s hoofy host, Their radiant shepherd stroked thee with a sigh; When falchioned Perseus spied the Æthiop coast, Unto his love’s sad feet thy cheek was nigh; And all thy blood beat high With woodland Rhœcus at the brink of bliss; Thy leaf the Naiad plucked by Thyamis, And she, the straying maid, the bride beguiled of Dis.

These, these are gone. The air is wan and cold, The choric gladness of the woods is fled: But thou, aye dove-like, rapt in memories old, Inclinest to the ground thy fragile head, In ardor and in dread. Searcher of yesternight! how wilt thou find In any dolven aisle or cavern blind, In any ocean-hall, the glory left behind?

June’s butterfly, poised o’er his budded sweet, Is scarce so quiet-winged, betimes, as thou. Fail twilight’s thrill, and noonday’s wavy heat To kiss the fever from thy downcast brow. Ah, cease that vigil now! No west nor east thine unhoused vision keeps, Nor yet in heaven’s pale purpureal deeps Of worlds unnavigate, the dream of childhood sleeps.

Flower of the joyous realm! thy rivers lave Their once proud valleys with forgetful moan; Thy kindred nod on many a trodden grave Among marmorean altars overthrown; For thou art left alone, Alone and dying, duped for love’s extreme: Hope not! thy Greece is over, as a dream; Stay not! but follow her down Time’s star-lucent stream.

Less art thou of the earth than of the air, A frail outshaken splendor of the morn; Dimmest desire, the softest throb of prayer, Impels thee out of bondage to thy bourn: Ere thou art half forlorn, Farewell, farewell! for from thy golden stem Thou slippest like a wild enchanter’s gem. Swift are the garden-ghosts, and swiftest thou of them!

Yea, speed thy freeborn life no doubts debar, O blossom-breath of that which was delight! In cooling whirl and undulation far The wind shall be thy bearer all the night Thro’ ether trembling-white: And I that clung with thee, as exiles may Whose too slight roots in every zephyr sway, Thy little soul salute along her homeward way!

A PASSING SONG.

WHERE thrums the bee and the honeysuckle hovers, Gather, golden lasses, to a roundelay; Dance, dance, yokefellows and lovers, Headlong down the garden, in the heart of May! Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away.

Dance! what if last year Winnie’s cheek were rounder? Dance! tho’ that foot, Hal, were nimbler yesterday. Spread the full sail! for soon the ship must founder; Flaunt the red rose! soon the canker-worm has sway: Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away.

See the dial shifting, hear the night-birds calling! Dance, you starry striplings! round the fountain-spray; With its mellow music out of sunshine falling, With its precious waters trickling into clay, Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away!

IN TIME.

HER little dumb child, for whom hope was none In any mind, she watched from sun to sun, Until three years her mighty faith had run;

Then, in an agony of love, laid by The bright head from her breast, and went to lie ’Neath cedarn shadows, and the wintry sky,

Not having, for her long desire and prayer, One sign from those shut lips, so rosy-fair It seemed all eloquence must nestle there.

That day, to her near grave, thro’ frost and sleet, He, following from his toys on truant feet, Cried: ‘Mother, mother!’ joyous and most sweet.

And as their souls ached in them at the word, The father lifted his new-wakened bird With one rapt tear, that now at last she heard!

THE WILD RIDE.

_I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses; All night, from their cells, the importunate tramping and neighing._

Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle, Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping legion, With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.

The road is thro’ dolor and dread, over crags and morasses; There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding!

_I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses, All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses; All night, from their cells, the importunate tramping and neighing._

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind; We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil. Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow.

THE LIGHT OF THE HOUSE.

BEYOND the cheat of Time, here where you died, you live; You pace the garden-walks secure and sensitive; You linger on the stair: Love’s lonely pulses leap! The harpsichord is shaken, the dogs look up from sleep.

Years after, and years after, you keep your heirdom still, Your winning youth about you, your joyous force and skill, Unvexed, unapprehended, with waking sense adored; And still the house is happy that hath so dear a lord.

To every quiet inmate, strong in the cheer you brought, Your name is as a spell midway of speech and thought; And unto whoso knocks, an awe-struck visitor, The sunshine that was you floods all the open door!

A LAST WORD ON SHELLEY.

EACH ninth hierarchal wave, a league of sound, To phantom shreds the hostile crags confound, To wreck on wreck forlorn. The crags remain.

Smile at the storm for our safe poet’s sake! Not ever this ordainèd world shall break That mounting, foolish, foam-bright heart again.

IMMUNITY.

LEAF of the deep-leaved holly-tree, Long spared the weather-god’s disdain, Have not thy brothers borne for thee June’s inavertible raging rain?

And they are beautiful and hale, Those sun-veined revellers; and thou Still crippled, still afraid and pale, Sole discord of the singing bough!

PAULA’S EPITAPH.

GO you by with gentle tread. This was Paula, who is dead: Eyes dark-lustrous to the look As a leaf-pavilioned brook, Voice upon the ear to cling Sweeter than the cithern-string; Whose shy spirit, unaware Loosed into refreshful air, With it took for talisman, Climbing past the starry van, Names to which the heavens do ope, Candor, Chastity, and Hope.

JOHN BROWN: A PARADOX.

COMPASSIONATE eyes had our brave John Brown, And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown; He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley, The fool who redeemed us once of our folly, And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown!

Too vehement, verily, was John Brown! For waiting is statesmanlike; his the renown Of the holy rash arm, the equipper and starter Of freedmen; aye, call him fanatic and martyr: He can carry both halos, our plain John Brown.

A scandalous stumbling-block was John Brown, And a jeer; but ah! soon from the terrified town, In his bleeding track made over hilltop and hollow, Wise armies and councils were eager to follow, And the children’s lips chanted our lost John Brown.

