Chapter 2

No analysis of philosophy can make us acquainted with the tragedy of this life as the poet can; no exhortation of preacher can so effectively arouse in us the spirit of a Christian charity for the despairing wanderer as the poet.

Would you know the tragedy of a careless and supercilious coquetry which plays with the heart as the fisherman plays with the salmon? Read "Clara Vere de Vere." Would you know the dull heartache of a loveless married life, growing at times into an intolerable anguish which no marital fidelity can do much to medicate? Read "Auld Robin Gray." Who but a poet can interpret the pain of a parting between loving hearts, with its remorseful recollections of the wholly innocent love's joys that are past?

"Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met--or never parted, We had ne'er been broken hearted."

Who but a poet can depict the perils of an unconscious drifting apart, such as has destroyed many a friendship and wrecked many a married life, as Clough has depicted it in "Qua Cursum Ventus"? If you would know the life-long sorrow of the blind man at your side, would enter into his life and for a brief moment share his captivity, read Milton's interpretation of that sorrow in Samson's Lament. If you would find some message to cheer the blind man in his darkness and illumine his captivity, read the same poet's ode on his own blindness:

"God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait."

No prison statistics, no police reports, no reformer's documents, no public discussions of the question, What to do with the tramp, will ever so make the student of life participant of the innermost experience of the tramp, his experience of dull despair, his loss of his grip on life, as Béranger's "The Old Vagabond." No expert in nervous diseases, no psychological student of mental states, normal and abnormal, can give the reader so clear an understanding of that deep and seemingly causeless dejection, which because it seems to be causeless seems also to be well-nigh incurable, as Percy Bysshe Shelley has given in his "Stanzas written near Naples." No critical expounder of the Stoical philosophy can interpret the stoical temper which interposes a sullen but dauntless pride to attacking sorrow as William Ernest Henley has done:

"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

"In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed."

Nor can any preacher put in so vital a contrast to this despairing defiance with which pride challenges sorrow, the joyous victory which a trusting love wins over it by submitting to it, as John Greenleaf Whittier has done in "The Eternal Goodness":

"I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies.

"I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air: I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care."

No philosophical treatise can interpret bereavement as the great poets have interpreted it. The mystery of sorrow, the bewilderment it causes, the wonder whether there is any God or any good, the silence that is the only answer to our call for help, the tumult of emotion, the strange perplexity of mind, the dull despair, the inexplicable paralysis of feeling, intermingling in one wholly inconsistent and incongruous experience: where, in all the literature of Philosophy can we find such an exposition and echo and interpretation of this experience as in that great Hebrew epic--the Book of Job? And where in all the literature of Philosophy can we find such interpreters of the two great comforters of the soul, faith and hope, as one finds in the poets? They do not argue; they simply sing. And, as a note struck upon one of a chime of bells will set the neighboring bell vibrating, so the strong note of faith and hope sounded by the poet, sets a like note vibrating in the mourner's heart. The mystery is not solved, but the silence is broken. First we listen to the poet, then we listen to the same song sung in our own hearts,--the same, for it is God who has sung to him and who sings to us. And when the bereaved has found God, he has found light in his darkness, peace in his tempest, a ray in his night.

"As a child, Whose song-bird seeks the wood forevermore, Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth; Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, He sleep the faster that he wept before."

The visitor to the island of Catalina, off the coast of California, is invited to go out in a glass-bottomed boat upon the sea. If he accepts the invitation and looks about him with careless curiosity, he will enjoy the blue of the summer sky and ocean wave, and the architectural beauty of the island hills; but if he turns his gaze downward and looks through the glass bottom of the boat in which he is sailing, he will discover manifold phases of beauty in the life beneath the sea waves: in goldfish darting hither and thither, in umbrella-shaped jellyfish lazily swimming by, in starfish and anemones of infinite variety, in sea-urchins brilliant in color, and in an endless forest of water-weeds exquisitely delicate in their structure. Perhaps he will try to photograph them; but in vain: his camera will render him no report of the wealth of life which he has seen. So he who takes up such a volume of poetry as this will find ample repayment in the successive pictures which it presents to his imagination, and the transient emotions which it will excite in him. But besides this there is a secret life which the careless reader will fail to see, and which the critic cannot report, but which will be revealed to the thoughtful, patient, meditative student. In this power to reveal an otherwise unknown world, lies the true glory of poetry. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the poet has to say to him.

[Signature: Lyman Abbot]

* * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:

"AN INTERPRETER OF LIFE." By _Lyman Abbot_

POEMS OF SORROW AND CONSOLATION:

DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE PARTING AND ABSENCE ADVERSITY COMFORT AND CHEER DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT CONSOLATION

INDEX: AUTHORS AND TITLES

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW _Frontispiece_

_Photogravure from photograph by Hanfstaengl after portrait by Kramer_.

PENELOPE AWAITING ULYSSES

_The patient grief and endurance of Absence: while the tapestry woven by day stands on the frame to be unravelled by night, as the loyal wife puts off her suitors. Painting by Rudolph von Deutsch_.

ABSENCE

"What shall I do with all the days and hours That must be counted ere I see thy face?"

_From a photograph by the Berlin Photographic Co., after a painting by R. Pötzelberger_.

WAIL OF PROMETHEUS BOUND

"Behold me, a god, what I endure from gods! Behold, with throe on throe, How, wasted by this woe, I wrestle down the myriad years of Time!"

_From photograph after a painting by G. Graeff_.

PIERRE-JEAN DE BÉRANGER

_From lithograph after a crayon-drawing by H. Alophe_.

THOMAS HOOD

_After an engraving from contemporary portrait_.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

_After a photograph from life by Talfourd, London_.

THE COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

_After an original drawing by Harry Fenn_.

LOVE AND DEATH

"Death comes in, Though Love, with outstretched arms and wings outspread, Would bar the way."

_From photogravure after the painting by George Fredeick Watts_.

WALT WHITMAN

_After a life-photograph by Rockwood, New York_.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

_From an engraving after the drawing by George Richmond_.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

_After a life-photograph by Elliott and Fry, London_.

* * * * *

POEMS OF SORROW AND CONSOLATION.

* * * * *

I. DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

FROM "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM," ACT I. SC. 1.

For aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth: But, either it was different in blood, Or else misgraffèd in respect of years, Or else it stood upon the choice of friends; Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say,--Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

SHAKESPEARE.

LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown; You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired: The daughter of a hundred Earls, You are not one to be desired.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name; Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that dotes on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is, I could not stoop to such a mind. You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching lines have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. O your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'T is only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: You pine among your halls and towers: The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate. Nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yeoman go.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

LINDA TO HAFED.

FROM "THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS."

"How sweetly," said the trembling maid, Of her own gentle voice afraid, So long had they in silence stood, Looking upon that moonlight flood,-- "How sweetly does the moonbeam smile To-night upon yon leafy isle! Oft in my fancy's wanderings, I've wished that little isle had wings, And we, within its fairy bowers, Were wafted off to seas unknown, Where not a pulse should beat but ours, And we might live, love, die alone! Far from the cruel and the cold,-- Where the bright eyes of angels only Should come around us, to behold A paradise so pure and lonely! Would this be world enough for thee?"-- Playful she turned, that he might see The passing smile her cheek put on; But when she marked how mournfully His eyes met hers, that smile was gone; And, bursting into heartfelt tears, "Yes, yes," she cried, "my hourly fears, My dreams, have boded all too right,-- We part--forever part--to-night! I knew, I knew it _could_ not last,-- 'T was bright, 't was heavenly, but 't is past! O, ever thus, from childhood's hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower But 't was the first to fade away. I never nursed a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well, And love me, it was sure to die! Now, too, the joy most like divine Of all I ever dreamt or knew, To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,-- O misery! must I lose _that_ too?"

THOMAS MOORE.

LOVE NOT.

Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay! Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers,-- Things that are made to fade and fall away Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours. Love not!

Love not! the thing ye love may change; The rosy lip may cease to smile on you, The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange, The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true. Love not!

Love not! the thing you love may die,-- May perish from the gay and gladsome earth; The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky, Beam o'er its grave, as once upon its birth. Love not!

Love not! O warning vainly said In present hours as in years gone by! Love flings a halo round the dear one's head, Faultless, immortal, till they change or die. Love not!

CAROLINE ELIZABETH SHERIDAN. (HON. MRS. NORTON.)

THE PRINCESS.

The Princess sat lone in her maiden bower, The lad blew his horn at the foot of the tower. "Why playest thou alway? Be silent, I pray, It fetters my thoughts that would flee far away. As the sun goes down."

In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn, The lad had ceased to play on his horn. "Oh, why art thou silent? I beg thee to play! It gives wings to my thought that would flee far away, As the sun goes down."

In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn, Once more with delight played the lad on his horn. She wept as the shadows grew long, and she sighed: "Oh, tell me, my God, what my heart doth betide, Now the sun has gone down."

From the Norwegian of BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON. Translation of NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.

UNREQUITED LOVE.

FROM "TWELFTH NIGHT," ACT I. SC. 4.

VIOLA.--Ay, but I know,--

DUKE. What dost thou know?

VIOLA.--Too well what love women to men may owe: In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship.

DUKE.--And what's her history?

VIOLA.--A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in thought; And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed? We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love.

SHAKESPEARE.

FAIR INES.