Star-led for us, stumbled and groped John Brown, Star-led, in the awful morasses to drown; And the trumpet that rang for a nation’s upheaval, From the thought that was just, thro’ the deed that was evil, Was blown with the breath of this dumb John Brown!

Bared heads and a pledge unto mad John Brown! Now the curse is allayed, now the dragon is down, Now we see, clear enough, looking back at the onset, Christianity’s flood-tide and Chivalry’s sunset In the old broken heart of our hanged John Brown!

SONNETS

APRIL DESIRE.

WHILE in these spacious fields is my sojourn, Needs must I bless the blossomy outbreak Of earth’s pent beauty, and for old love’s sake Trembling, the bees’ on-coming chant discern; Hail the rash hyacinth, the ambushed fern, High-bannered boughs that green defiance make, And watch from sheathing ice the brave Spring take Her broad, bright river-blade. Ah! then, in turn Long-hushèd forces stir in me; I feel All the most sharp unrest of the young year; Fain would my spirit, too, like idling steel Be snatched from its dull scabbard, for a strife With cold oppressions! straightway, if not here, In consummated freedom, ampler life.

TWOFOLD SERVICE.

CHAMPIONS of men with brawny fist and lung, You righteous! with eyes oped and utterance terse, Whose greed of energies would fain disperse Ere any mould be cast, or roundel sung, Your gentler brothers still at play among The smirch and jangle of the universe, Mere fool-blind trespassers for you to curse, The Sabbath-breakers, the unchristened young;-- Peace! These, too, know: these are as ye employed, Nor of laborious help and value void, Living; who, faithful to their fellows’ need, Fling life away for truth, art, fatherland, Like a gold largess from a princely hand, Without one trading thought of heavenly meed.

IN THE GYMNASIUM.

I LEAN against a pillar in the sun, The sandals loose on mine arrested feet, While from their paths orbicular the fleet Slim racers drop like stars. O loveliest one, Lender of sixfold wings the while I run, Whose tortoise-lyre saves yet for me its sweet Cyllenic suasions old, to thy dim seat Glory and grace! the votive rites are done. Thy sole rememberer honey hath, nor palm, Libation none, nor lamb to lead to thee, Ah, Maia’s son! once god, and once aye-living. Here stood thy shrine: here chants my heart in calm Sad as the centralmost weird wave’s at sea, Hermes! thy last June pæan and thanksgiving.

A SALUTATION.

HIGH-HEARTED Surrey! I do love your ways, Venturous, frank, romantic, vehement, All with inviolate honor sealed and blent, To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier-bays: I love your youth, your friendships, whims, and frays; Your strict, sweet verse, with its imperious bent, Heard as in dreams from some old harper’s tent, And stirring in the listener’s brain for days. Good father-poet! if to-night there be At Framlingham none save the north-wind’s sighs, No guard but moonlight’s crossed and trailing spears, Smile yet upon the pilgrim named like me, Close at your gates, whose fond and weary eyes Sought not one other down three hundred years!

AT A SYMPHONY.

OH, I would have these tongues oracular Dip into silence, tease no more, let be! They madden, like some choral of the free Gusty and sweet against a prison-bar. To earth the boast that her gold empires are, The menace of delicious death to me, Great Undesign, strong as by God’s decree, Piercing the heart with beauty from afar! Music too winning to the sense forlorn! Of what angelic lineage was she born, Bred in what rapture?--These her sires and friends: Censure, Denial, Gloom, and Hunger’s throe. Praised be the Spirit that thro’ thee, Schubert! so Wrests evil unto wholly heavenly ends.

SLEEP.

O GLORIOUS tide, O hospitable tide On whose moon-heaving breast my head hath lain, Lest I, all eased of wounds and washed of stain Thro’ holy hours, be yet unsatisfied, Loose me betimes! for in my soul abide Urgings of memory; and exile’s pain Weighs on me, as the spirit of one slain May throb for the old strife wherein he died.

Often and evermore, across the sea Of dark and dreams, to fatherlands of day O speed me! like that outworn king erewhile From kind Phæacia shoreward borne; for me, Thy loving healèd Greek, thou too shall lay Beneath the olive boughs of mine own isle.

THE ATONING YESTERDAY.

YE daffodilian days, whose fallen towers Shielded our paradisal prime from ill, Fair past, fair motherhood! let come what will, We, being yours, defy the anarch powers. For us the happy tidings fell, in showers Enjewelling the wind from every hill; We drained the sun against the winter’s chill; Our ways were barricadoed in with flowers:

And if from skyey minsters now unhoused, Earth’s massy workings at the forge we hear, The black roll of the congregated sea, And war’s live hoof: O yet, last year, last year We were the lark-lulled shepherdlings, that drowsed Grave-deep, at noon, in grass of Arcady!

‘RUSSIA UNDER THE CZARS.’

OF thraldom and the accursèd diadem In that vast snow-land, shout the passionate tale; Touch graybeards in the mart, bid braggarts quail, And rouse the student lone from his old phlegm To breathe the self-same sacred air with them, Spirits supreme, our brothers! whose avail Is sacrifice. Nay, make no woman’s wail: Rome is re-born! whom kings dare not contemn. On Neva’s shore-streets tho’ high blood be spent, There this lorn world’s renascent hopes are meeting: In camp is Mucius, at the bridge, Horatius; Regulus walks in gyves, magnificent; And thence men hear--O sound sublime and gracious! The unquelled heart of Cæsar’s Brutus beating.

FOUR SONNETS FROM ‘LA VITA NUOVA.’

I.

‘_Io mi sentii svegliar dentro allo core._’