O saw ye not fair Ines? she's gone into the west, To dazzle when the sun is down, and rob the world of rest; She took our daylight with her, the smiles that we love best, With morning blushes on her cheek, and pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines, before the fall of night, For fear the moon should shine alone, and stars unrivalled bright; And blessèd will the lover be that walks beneath their light, And breathes the love against thy cheek I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines, that gallant cavalier Who rode so gayly by thy side and whispered thee so near! Were there no bonny dames at home, or no true lovers here, That he should cross the seas to win the dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines, descend along the shore, With bands of noble gentlemen, and banners waved before; And gentle youth and maidens gay, and snowy plumes they wore;-- It would have been a beauteous dream--if it had been no more!

Alas! alas! fair Ines! she went away with song, With music waiting on her steps, and shoutings of the throng; But some were sad, and felt no mirth, but only Music's wrong, In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell to her you've loved so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines! that vessel never bore So fair a lady on its deck, nor danced so light before-- Alas for pleasure on the sea, and sorrow on the shore! The smile that blest one lover's heart has broken many more!

THOMAS HOOD.

THE BANKS O' DOON.

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary, fu' o' care?

Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons through the flowering thorn; Thou minds me o' departed joys, Departed--never to return.

Thou'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings beside thy mate; For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wistna o' my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And, fondly, sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pou'd a rose, Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree; And my fause luver stole my rose, But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

ROBERT BURNS.

SONNET.

FROM "ASTROPHEL AND STELLA."

With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies, How silently, and with how wan a face! What may it be, that even in heavenly place That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

AGATHA.

She wanders in the April woods, That glisten with the fallen shower; She leans her face against the buds, She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower. She feels the ferment of the hour: She broodeth when the ringdove broods; The sun and flying clouds have power Upon her cheek and changing moods. She cannot think she is alone, As over her senses warmly steal Floods of unrest she fears to own And almost dreads to feel.

Among the summer woodlands wide Anew she roams, no more alone; The joy she feared is at her side, Spring's blushing secret now is known. The primrose and its mates have flown, The thrush's ringing note hath died; But glancing eye and glowing tone Fall on her from her god, her guide. She knows not, asks not, what the goal, She only feels she moves towards bliss, And yields her pure unquestioning soul To touch and fondling kiss.

And still she haunts those woodland ways, Though all fond fancy finds there now To mind of spring or summer days, Are sodden trunk and songless bough. The past sits widowed on her brow, Homeward she wends with wintry gaze, To walls that house a hollow vow, To hearth where love hath ceased to blaze; Watches the clammy twilight wane, With grief too fixed for woe or tear; And, with her forehead 'gainst the pane, Envies the dying year.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

THE SUN-DIAL.

'T is an old dial, dark with many a stain; In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom, Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain, And white in winter like a marble tomb.

And round about its gray, time-eaten brow Lean letters speak,--a worn and shattered row: =I am a Shade; a Shadowe too art thou: I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?=

Here would the ring-doves linger, head to head; And here the snail a silver course would run, Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun.

The tardy shade moved forward to the noon; Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept, That swung a flower, and, smiling hummed a tune,-- Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt.

O'er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed; About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone; And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed, Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone.

She leaned upon the slab a little while, Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone, Scribbled a something with a frolic smile, Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone.

The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail; There came a second lady to the place, Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale,-- An inner beauty shining from her face.

She, as if listless with a lonely love, Straying among the alleys with a book,-- Herrick or Herbert,--watched the circling dove, And spied the tiny letter in the nook.

Then, like to one who confirmation found Of some dread secret half-accounted true,-- Who knew what hearts and hands the letter bound, And argued loving commerce 'twixt the two,--

She bent her fair young forehead on the stone; The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head; And 'twixt her taper fingers pearled and shone The single tear that tear-worn eyes will shed.

The shade slipped onward to the falling gloom; Then came a soldier gallant in her stead, Swinging a beaver with a swaling plume, A ribboned love-lock rippling from his head.

Blue-eyed, frank-faced, with clear and open brow, Scar-seamed a little, as the women love; So kindly fronted that you marvelled how The frequent sword-hilt had so frayed his glove;

Who switched at Psyche plunging in the sun; Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge; And standing somewhat widely, like to one More used to "Boot and Saddle" than to cringe

As courtiers do, but gentleman withal, Took out the note;--held it as one who feared The fragile thing he held would slip and fall; Read and re-read, pulling his tawny beard;

Kissed it, I think, and hid it in his breast; Laughed softly in a flattered, happy way, Arranged the broidered baldrick on his crest, And sauntered past, singing a roundelay.

* * * * *

The shade crept forward through the dying glow; There came no more nor dame nor cavalier; But for a little time the brass will show A small gray spot,--the record of a tear.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

LOCKSLEY HALL.

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn,-- Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.

'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland, flying over Locksley Hall:

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed;

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,-- Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.

In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;